Art Journal » pirates

Quick-draw – crusty pirate

elise — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:23:57 +0000

Here’s another Quick-draw. Oh I do enjoy these and I’m starting to get used to drawing without watching the page. I’ll upgrade it to HD when I work out how – the option didn’t seem to present itself this time. Do click the HQ button though for a better view. And you can turn off the music easily – look for the speaker icon on the bottom right.

In other news, we had a fun market in the Brunswick Town Hall on Saturday – the Teeny Tiny Sisters Market. I met a lot of lovely people… signed lots of books and sent prints to good homes. For those of you watching me struggle with the rabbit – we’re on the home straight now. I hope to finish her off this week. I have an idea…
We’re back in normal market-mode again from here till Christmas. Check out the dates on the right – there’re some extra ones appearing just before Christmas.

It’s HOT today.

Maybe I’ll get out of the house soon and give myself a chance to do the Mondoodle in cafe comfort. For it IS Mondoodle-day.

tracing, revivification and travel

elise — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 06:42:00 +0000

I have three things to say.
1. I love my lightbox. (Thank you Peter, lightbox-maker.)
2. I am gratefully much less dead now.
3. I will be in Sydney this weekend for ASA madness (Barbara Jefferis Award, AGM and Colin Simpson Memorial lecture – being given by the eloquent Shaun Tan) stretching from Friday evening till Sunday. So if you’re coming too please say hi! I’ll be scarpering Sunday afternoon to get to a friend’s wedding reception back in Melbourne. Which means frocking up on the plane as I’ll be doing one of those romantic comedy dashes from taxi to plane to taxi and bursting in through the doors of the venue… all much less stressful when you’re just a guest and not a romantic lead.

Pirates today. So… roughs on the lightbox, drawing paper on top, 6H pencil doing a light trace ready for the final ink wash and nib treatment. Ahh the nib. I can see I’ll be collecting more of these. Who sells lovely nibs?? More fine/interesting ones for drawing than fat square ones for calligraphy. And feathers… are feathers actually good to draw with?

And here’s a picture of course. Another rough from the Pirate book.

update on the update

elise — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 05:20:31 +0000

Apologies for the silence – I’ve well and truly had my head down working! Here’s an update on that update…

The maps are done. Typical me – when they could have been stylised and simple I had to do all the little houses and sheds… There were two maps in the end, created in black watercolour with areas of particular note picked out in ink (that lovely fine nib again!). Here’s a little bit.

The Findhorn pictures – tricky as there is only one bit of reference for ROC (featuring in the pictures and a real person). But I’m finishing off the roughs now and have had to decide to go for a more old-fashioned style that will allow for less realism while retaining wonderful detail. It was what I was kind of meaning to do all the time but I’d hoped to know more about the man. Like his height, build, did he wear a hat, smoke a pipe and how did he carry himself? Can’t show anything yet for this!

The Moorehawke trilogy covers are progressing – I’ll be doing all three as one massive long picture. They’re designed and I’m waiting for feedback… Bruno the Fabulous at A&U has taken my roughs and placed potential titles on them to see how they’d look once all that text is included… Looks brilliant! Will show you as soon as I can. How fun to do all at once. Did I mention that?

Dear Sarindi and the Lucky Buddha is complete and was such a pleasure to do. Pencil. Dozens of illustrations done in a matter of days. My fingers still tingle! There are some books where the work can be done quickly and is done better for it – the style is absolutely consistent, you think and breathe the character and you can hold it all in your head for continuity. Basically – you’re in the swing! But it only came about because of weeks and months really of preparation – sketching, researching and roughing it all out in great detail.

And my pirates are all done in rough and I’m waiting for the publishers to get the go-ahead. Another 40-odd illustrations!

tricking the wind

elise — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:24:34 +0000

Momentum is a funny thing. When I’m working at full-tilt the ideas stream out, I can do multiple books at one time – progressing this, finishing that and sneaking a new idea or two on paper to look at later. Pens and pencils wear down, watercolour palettes empty and it can feel great multi-tasking like a maniac.

And then there’s a little lull – a proper break between jobs and suddenly everything is becalmed and there’s no wind to get moving again. It’s not that the work isn’t there – it’s more that I told myself all year that there would be a break at christmas, I worked and waited and then before I knew it, it was over with and I was meant to want to work again – and not just work – be creative and inspired.

So you have to trick the wind to make it come back.

A light breeze started with discovering some inspirational photographic reference, a revisited idea, setting up a very large canvas, and music with a beat that gets into your blood. It wasn’t the work I was meant to be doing but it got me thinking and painting again. Now I’m zipping through today’s checklist with the promise of a return to the canvas when I’m done.

Today
One pirate drawn in three ages and styles (then scanned & emailed).
A mum in boots
A dad in boots
A boy in boots
A girl in boots
One dog – no boots… Would dog boots be wrong?

And can you believe I’m done at 11.18? I’ll do more later. There’s an afternoon/evening program as well but for now there are brushes waiting!