I have finished some more illustrations so thought I would share them here for Blogtober. These are more for my speculative project so I’m not sure if anything will materialise from this but I am really enjoying the process, and it’s important for me to focus on doing my best and having fun even though I don’t know the outcome.
Apologies again for the poor lighting! I really love the duck – I don’t think I’ve ever managed to paint such a cute-looking bird. He’s a Bufflehead, so worth including in this suite for the name alone. The Scarlet Tanager (bottom left) was the easiest to paint as the black and the flame red were straight from the tube of gouache, no mixing necessary. It’s fine mixing paint colours but you have to have enough, and this often means ending up with too much. I can always use excess paint in my sketchbook, and in fact it provides a good prompt for painting something with the colours I have left but it’s a nice no-stress option to use it straight from the tube.
I am really pleased with how these illustrations are progressing, and it’s nice to work on a book with no deadline or agenda.
Nothing spooking or autumnal in this post, but I have been listening to this lofi mix from Calmed by Nature, my fave ambient sounds channel. I have also been drinking coffee from my pumpkin-shaped mug which is a vessel definitely designed for form rather than function but hey, I’ll arrange my drinking position so it doesn’t dribble too much as yanno, ’tis the season. I confess I still haven’t tried a pumpkin spice latte, partly because my fave coffee shop, Black Sheep, only does a dairy version and I’m an oat milk gal these days. I have ordered some pumpkin in my veg box this week though so I will make some puree for seasonal purposes…
Love the illustrations! Great colours and really sharp (is sharp the right word? I know what I’m trying to say but I don’t feel I have the language for it haha). Clear, perhaps? Vibrant!
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Ah thank you so much – yes, they get reduced down to tiny images in the booklets so they need to be really sharp and crisp 🙂
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