ZestyDoesThings

I’ve been in an art funk recently, not feeling too confident about my work so I decided to take some time out to relax and refresh my creative cogs. So here are some landscape/architecture studies based on various photos and bits of artwork, rendered with ballpoint pen and watercolour.

I'm already feeling much more confident and feeling ready to get back to work on some tricky projects. If you’re ever not feeling positive about your art, do something like this (preferably in a medium you don’t work in often) and I guarantee it will help!

Today, I started my life as a working illustrator, and took the train to pick up my work from uni, officially marking the end of my time there. (of course, I still have graduation but that's not for a while)

It felt surreal to be working on a real-life illustration project whilst on the train, when I would usually be daydreaming or reading. It felt good though, and something that I could get used to.

Mental note to self- Get out of the house once in a while. Drawing away from the desk can make the work feel so much more fun! (although to be honest, it is fun enough anyway)

Attack of the Mushroom Fairies!!! Some old characters have been given a face lift- Have a load of sketches of them! 

Character design process of Pinocchio

This shows a quarter of the sketches I did to come up with Pinocchio's design. I can sometimes spend several days up to a whole week of constant drawing on just one character design.

I usually don't do thumbnails with this much detail or effort... But im finding it a really useful process.

This was just made up of simple pencil sketches with rough colouring on Photoshop.

Shape challenge: Draw random shapes and turn them into people. The bottom half were drawn using the same shapes from the top, but upside down.

Some of these are appalling, some are alright. Good practice none-the-less! 

Trying out my Ink brush and my new lightbox. Drawing the Winter King and the Golden Songbird from my children's book. 

How did I draw without a lightbox before?