Speed Paint Watercolour

I made another attempt at using watercolours last night. I did this Dia De Los Muertos inspired sugar skull girl. I used the paints very loosely, I like splashing on the paints and using them very watery. I used a black fine liner for the details. I made my first YouTube video doing this too :)

Here Comes The Summer!

The weather has been lovely in Scotland lately, I hope it lasts! So I am now officially finished my first year of HND Illustration. It has flown by! Next year will probably be even quicker but I don't want to think about it just yet. Now that I have two months off college, I can finally concentrate more on some personal projects.
I have been doing some charity work recently, for a charity called Funny Lumps which helps children with NF (Neurofibromatosis). I designed a mascot for the kids, they wanted me to design a purple furry monster who has NF. Here's what I came up with :) I'm very happy with how he looks and the kids love him.

I also did some mixed media work and illustrations for 'The Lady of Shalott' poem recently. It is a lovely poem which highly inspired the pre-raphaelites age.

Some recent sketches and an idea for a painting, I have so much in the pipeline! 

Thanks for reading, Nicola x

Dag and Daga and the Flying Troll of Sky Mountain

I bought this book recently.

It has lot's of stories in it about trolls, monsters, princesses and princes. My favorite things to draw! There are 29 stories in this book, all are illustrated by John Bauer. I think they were written in the 19th Century but I'm not sure, the book doesn't say. John Bauer, born in Sweden, 1882 - 1918 was one of the world's greatest illustrators of fairy tales. As it states in his biography and I quite agree. I discovered Brian Froud before John Bauer and you can definitely see that Froud was highly influenced by Bauer. If you've seen the Dark Crystal or The Labyrinth then you will agree.

These are some illustrations in the book, he used mainly neutral tones, not a lot of colour at all but I love the way he used the watercolour and especially the way he did the trolls.

You may or may not know I did children's book illustration projects in college. I'm almost finished my first year of HND Illustration, it's flew in! I liked this story so much and felt so influenced by John Bauer's illustrations, I thought I would illustrate 'Dag and Daga and the Flying Troll of Sky Mountain' myself. 

I will be posting my progress on here.

Nicola x

A Midsummer Nights Dream Illustrations

As I said in my previous post, I was illustrating magazine spreads based on the play 'A Midsummer Nights Dream' for my graded unit at college. These are a few more pictures of some of my finished illustrations. These are three different illustrations featuring Titania, the queen fairy. I'm so glad this unit is over it was so stressful trying to get it finished on time! I will find out if I've passed by next week hopefully! 

I scanned them in and altered the colour on Photoshop slightly.

I mainly used inks, pen and graphite. 

Thanks for stopping by

Nicola x

An Illustration Project

An Illustration Project - Design a single page and double page spread for a magazine based on a play.

I chose A Mid-Summer Night's Dream by Shakespeare. I'm not keen on Shakespeare, but we had to chose from the suggestions given. This play was not on the list but since we could do any Shakespeare play I chose this one. I had never read it before. It is a comedy about a mischievous fairy, an angry king, a beautiful fairy queen and some other youngsters that get caught up in a love triangle. The play is a comedy and has magic and fairies in it. The themes are magic, love and dreams. I decided to give it a modern take and illustrate it in a fashion magazine style. I used inks, water-colour, pen and graphite. 

 This is my single page spread finished artwork. I decided to have Puck - the mischievous fairy in the silhouette of a moon because the moon is mentioned a lot in the play, which highlights the theme of dreams. I gave him tattoos which relate to the story, to make it look more modern.

 This is the scanned artwork which I altered slightly on Adobe Illustrator.

 In my sketchbook - the development.

 Some sketches for Titania the fairy queen who gets tricked into falling in love with a man with a donkeys head.

Hope you enjoyed looking at my blog. The work featured here is for my graded unit at college.

Nicola x

Fun Times

Hello! I thought I would do another wee blog update for the people that do read my blog! I'm off college now for the Easter holidays. I had a fun easter weekend, I went to Cocktail and burger on Saturday, went to Forever 21, which is amazing! I did a wee bit of shopping and played mini golf. It was fun!

