Thursday
3 December 2015

Illustration Gallery Launch

Possibly obvious considering the last post, ‘introducing’ the Illustration Gallery! I love drawing. I’ve owned my 72 Derwent Artists since I think my fifth or sixth birthday, early enough that I can’t remember actually receiving them, but I have many a memory of wearing down my favourite colours to stubs as a small child. I took them to school in their metal tin, shared them with my friends and was known as the kid with the pencils for the rest of primary school. A few years ago I turned into the kid with even more pencils, when Derwent added another 48 pencils to expand the set to 120, and they’re beautiful. I always knew they were bright, but I didn’t realise quite how saturated the colours were until the new colours, with all their beautiful muted greens and rosey greys. I love my Derwents.

Here’s a work in progress which is gradually becoming a billabong in Kakadu National Park. I’ve had a lot of fun with the reflections on the billabong and the sunset colours on the tops of the trees. I’ll have the final up in the gallery shortly!

I like to draw with my lovely little Wacom, too. I’ve been Photoshopping since PS7 but didn’t get my first drawing tablet until five years ago, and the ease of just opening up a blank canvas and doodling has really helped me to improve my drawing. Last year I completed the Character 100 challenge, which involved drawing headshots of 100 of your characters, only for me it turned into the Character 145 (more on writing later!) The six up above are in the last home stretch; the link will take you to the full collection of all of them chronologically. I learned a whole lot about drawing faces in this challenge, from where to highlight warm colours across the cheeks and nose and cool around the chin and jaw, through to drawing differently shaped noses and so, so much on expressions. The colours are all swatches I made from my Derwents, bringing us all neatly back to the beginning! More found in the Gallery!

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Tags: illustration, introduction post, pencils, Photoshop, practice