Warrior

Inspired by the works of Aubrey Beardsley and H.C.Anderson, I decided to go monochrome with this one. Very happy with the result, I'd quite like to do more like this, perhaps based on Greek Mythology :)

Hurry up Summer!

This horrible cold miserable Spring needs to hurry up and pass to some lovely Summer weather! Stat!

Round and round and round we go...

Keeping on the wildlife theme (which I tend to do quite a lot!) here's a pattern I created a while back. Quite a simple process of doing a quartered image, and then rotating it round. I hope to do more of these soon! :D

'Wings' - Illustration Friday

My poor blog has been so neglected recently, however this has been due to me getting a lot more freelance work which is brilliant! Lots of exciting things have been happening and my work style is evolving rapidly! I've also just become an auntie for the first time and started a-new with a gym membership! Been a very busy bee :D

So here's to the first post of 2013 for me, and my first Illustration Friday entry in a LONG time (too long!) a quick moleskine sketch of this heron that took around 15 minutes. I've kept it quite raw and messy as, well, that makes a true sketch right?

If you're eager to see a bit of what I've been up to recently, go to http://crembrulaa.carbonmade.com/ and you'll find my fairly updated portfolio!

Glad to be back though!

Penguin

If I had a penguin I'd make sure he stayed warm in a little jumper.

Bring on winter!

Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

Christmas card number 2 is done! A festive Swiss inspired cuckoo clock. We had one once, although the cuckoo-ing did get a tad annoying at 3 in the morning... but they're so gorgeous I think it's worth it!

Christmas Carousel

Although it's only October, Christmas is coming up pretty quick. I decided to go all Victorian-esque this year with my card designs, so here's the first one of a carousel horse (or 3!) With the two compositions I have the choice between a square card or a tall thin card, plus I can go over the original drawing but change the pattern or the colours if I feel like it so lots of variations are possible!

Stag-sketch

Apologies for the lack of posts, it's not been the best couple of weeks for doing work with my proper job getting manic, and the Olympics stuff happening! But I managed to sketch out this guy yesterday using just plain old HB pencil. I'm hoping to do a bigger piece maybe in mixed media so this is only a sketch for part of it. I just need the time to sit down and do some 'proper work'! Hopefully this weekend :D

Hope everybody's enjoying the London Olympics so far, it's all been pretty exciting over here as I'm sure you can imagine!

Sugar Skull

So, I've wanted to do more patterns for a while now, but always put if off and put it off until eventually I forget about it. Today I had the idea of doing a Mexican Sugar Skull, but with one of my patterns in the background. This is the result! The colours were tricky to get right and the initial drawing took me forever (I hand draw all of it, which involves a lot of working out and pattern plotting before I make the pen marks!) I think it works really well, and I could see it as a print. So, procrastination over! Hooray!

Blue Sunday Blue Tit

The weather in the UK at the moment is beyond dire, it just keeps raining! And to top it off I've not been well at all, so feeling a bit sorry for myself currently.
To cheer myself up I got my felt tip pens going again, and out came this Blue Tit who I think is rather cute. This one only took me 15 minutes, still striving to loosen up my drawings and I think it's paying off!
Here's hoping to a better week this week!

Foxy!

I was going to make this little guy into another constellation, but I like him the way he is!

I've been freeing up my drawing a lot more recently, and working more with pencils in a loose style which I'm really enjoying. It's good to change your processes once in a while, however daunting it might be.

This drawing took me around 15 minutes, so just a quick sketch but I added a hint of colour in Photoshop.

'Space' - Illustration Friday

For this week's topic 'Space' I wanted to do something based on constellations, and I thought I'd create my own!

I started with the sketch of the wolf, then made a constellation from it. Quite a fun little process really!

Day 3 - Favourite Food

Now I don't know whether a sauce or condiment counts as 'food', but thinking it over I don't really have any actual food that I could call my favourite. I like lots of different foods, but none I would technically call my absolute favourite.

So, I settled on the one thing that I could not live without... sweet chilli sauce. I put it on everything! You name it and I will smother it in this stuff. It is the condiment of the Gods and I won't have anybody tell me otherwise!

This drawing was a fairly quick sketch using coloured pencils in my Moleskine, which I scanned and quickly touched up using photoshop. I mean quickly too as today has been rather busy for me.

This challenge is becoming more difficult day by day but I'm determined to do it!

'Sight' - Illustration Friday

This is a loose style drawing done from a photo I took in Malta.

In Valletta and Mdina they have horse-drawn carriages that take you around the cities as they're no car zones, and the horses have all this get up on them. They're very well looked after and kept to the highest standards, but I can't help but think 'how on earth do they see with all that stuff around their faces?!'

I really tried to free up my drawing with this one, which worked well. Sometimes it's good to just let go with your lines and be confident!

Dachshunds!

Apologies for no updates this week, it's been a pretty manic one for me! Anyway, I thought I would share progress on a project I'm working on. It's for Canadian Dachshund Rescue, who approached me to produce some images for them and I jumped at the chance! So here is the first one, I may tweak the colours but apart from that I'm really happy with it. The legs were a bit tricky as was getting the movement right but I got there in the end!

'Hitched' - Illustration Friday

An ode to caravan lovers everywhere. My childhood was full of weekends away in our trusty caravan, we'd hitch it onto the car and travel to different parts of England, Scotland, Wales and sometimes even France! It's one of the best ways to escape and get back to nature and I miss it! 

Phew!

Here is the A3 sized beast, finally scanned in. I know A3 isn't that big when you look at it, but for someone who is so used to A4 or smaller it's rather daunting!

It's of a street in the walled city Mdina in Malta, one of the most inspiring places I've ever visited. It really is an incredibly beautiful place.

There's a few lines I want to change, and it needs some cropping and tidying but all in all I'm really pleased with this drawing. Now to colour it... that might take a while! But I think once finished it would make a nice print, what do you think?

Oh to be back in Malta...

It's horrible and grey here in the UK, so day-dreaming about holidays past is definitely a must. I've finally started work on the photos I took whilst in Malta in April. Here's progress... albeit a little progress but still! This one is going to take a while...

'Heights' - Illustration Friday

I had such fun doing this one!

I don't have much of a head for heights, but I do love going up in skyscrapers (being inside it isn't as scary really is it?) So this week I created my own skyscraper, modelled slightly after the Chrysler building with the art-deco features.

I'd love to go to New York and head up to the top of the Chrysler building, but money-wise that sort of trip is a long way off yet! One day :)

Red-fish

This believe it or not started as a doodle, but as I added more to it I felt it becoming a nice little image. A recent observation by a friend was I don't use any red in my work, so hopefully this is enough red for him!