Down Under

I was in Australia for 3 1/2 weeks recently. I visited Western Australia, Melbourne and Sydney. It was a great trip, I did a lot of sightseeing and shopping!

Some Shopping

I've decided I'm going to do a proper girly blog post today. I've bought a few things in the sales recently and just a few bits n bobs for my holiday to Oz in less than six weeks, eeek! :)

Boohoo Dress £14.99 

Topshop Dress £32.00 

Crop Top - New Look £5.99 

 White Jumper - Topshop - £15.00 on sale

Purse - Accessorize £15.00

Makeup Bag - Primark - £3.00 

Travel/Toiletries Bag - Primark - £3.00

Sandals - Warehouse - £15.00 on sale 

 Suede Wedges - New Look £19.99

Finally some makeup bits!

I hope whoever reads this post enjoys it, I really like watching or reading about what other girls buy.

Bye for now, Nicola x

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

Red Cap's Revenge

The progress of an illustration. I was influenced by Rik Lee Illustration and Glen Arthur Art on Instagram to do this. I used colour pencil for the figure and the background is painted entirely with gouache. I scanned both in and used Photoshop to alter the contrast, colour etc. 

Here is the finished product and below pictures I took drawing it.

Hope you like!

Also I have an art page on Facebook, check it out and give it a like :)

https://www.facebook.com/StrawberrySkullsIllustration

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 :)