The Easter holidays doesn't mean it's all fun and games though, I currently have my graded unit at college to do. I chose to design a magazine spread for 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by Shakespeare. I am working on making it look more modern and I've been looking at fashion illustration in magazines and online. Here's some snaps of my life recently.

 gotta have the generic starbucks pic!

 my cat watching tv with me

 my outfit for the engagement party - Skirt  - Forever 21 top - New Look

 me n my pal

 generic mirror pic with messy room. Top - New Look Skirt - Topshop

 Fun playing mini golf

I drew an owl and made it look extra raging, owls look mad all the time.

Thanks for reading, if you have a blog leave a comment with a link, I'm looking for some new blogs to follow :)

Princess Mononoke

I did this drawing entirely with Derwent coloursoft pencils. I liked the movie, the characters and strangeness of it. I'm really happy with how the wolf and her face has turned out. It has taken me a while but it was fun!

Using Colour Pencils

I have been trying to use colour pencils a lot more recently. If you know how to use them properly and be patient and layer them, you can end up with a great result. I'm still perfecting my technique as it's a slow process and I prefer to work fast. In this case I decided to try using brown paper. The pencils I use are Derwent coloursoft pencils. They worked really well on the brown paper.

I like to sketch out ideas first in my sketchbook using graphite and then develop it into a final piece.

I am working on another colour pencil piece for the Derwent Colour pencil art competition, the deadline is July, so plenty of time to do some more drawings! :)

Derwent art comp - http://www.graphiccompetitions.com/illustration/derwent-art-prize-2013#.UTUPn2joz3Y.twitter

Nutshell, Illustration & outfits

First post of 2013. I have to say, I have not had much time or motivation for my blog lately. I have a few plans of posts to do very soon, including a book review and a post on my children's book that I wrote and illustrated. This post is very random, but I'm not a professional blogger so hey!

 A graphite sugar skull drawing.

 New favorite trainers - Pink Vans!

 OOTD - leopard print cardigan - H&M I added studs to the top and denim shorts

 A character sketch idea for a flower fairy in my childrens book, done with watercolours.

 Pencil drawing of a crocodile skull I did when I was at the Glasgow zoology museum.

 OOTD - T-shirt - H&M Shorts - New Look 

 Pink Rimmel nails

 OOTD - I got this car dress as a present.

Another character sketch done in colour pencil.

Hope you enjoyed looking at my pictures. 

Gothic Beauty Illustrations

This is what I have been working on recently on my current project at college. Design a deck of cards. It is mixed media and the theme is Gothic. 

 For this illustration I started with a pencil drawing on water-colour paper and I used plum and violet drawing ink for the background. I went over the pencil with black pen and ink. I added more ink later on for a darker look and glued on some lace for her top. I wanted this to be scary but beautiful so I added some skulls and roses.

 Mixed media - trying out prints in my sketchbook for my reverse card design. I wanted it to look like a window from the Notre Dame. 

 The same print on some hand-made paper. I created a dripping effect and filled in parts with ink. I also stuck on some lace.

 The style I am going for but more patterned and more of a circle for my final.

 Got one of these stamps with my initial to seal envelopes. I thought it would fit in my sketchbook, since I was inspired by the Victorian Gothic era.

 An idea for the queen card. I'm not completely happy with this, but I'm going to do it again anyway. I used tea stained paper and added plum and violet ink for the background effect I painted the girl in acrylic.

 Idea for my number card. Tea stained paper with acrylic sponged on and ink dripping from the top. I used acetone to transfer the images on to the paper.

 My joker card. Kind of Harley Quinn/gothic lolita inspired.

This one is one of my favourites, I like the look, it is simple but striking and I think it would work as a queen card. Again I used tea stained paper, acrylic sponged round the edges, lace and acetone transfer.

If your reading this, I hope you like my work!