WIP; final of diptych - Penguin Punch-up (Well....Almost)

Hey Folks! Back at last  - and finished at last...I'll still put up the progress pics but the illustration was finally done early yesterday afternoon. It doesn't normally take this long for me to complete a picture...honest...my wife, Julie, and I, have been busy painting and renovating the house, and the garden has come in for so much needed work too...so I've been a little distracted of late.   

Now, on with the images... I wasn't able to photograph the progress of our two Adele penguins at left due to the very stormy, hail wracked, skies over Gawler, ( I use natural lighting for recording my pics as it is an even lighting and gives a truer sense of colour in repro). The Macaroni penguin at right shows the basic method I have employed to get colour, tone and texture in the body and head feathers of these flightless birds. As you can see from the progess pics I managed to take between the showers of thunderous hail and pounding rains, I start with a very light wash of the colour that is to be the mid-tones of the bird - in this case, prussian with a touch of pthalo blue. Over this base wash I build up the colours with successive hatching of stronger and stronger mixes of prussian, pthalo and then some french blue and finally some burnt umber added to the mix for the deepest tones in the shadows. (With the Adele penguins it was a mix of burnt umber and burnt sienna as the first wash and then on and on, as with the Macaroni, in building up the forms, texture and deep shadows.) For the white chests and torsos of all the penguins I used a combination of French blue, a very little of paynes grey and a little prussian blue. (You can see the first wash colours and how they were mixed and pre-tested on the protective paper I left showing in the first pic.)
 

The other two birds in this pic are, on the left (black faced), a Noisy Friar bird and on the right (Red faced...excuse the pun), an Australian Brush turkey. Both these birds - in real life - have no feathers on their on their heads but are, another pun, bare faced. Although, the turkey does have very very fine, black, hair-like feathers that are sparse and randomly dispersed.  (Wasn't going to put them in but...he looked too bald without.)

The final image is of the diptych in its entirety...it may be that the two images will appear separately in the book they are to inhabit...it depends on the pacing of the text...editorial control of these decisions is not always left up to the creator...and a good thing too sometimes...you can be too close or too precious about your creations. These important aspects of book making need an objective and critical eye in the design stage.  

Well Folks, that's it for this post. Hope you like what you see...hope I made sense too...

Cheers. RWS                                         

Vulture Culture; Finis!

Hey Folks. Well, here they are, finished at last. I had intended to post these the day the illustration was done and dusted but time got away from me...still looking for it in the studio but I fear it may have escaped out the door. I'm back to the penguins in the top panel of the diptych now, so shall post the progress when enough of it has changed to be worth your viewing. Cheers for now. RWS

WIP - Lower Panel of Diptych - Vulture Culture

Howdy Folks! When last you visited I had just begun to lay in the various blues and some of the yellows of our vultures in the lower panel. Most of the blues are now complete and it's the yellows that I'm working on. (And that's a lie Rory! As of yesterday, I have only the cat - at left of the composition -  to complete...haven't downloaded the latest progress pics from the camera as yet...sorry....will do so later today. Won't fib in this blog anymore either...promise.)

I've never asked any of the illustrators I know, whether they tire of a piece they are working on or not. This one I'm afraid, has me wishing it were well and truly done...it's taking too long...so much detail and the technique I use for water-colour involves laying down glaze after glaze of colour to build the depth of colour and give a nice luminosity to shadows...so it's my own fault really... isn't it? (My impatience is also fueled by a new project I'm itching to begin - more on that closer to its commencement.)

Well, hope you like it thus far and promise I'll get that pic downloaded from the camera today and posted tonight. Oh, and as our former Prime Minister would say, "It's not a core promise". I'll do my best though...okay?

Cheers. RWS.

A New Work in Progress (Penguins & Vultures)

Hey Folks! Here's the next illustration(s) in the Birds of a Feather series I've been working on. The vultures, having been sent away by the Gate-keeper of Eagle Neck House, as undesirables and uninvited guests, have crept around the boundary wall and are sitting by a broken pailing fence at the rear of the property. They are hidden from the view of the penguin caterers and waiters - always squabbling - by a low hedge. The "naughty" vultures are dreaming of all the food they are going to eat once it is laid out, in all its gastronomic splendor, on the tables of the marquees down by the lake. Hope you like what you see. (The vultures are hoping on the other hand, that they can gate-crash the party before the other birds can get their beaks into the grub.) Cheers. RWS.

Oh for an A3 Scanner

Hey Folks! Just sitting and wishing for that which I cannot afford...

I'd love an A3 scanner sitting here on my computer desk. It would be so much easier than the scan, cut and paste I am currently forced to do when trying to get high res copies of finished illustrations. No, I couldn't possibly draw and paint on a smaller scale, my eyes aren't up to that, not even when wearing my glasses. Enough of my scanner wishes and medical problems.

Today I'm posting some preliminary drawings of intended illustrations for my Birds of a Feather project. You've viewed a few of the finished colour pieces I've done so far, so I thought I'd give you a peek at some of the rougher stuff.

All of the following images are drawn on heavy tracing paper in pencil, so you'll have to contend with graininess and a little grey cast here and there. I've cleaned them up as best I could in Photoshop but the starting point for the clean up wasn't the best either...I've got a new A4 (!) scanner but it's no where near as good as my last, very old, but wonderfully versatile, Cannon 5000 F. It died a natural death - old age - a few months ago...yea Gads but I miss the thing!

Well, here follow the promised scans...forgive the quality please.

Cheers. RWS

WIP Birds on a Lake. 4th & Final Instalment

Hey Folks. Back at last. No it hasn't taken me this long to finish the picture...a bit busy.

Well here we have the final in progress pic along with the finished piece. I'm quite pleased with the end result mainly because it turned from a painting problem and into a rescue mission. While squeezing some burnt sienna onto my palette, the end of the tube burst - more like exploded! - sending pigment all over the artist, the drawing table, floor and yes, all over the half completed illustration. Needless to say there were a number of words that passed my lips and they weren't sienna, burnt or raw, in colour.

Well I managed to overcome the panic and rescue the painting...just!

See more images from this project here

So here it is Folks, in all it's rescued glory. (The grotty staining still perceptible on the illustration board, is evidence of my cover up mission.)

Cheers. RWS

WIP - Birds on the lake; installment 3

Hey folks. Two posts in two days! A record.

The images are really self explanatory...you can see in an instant the progress that I've made over a couple of days. Because of the technique I use - multiple translucent glazes - it takes roughly a day per major figure's costume...Slow? Yes. The end result however, is, I think, worth the time and labour. This illustration is also going slower than is usual and this is due to the multiple lighting sources and reflections...lots to consider when laying in colour...each figure, or group of figures, is subject to light in different ways; depending upon where in the composition they are located and whether there are objects that would cast shadows.

Hope you are enjoying the journey. I know that I am.

Cheers. RWS.