Inkscape inkspace

I don't think Inkscape is something I 'taught myself' so much as I just fell into it with a burning resentment because my computer can't handle Illustrator right now.

But I'm starting to feel my way around it a bit better, and there is nothing on earth anymore that YouTube won't show you how to do.

So a relative asked me to do some work for the banner header of their personal blog and they wanted an arrow with a pen nib point. 

Some sketches I did:

The designer came up with some pegs for me, to streamline the process. A dip pen point instead of the fountain pen, a burnished antique look.

This is the first thing I did off of one of the pegs from the designer: a Roman pen. She wanted it for the arrow shaft.

This is the final illustration:

Fashion Sketches: Superdry Girls

It is literally unbelievably hot here in London (I'm not joking; people are going round saying they actually don't understand how this can be the same place as last year), and that means mini dresses. I keep looking at the adorable dresses on the Superdry website, even though I know I'm not going to buy them. And then this happened:

I actually did have a pet rabbit who looked like that, I don't know why I am so mean. Poor Sei-chan, at least you're alive and well and happily adopted.

(The stains are because I was painting in the garden, and then I took my teabag to put it in the compost and splash. I tried to make some drips so it would look deliberate, but that only made it worse.)

I thought 'well the higher classes seem well represented, what about merchants and workers'? I like the fishers and their nautical stripes. The textile merchant...everything looks fine except that wimple. You can't even tell that's what it is, her head just seems like a separate entity. Maybe it's her la-la-land expression.

So this exercise was more satisfying than actually shopping for Superdry, but not as satisfying as I thought it would be. Oh well.

New banner header!

I was a little tired of doors (shocker!), and I thought the blog header looked untidy, so I made some banners from my dirigibles art.

I used a neat little free font called Stamping Nico that I got from dafont.com. Picked the third banner because it had a little more colour & variety. Hope you like it!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

It's my mother's birthday today, so I did her a watercolour! Unfortunately I have no scanner at the moment, so here is a photo instead.

Cotman pan colours on Daler Rowney watercolour paper, with Sakura Koi and Blue Heron waterbrushes.

(Edited 7/15/13 to replace the blurry photo with a clearer one.)

spring cleaning

Working on something that's pretty old, but could do with a bit of cleaning up. I'd like to shop it around, if anyone would be interested in a rather depressing little book...

Now that I think of it, this is where I really started to explore working with dip pens. Now they're my favourite drawing tool.

Sketches app

There is a new free drawing app for the iPad called Sketches. I downloaded it and it's great!

It has brush pen, felt tip marker and paintbrush as discrete tools. There's only one brush size for each unless you buy the Pro version (£1.49!), but the brush pen and technical pen make up for each other. It's quite sensitive, and you need to pick the option to undo via button because the 'backwards swipe' undo just makes a mark on your drawing. But I like it much more than Paper!

mysterious beasts

Look, I aten't dead!

Phoenix and unicorn, dip pen and Noodler's ink.

Sorry for the radio silence, been moving around a lot lately. Hope to post more stuff soon...

doors, part IDEK

Here are three things you can do while stuck in an interminable wait at the bank: 1) claw your own face off, 2) brood on your hatred for the world and everyone in it, 3) draw doors. Guess which one I went with.

In semi-related news, never bank at BPI if you can't draw, write or are otherwise not interested in spending 3 or more hours in a null space. BDO is far too efficient for creative expression.

I was at the bank from 10am to 3pm ffs NO YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T THINK ABOUT IT

WTF Richard II

So Hello_Tailor did a magnificent post of the Beeb's new Richard II starring Ben Whishaw as the flailiest drama king who ever did way too much drama and not enough kinging. Please check out her posts on the Hollow Crown series, they are amazing. The series itself is also amazing, as made evident by the beautiful Tom Hiddleston as Prince Hal.

Unfortunately I missed the first half hour of the film, and I was watching it with my grandmother, so it didn't occur to me to start tweeting it until I had to flee the TV room because I was laughing so hard at Richard's flouncy outfits. Here is a transcript of my tweets, with illustrations (my tweets are in white, hello_tailor's in grey):

@Hello_Tailor Richard II is showing! My gran sent me out of the room for inappropriate giggling at each costume change, so y'know, thanks XD

@Hello_Tailor4h

@perevision needs more GOLD

@Hello_Tailor it is not helping that I have your post open AS I WATCH

@Hello_Tailor the floofy trailing sleeves, oh God. Also, Patrick Stewart's accent is delicious

I did forget to draw from time to time, because the movie for all its crackiness is incredibly well-acted and beautiful, and it was REALLY HARD to look away from the gorgeous trainwreck that is His Jesusishness Richard II.

hysterical romance: last look

A pervading issue I have with my work is that I often stop before I assess it properly. As a result my work frequently looks unfinished. I tried to add a little dimension here, and though I feel there could be more details added, that would only take the focus from the central figures. A raw, unpolished but finished work is different from one that just isn't done yet. And I think this is finally done.