'Been busy this week, sorting out paintings, drawiings, etc for my sale tomorrow. Amazingly, I have already sold a print of one of the dragonflies! This is an old drawing of my feet, but pretty typical of the kinds of sketches I do in idle moments whilst listening to cds. (Today's is The Album Leaf "In A Safe Place" - highly recommended.)

finally success with scanning

Having grappled for what feels like weeks with scanning, I've finally succeeded in making some scans which bear a reasonable resemblance to the originals, so here is the celtic cat watercolour again, and a portion of the watercolour chart I've completed today using the bijoux box of paints

More on Pinkty

Today I've not had much time available for drawing, although at lunchtime I worked more on Pinkty using pencil, to figure out how to make him more solid looking.

Whoops - that's not the eccentric peas! Here they are:

Eccentric peas

Today, I have had the techy here to sort out anti-virus software tangles on both Macs. And I have also begun making another watercolour chart: this time for the Bijoux box of 18 colours, partly so I can re-acquaint myself with it, and partly to practise drawing little squares! More scanning practise, too, of the celtic cat - still not cracked it, though. The thing which has worked is doing a 1 hour sketchathon challenge in Painter, with brief of 'Eccentric".. mine is peas!

Today: tried out drawing Pinkty with some children - think he works as kind of adult human size. Also been experimenting with drawing with my left hand: got the idea of trying this because my reading glasses case came apart yesterday, and could not fix it with my right hand, then mended it easily with my left one! Plus I am completely cack-handed with a computer mouse using my right hand. I like the quality of the lines drawn with my left hand. May post some tomorrow.

Today I have finished making water colour chart, and completed a rough water-colour version of celtic cat to try to scan more accurately. These colours are more lifelike, and I am not entirely satisfied with colour scheme, or scan quality.

Not done any painting or drawing since Friday. Yesterday was taken up with a combination of going to the Rise festival in Finsbury Park, and seeing some good music, including The Duke Spirit, Common, Sway, and some excellent Kurdish bands; along with final rehearsal, sound check, then first performance as a guitarist with a couple of friends, at another friend's 50th birthday party. Back to painting tomorrow!

Yesterday did a little work on fleshing out a character I've drawn for family cards, etc for many years, but now want to make cnetracl character in children's book(s), and need to work out size in relation to people. Interesting to think about.

Today I have been experimenting with scanning a drawing, printing out the scan, then begining to colour it using watercolour. Here is the work so far..

Today I have been out earning £s, but did find time to work out what next steps are for children's book(s) I am working on. Looking forward to tomorrow, when will be working at home all day

Hmm. I am sure I wrote a post on Friday - must have forgotten to publish it! Anyway, has been an eventful few days, with London Sketchcrawl on Saturday, which was great fun; plus a visit to A&E for treatment for a sting yesterday. The antihistamines are leaving me groggy, plus finger is still very sore, so proper drawing not happening today. Here are a couple of the sketches - one from A&E, t'other from the sketchcrawl

Despatched most of mail out for painting sale yesterday - still a few to send for people whose snail mail address I did not have. Also did a tiny amount of drawing whilst waiting for others to arrive at London Illustrators Gathering - try to flesh out idea for 'sullen' brief. Today, I have been re-arranging my diary for July, so that I can focus single-mindedly all day on being an artist on regular week days. Not drawn much today, and not scanned what I have done in, so here is another of the dragonflies

Today, did a little drawing out at a cafe in Old Street. Also, been thinking a lot about how I use collage usually I make for fun.

Today I am feeling a bit frustrated with the digital Painter - it keeps doing things which I am sure (?) I have not told it to. However, I have started the mail out for painting sale - using this dragonfly as image on the invite

Today I've not done any drawing or painting so far, but will do later. After my post yesterday, I finished The Album Leaf fantasy cd cover - coloured it in using coloured pencils in various shades of green and blue, with a touch of gold. Will have to experiment with the scanner, to see if I can scan finished drawings well enough to post

That worked! I made a link to my flickr account. The image was made entirely using Painter, mainly digital watercolour and 2B graphite colour pencil, with touches of coloured 2B pencil, and was a time-limited to 1 hour response to brief of "It came from the deep"

OK, so today I am going to make another attempt to post something I have just worked on here.

I did apply the mixture of ultramarine and raw umber very thinned to the canvas yesterday evening, so am feeling pleased with that start. Today I am planning to complete a fantasy cd sleeve I started on Monday: basic design drawn up in blue biro, and needs shades of blue and green added now, but need to decide whether to use water colour, or ink or coloured pencil. One factor is that I have not yet used wet media in this particular (nicely cd cover size and shape) sketchbook, so am not sure how the paper will react. Best plan will be to test on the page that has red marker pen bled through on to it!

Today I have been shopping for the new oil paints I need: deciding which colours to actually buy was tough, given the cost of pigments like cadmium red and viridian. Now looking forward to doing the mid-tone mix of raw umber and ultramarine. May even do this evening, given it is a nice, sunny day, so can have the windows open.