Scenery update

Thank you for the kind comments on the design! 'Seeing the scenery under stage lighting at the dress rehearsal, I realised it looks too clean and new, so I am plotting ways to tone down the new paintness, and make it look a bit grubby. The setting is meant to be a slightly neglected, village train station waiting room. Cold tea, and some dust is probably the way forward, plus one of the actors suggested some graffiti..

preview of the scenery

I'm still working on the scenery (the dress rehearsal is on Friday!), and this is the top right hand panel. In the photo, it is lying on the floor, which is the only way I can paint it - too unstable upright, plus there could be a problem with paint running. It is an interesting challenge form a technical perspective: the panel is recycled, so it is the rough textured back of hardboard which you can see, plus on the right hand side there is a whole row of short strips of tape, which I have to paint over!

An especially busy week or so!

I'm having a very busy couple of week, so not found time to post on my blog. Last weekend I was away visiting family. This week is an especially busy time of year in the housing development world, with funding bids deadline looming, plus I am painting some scenery for a play! Photographs will appear here soon..

Illustration friday: Open

Here is my idea for this week's topic of "Open". I currently have more than a bit of an obsession with "The Owl and The Pussy-cat", who seem to be lending themselves well to playing around with ideas - thoughts about what else they do, apart from sailing away with honey, and dining on quince with a runcible spoon! "Missed the deadline to draw up and post in time for Illustration Friday, but I did rough out an idea for the Owl and Pussycat juggling, too. It's a good idea, and gives me useful practice with Wacom pen and Painter, so will make the image and post it here soon.

And then there were three

Today I have been wielding pencil and paintbrush again, hoorah! Also had a revelation about myself, which is that I get acute performance anxiety when I am doing a "proper" drawing - for my portfolio or a client - which at is worst results in me being too nervous to draw, and best that I draw very stiffly, and lose the freshness from my work. 'No idea yet how to change this. So, this morning, I downed pencil and picked up paintbrush, and finished off this loose rough of "cat with stars". I'm liking the colour direction this idea is going in now, so will print out another outline for my next bout of artistic anxiety; )

Here is new humpty, Sorbet, with her friends!

New pictures tomorrow

Well, I've been a bit, or rather, very slack over the past week or so, and not posted anything new here! The best explanation is that I've been very focussed on admin tasks like my tax return. There is a new humpty, and another almost completed, so I'll post at least one of them here tomorrow.