Smaller Works

I hope everyone has been having a lovely Easter and enjoying the break. Yesterday we had our egg hunt as I mentioned in the previous post, that went well and the Easter bunny left lots of cadburys creme eggs in the garden (I think he even left one for me ;0) it didn't take Max too long to find them and I gave him a bit of help as we were rushing out to a family lunch. It was a really lovely Easter Sunday - good food and company.

That's us half way through the Easter holidays here and surprisingly I've had a fair bit of time to do some painting. I've been doing a mixture of A5 pieces and also some ACEOs, I really like working on a small scale I have to admit. I'll share with you the smaller ones today and I'll probably pop back later in the week to show some of the larger artworks.

This little lady is called Dance Through Life and I painted her on a 4 x 4 inch square (approx) I don't usually paint on squares. I thought she looked like she had been twirling and just stopped.

I created two new ACEOs - the first is called Thought Bubbles, I think I always feel like I go through every day in a bit of a haze, I like the abstract shapes and mark making surrounding my ladies to give a feeling of this, I'm sure I'm not the only one - I hope!

The Second ACEO is called Mind Alight, it's about ideas coming into your head, I think the pink swirls look a bit like fireworks.

I've put these ladies into my etsy shop at a reduced rate for a limited time. I've also been quite busy this week on custom orders and hopefully there will be a blog post coming very soon to show these, I don't like to blog about custom orders until they are with their new owner and I know they are 100% happy. I like getting custom orders because I love to have a bit of a brief to work to and it's always a bit of a challenge to put my own style with the ideas someone has in their mind.

Heart and Head Fights

The last time I posted I showed you that I was doing some experimenting with acrylic paints, well part of me wishes I had never started. Don't get me wrong I was quite enjoying the painting and I even listed a couple of them in my shop but it's led to a dilemma in my head - you see I realise when I paint lighter, cuter work more people 'like' it- more views etc and my head says to me if you created more upbeat whimsical paintings you could maybe sell more.

But my heart says no. What I really want to do is draw girls with sad eyes and smiles at the edges of their mouths, little bursts of emotion that come right from inside me - like the moments when you've been sobbing and someone makes you laugh through your tears.

I've been down this road many times, the road that says do what you love, even if only a tiny amount of people love it too. But the lane off this road that I wander down through my head says create to sell. So what am I - an artist that creates from my heart or someone who wants to one day create a business using my head. I wish I could make up my mind, or my heart.

Papergirl Manchester - Help Japan Art Sale

The Help Japan Art Sale has been set up by Papergirl Manchester to raise money for the Red Cross tsunami appeal. Designers, illustrators and artists from all over are donating a mixture of items including prints, bags, artwork and t-shirts all of which will be available for sale at Common from the 31st March until the 3rd of April. Work will be for sale at affordable prices with every penny going to the charity.

The deadline for posting work in is the 25th of March and work can be handed in up to the 27th of March. I posted this drawing away this morning, nothing like leaving things until the last minute!

Emotion and Expression

I have been playing around in my sketchbook lately with trying to capture emotion through expression. I want my characters to have feeling behind them, like they have a story to tell.

I have been finding inspiration from some previous work, work that has been quite spontaneous and true to my mood at the time. I think these pieces link nicely to my current exploration into emotion. I think beauty is supposed to lie in a symmetric face but I've been trying to create ugly cute creatures by keeping the eyes a little bit different from each other.





Work in Progress

I've been busy this week drawing out little characters in an ugly, cute fashion- mainly rabbits, cats, owls, little creatures and girls. I've listed one or two items in my new etsy shop- mostly drawings, illustrations and aceos. I'm not planning on opening a Folksy shop for the time being as its one step at a time and I have a lot of work ahead of me. I really enjoy the layout of etsy with the activity information and the system that is set up when people heart you. Most of my work has been in gouache with pen and ink but I'm also exploring using some acrylic. The pictures below show a couple of my drawings.

The photo below shows my working space at the moment. The house is starting to look like a studio and its been a long time since any food has been eaten off the dinner table!