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 :)

Golden

Having a play around with my trusty Berol felt tip pens the other night, I did this study of a Golden Pheasant (aka Chinese Pheasant).

I love using this medium, I think I'll have to do a few more in the coming weeks :D

Worn - Illustration Friday

Worn Out, a moleskine drawing coloured digitally.

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!

'Proper Job' Woes...

Finally, a finished piece! It's only taken me about 4 weeks to actually do some work. Unfortunately recently my 'proper job' has taken over and finding time to do any arty bits has been near impossible. So I'm really pleased I've managed to finish this!

Based on a photograph I took in Malta, I decided to make it more of a 'scene', adding the man in the coat and setting it at night with the orange street lamps.

Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll be able to do a lot more work and get back into the rhythm I had before!

Over and over...

Oh I do like a good pattern... this one took me a while as mirroring the birds correctly was a bit of a pain! But I'm really pleased with the outcome. The process involved a dodecahedron split into 12 isosceles triangles (yes it's rather maths heavy producing these!) and each of the 12 triangles has one image within it. It's then mirrored back to back around until the entire dodecahedron is filled.... phew! Quite labour intensive work but I adore the fact they grow almost organically in the paper. And who said maths wouldn't help in the real world?! I based the colours on oriental drawings and paintings, as I thought it would suit the delicacy of the pattern, particularly the pink against the jade :D

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.

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!

Mr.Quail and the felt tip pens...

... and now for something completely different! 

I bought a bumper pack of Berol felt tip pens a while back thinking I'd give them a go and see what would happen. Well I finally got round to it, and I'm so glad I did! I've been working on images of birds recently for a very exciting project/business idea (super excited, more news to come soon!) so once I'd done the pencil drawing for this little quail I thought 'why not use those felt tip pens?'

It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, you just have to pay more attention to the colours you're using and layer them to create subtle shades (like the brown, grey and blue made this really nice purpley-grey colour that was perfect for parts of it!)

Really happy with the results, so I'll be getting my felt tips out again soon I reckon. I love it when you try something new and get a positive out of it, so motivating!

'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!

Mdina

Finished! Hooray!

I really like the colours in this one, looks almost vintage. No instagram used, just the awesome colours of Malta :D

This one is on the list of prints to get printed (when I have some money!)