and the last of a months worth of diary...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!....XXX

and more snow today!...

I'm hoping to get back into doing my college work again soon... although I am constantly thinking about it, all I seem to be doing this week is the diary entries and tying up ends before Christmas.

Dear diary...

and the last couple of days...I've realised that I have to let go of what I would like to draw and paint and draw how I naturally do without expectation. The more I do the more I will learn and improve!

daily diary

here's some more entries... I've had Roko for a few days so we've been out walking with him too, which Bo loves.

and some new sketches from today

Bobo and I headed to Falmouth to pick my collograph prints up and stopped at Pendennis Castle and did a wee walk around the moat and did these on the way. We say a family of red kites too which was amazing to see... and hear them calling to each other too!

new diary entry

I've done this one separately as I really like the feel of it. It is similar to work out there now but I feel good as it came out naturally without a thought to how it would look, so I can now move on through this and see what else comes out... I'm hoping that the more of these I do, the more sophisticated they become. Without losing the innocence and immediacy of them. This one is a real step forward and I want to go out and sketch more landscapes...

Collagraph work shop...

Georgina Hounsome came in and gave us a workshop on making a collagraph print , which was amazing!.. I'm hooked!.. every layer was fun to do and the results are great too. Mine are drying at college but one print I did I actually really like the template I made so here it is. I will post more up when I ge the prints back... I want to work into them more with detailing so I can't wait to get them back...x

I got them back and they're above!

Those Extraordinary events when walking the dog!

I've decided to create a diary sketchbook. Everyday I walk Bo I see something that stands out from everything else. Whether it's a colourful leaf, dew dropped spiders webs or a rainbow on the horizon....soooo I've decided that I would do one illustration a day, and only one. From this hopefully after time, I will get some ideas for Bobo's book and the paintings can maybe inform my college work too...

I also like that they look a little vintage. I'm going to to try and retain this when I make a book from them.

My Finisterre Sastruga features in every one too!

moving forward...

....and some more college work. I feel like I've leapt a huge leap in the last couple of days and here's what's come out.. really enjoying these and can see them moving forward even more... applying the paint strokes to different content and seeing how I deal with the images.. for these I have used reference from photographs in Oh Comely Magazine, because it was too wet and cold outside to draw from life, but I simply picked out shapes and colours that I like and small details. Using the space and composition to give the shapes and colour weight.

some new sketchbook work

I've been out sketching from life a couple of times now and feel like I don't ever want to work from pictures again... It can be annoying when you get paint all over yourself and it's raining but the results are great. Even if you don't like what you've done immediately, bringing it back to the studio and scanning and messing around with them is fun! here are some of the results...bringing a few different sketches together is fun too!

also doing some work (in progress) with Bobo too...

V&A and a new Durge!

Here's another version of Durge and the finished book cover we printed for Lauras book! I'm soo chuffed with it. Really tactile and Steve has entered it for the V&A book prize!... fingers crossed...x

some new paintings....and trying to do what comes naturally

Well... I'm trying not to look around and just do what comes naturally for a week or so and see what comes out! I've enjoyed doing these and like the colours...I'm battling between two styles at the moment but maybe they'll come together or one will win the other over? or they could be two bodies of work showing the same thing but in two ways? they could alternate in a book format maybe? the one with the girl is the before I painted over it... the character was putting me off.. Now I look at it I quite like it? oh well! just felt a bit too twee and obvious? I like the ambiguity of the others for the moment!..

At the same time I'm working on my book for Bo...I like these images but not sure on the story yet.. and these would be sketches...