I originally saw this video on facebook, I watched it and thought 'how true this is for me!' One of my biggest faults is procrastinating! I decided to share it as I'm sure lots of my creative friends can identify with the message :D (Sorry, it doesn't fit on my blog page very well).
I've been busy lately with an illustration job but in my spare time I have been working on a painting called 'A Walk in the Rain' for a gift. I thought I would post pictures of the work in progress. Thank you for looking :)
I know this isn't art related but my little man has been ill over Christmas and I wanted to make a video of him. He has perked up a bit now, so fingers crossed he will be okay :) He has lymphoma cancer. Sorry about the shaky camera. There's also guest appearances from his sisters, Daisy-Belle and Millie-Moo, and his Dad ;) Just click the annoying advert off when it comes on a few seconds into the video.
It's New Year's Eve and I know it's a bit late for Christmas cards but I wanted to post a Christmas design based on a sketch I did last year, called 'The Polar Bear Express' :)
A Cup Of Magic: The Pendle Yule Extravangsa: Natacha and I both had a wonderful time in Todmorden at the Pendle Faery Yule Extravagansa . We made new friends and met up with old frien...
The theme for Illustration Friday this week is water. Coincidentally, I recently finished a painting called 'The Mermaid Bride' and, of course, mermaids live in the water, so I thought it was a suitable illustration to submit. Here it is :) I hope you like her.
Tis that time of month when sketchfest arrives and I sharpen my pencils and dig out my sketchbook. I sadly missed sketchfest last month and this month I had my family visiting so I only managed three sketches (four, if you include the one I scrapped, which will not make it to this page, hehe). I'm going to develop two of them into paintings, the maypole and the circus. Here they are:
Here is another painting that I recently did from one of my Sketchfest sketches. Here's the sketch I worked from and the finished painting :) I'm thinking of using her in one of my 'fairy cake' designs too.
This is a painting from a drawing I did for sketchfest... 'The Faery Seamstress'. She tells me she is making a cloak from leafs to keep her warm on chilly summer nights :)
Here's the cover of an altered journal that I made using a print of my painting 'The Auburn Faery' and a thick, spiral bound journal with plain pages, beads, buttons, ribbon and lace. 'A Cup of Magic' will be making lots more altered journals, each one a different design, to sell on our stall (along with paintings and prints of our art) at future fayres :)
If you don't already know, my lovely friend, Natacha Chohra, and I have got together to form 'A Cup of Magic'. We'll be travelling to craft fayres around the country selling our wares and meeting lots of lovely people. We're especially looking forward to selling at the 'Yule Extravaganza' on 1st and 2nd of December in Todmordon, as we can sell our Christmas inspired gifts as well as our usual art, and there's a Narnia themed ball in the evening. Question is, do I go dressed as the wardrobe or the lampost?
Some of our cards and decoupage heart ornaments:
Hello :) Sketchfest was back this weekend after a hiatus of a few months and it was with much excitement I sharpened my pencils and dug out my sketchbooks. I was a bit rusty to start so three of my sketches ended up in the bin, but here are the five that survived :D They are for sale on the Sketchfest website here or contact me if you are interested in any. Thanks for looking.
I recently entered a competition to win a picture book by Valerie Greeley called 'White is the Moon" and won! Hooray, as I rarely win anything and I'm so glad I won this. It's a wonderful book for young children using rhyming text and beautiful illustrations of nature and animals that takes the reader on a circular journey from night to day and back to night again, from the forest, to the countryside, to the sky and to the sea and introduces children to colour and time. I read it to my five-year old niece and she loved it! I'm a selfish aunty though as I'm not letting her keep the book, hehe... the illustrations are too gorgeous to part with it. I will buy her another for her birthday.
This is an old illustration as I haven't had time to join in with 'Illustration Friday' recently due to a big illustration job, but when I saw this weeks topic, 'Hitched', I immediately thought of my fairy cake wedding cake design. Here it is. I hope to draw some new stuff very soon :)
Happy Easter everyone. Here's a little watercolour I painted for a friend's baby a few years ago :)
Here's an unseasonable, Christmassy post and before anyone says it, I know Christmas is a long way away (309 sleeps at the time of writing this or 7394 hours to be exact, but who's counting?). I started this in December and didn't finish it due to Christmassy events and other work, so I put it to one side. I needed a break from my illustration job the other day and decided to finish it, so here it is, Painted in watercolour, gouache and coloured pencil. I'm thinking of calling it 'The Christmas Carollers' and it's based on my drawing 'The Babysitter'. I'm going to make it into cards for Christmas 2012. Ho ho ho.
I'm donating this original graphite and charcoal 10 x 8 drawing to help Spooky, a poorly dog. If you are interested in bidding for it, please visit Help Spooky Facebook Page. The starting bid was $15 :)
Finished drawing of my sketch 'The Fairy Ferry'
Here's some of my sketches from recent Sketch Fests as promised :)
I recently sketched a child fairy and mouse for sketch fest, where the prompt was 'Whimsical Valentine'. I shall post February's sketches soon but in the meantime they can be viewed here if you are interested. Here's the sketch and finished painting. Happy Valentine's Day :)
I saw this on a friend's facebook page, watched it and, basically, I couldn't have said it better so thought I would share it with you on my blog: 29 ways to stay creative.
29 WAYS TO STAY CREATIVE from TO-FU on Vimeo.
I'm a week late posting them, but last week was the first Sketchfest of 2012. It was over 48 hours this time but I only managed to produce seven as I was busy with other projects. Here they are. Hope you like :)
I always enjoy seeing how illustrators and artists work and I was delighted to find this audio slideshow of Shirley Hughes illustrations of 'Alfie' on the Guardian newspaper website. It's wonderful to watch and I thought I would share. Please click on Shirley Hughes Audio Slideshow to watch.
I also found this video on YouTube, an exhibition of Shirley Hughes's work.
this is so lovely Sue. I love how beautifully you created her veil and all her other details too!
lovely sue! especially love the transparency of the veil ^^
Thank you so much Tammie and Christina :) xx
I followed this back from Illustration Friday -- this is a lovely image, the details are beautiful.
My favourite mermaid from Illustration Friday's submissions, very much like the details and her beautiful face.
So beautiful! One of my favorites from this week's Illustration Friday theme!
Beautiful, especially the pearls and the veil. Wonderful style!
Gorgeous, so much detail and beauty :)