so far

Best laid plans went up in smoke early. Although what I learned was that it’s less exhausting if you go with the current than against it. Might not end up where you thought you’d be but better able to deal with what ever’s there because you’re happy and ready to go. 

January and most of February was swallowed by covid. Then a short holiday to Eden and home the long way through Canberra. Stayed with my sister-in-law and her husband , their construction is underway and making progress, I saw my niece and her beautiful family, fossicked in second hand stores and gift shops and played around in nature. Back in time to start the year in March.

With that, I’ve been quoting on some freelance work and about to start a book which the manuscript is on it’s way, but the best thing has been finally getting involved in a challenge on Twitter I’ve been stalking since, forever. #colour_collective  Has been going for a long while and run by an illustrator out of the UK, thus the spelling and one of the reasons I started following it. They post two colours (it used to be one, but now it’s two) and you have a week to create a picture with those colours. Some use it sparingly, others intensively, all look fab! These are some of mine:

Divas

Leaf season

Lily pond

Frog chorus

Fishies

Last blooms

I see such amazing diversity of work using #colour_collective and I try to like all of them (sorry if i missed anyones (eek!)). I often covet different illustration styles, marvelling at how these geniuses work, just amazing!

You can follow me @_essayer on Twitter and see all the other #colour_collective drawings they’re great!

Cheers!

Colouring in!

The walks taken as exercise while at home isolating with my family produced a sketchbook (previous post). All fantastical landscapes, some including waterfalls.

After a suggestion from my resident art director to turn them into colouring pages and subsequent gentle nudges from them, I’ve been beavering away doing just that.

There has been nobody in the studio to distract me. The whole building has been very quiet. It’s even been hard to get a coffee – in Melbourne!. As a result I’ve been very focused and diligent. I promise.

It’s been a challenge to translate the small A5 rough sketch, with the pencil lead smeared and blurry lines. It was a long process to clean them up, fix any composition errors and generally make them able to be used for colouring.

I began with a scan, make them into PDF format then print them as A3, trace them off (again and again), correct errors (again and again) and set my visual language so they’re consistent.

Et voilà

You can head over to the new freebies page for a high resolution download to print them out on your printer and have at them! I’d love to see the results of your colouring so if you post them on Instagram or Twitter make sure you tag me, @_essayer so I get a notification.

I’ll be working on a few more in the coming months, sign up to the mailing list, follow me on twitter or instagram and I’ll let you know when they’re available.

Cheers,

Pandemic wanderings

Like almost everybody I stayed at home from 23rd March at home until after the Easter break. I’d brought some supplies back home with the view to improving some skills, getting back to basics and exploring some mediums I hadn’t had a chance to get into in a meaningful way for a very long time.

Needless to say, it didn’t quite work out that way.

Not only was I at home, so was everyone else. Where we live is quite a spacious apartment, in theory. Four adults certainly make it feel a bit constrained and I’ve always found it hard to do much with an audience. The thing I’ve learnt about myself is that I’m a loner. Consequently not much experimenting and learning went on.

So instead I took the opportunity to explore the parks nearby. On my own or with a companion from our house I wandered around The Alexandra & The Queen Victoria Gardens and The Kings Domain.

There are sculptures, fountains, a fernery and The Pioneer Women‘s Garden, ducks and bush turkeys. And some the best landscaped public toilets.

Taking my time to see the same gardens repeatedly gave me the opportunity to see things I’d missed, to be amazed and fascinated by the way things grew together and apart, to see the repetition of the planting, how it all coalesced into such a glorious and enjoyable space.

The lush leafy foliage, got ticking over in my brain and so I sat and doodled in a sketchbook with no expectations or rules. It was lovely to play with perspective, interpret what I’d seen, stylise the lush leafiness and image landscapes.

The results were a fantasy, but drew on the experience of the walks and waterfalls seen and explored.

These simple doodled sketchbook drawings have given life to a new project. Now back in the studio I’m creating something new, from something I created from walks I did, enjoying the creativity of the gardeners.

Keep safe and cheers to you all,

Make a robot!

Exhibitioning

As mentioned in my latest email, I’ve been accepted to exhibit in Alternative Current Art Space in 2020. Scheduled for June, it will be a show of my large format pencil drawings, and preparations are underway! VERY EXCITED!

I've been doing some studies for a very long drawing, just to get my hand in and get all the creative neurons firing in all the right places.

Study 3, pencil on paper 2019

Above is one of the recent drawings, small at only 57cm wide and 19cm tall, done so they remind my muscles that this is the way that we get it done.

It is amazing though, every time I look at a finished piece I get a little thrill of ‘I did that’. I’m looking forward to having some significant work on the wall in June. I hope you can be there, more details to follow!

Cheers,

me me me me me

I’ve been working hard getting portfolios ready for various submissions. Some to do with illustration and others for art, along with the normal day-to-day etc. It’s been both and interesting and worthwhile process, distilling what I want to do as opposed what I can do and allowed me the time to really find my strengths and hopefully the work I get from this will better reflect this.

About me
hand draw, digitally finished, 2019

In not only showing how I draw and what I want to draw I’ve also managed to distill my own self into a kind of self portrait. The cardigans, are very important. As is the coffee.

Cheers!

PS: If you’d like an infographic portrait of yourself or maybe as a gift for a friend, let me know!

Breathe

Breathe, digital with hand drawn elements, 2019

Don’t go breaking my heart

People regularly ask for me to work for the pleasure of working them, which in itself is lovely. They like my work and want the work I do for their project, but I really have to draw (literally) the line somewhere and paying the rent is important.

This seems to be a universal problem for illustrators and I’ve noticed this happens for all people with any skill that any other individual lacks. We all want our friend who’s studied law to look over a contract, our mate whose a plumber to fix the hot water service and the kid who’s really good at the computer to show us how make a website.

It’s different though for a friend, it’s different for a project that everyone is into on an equal footing. Being asked work for nothing while other parties make profit or at least their costs back, is a bit of a smack in the face.

Anyway, IA have got on board The AOI’s #notahobby campaign, because we all need to make a living from the skills we have worked hard to learn and get good at. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t help out a charity and it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t help out a friend, but put as succinctly as I can…

Your passion project, digital image with hand drawn elements, 2019

You read a bit more about this on a previous post about self-publishing.

Kisses,

Gorn git!