Out of the Blue Arts Market!

Yesterday I shared a stall at Out of the Blue Arts Market with Claire Macleod. It was really good fun, as she's a lovely lady and it was just generally quite a successful day! Will afford to get a Christmas present for the boyfriend ;)

I said goodbye (among other things) to two paintings. One was the Wolf Hat and other one I haven't published here yet, so there it is:

Future is Now

My current project at college is about what we think we will do in future... I will have a (rein)deer farm. Obviously.

(Acrylic paint and inks on card)

December!

It's here! I've got my Advent Calendar, do you?!

July

I just had to do at least one underwater one! And here it is :)

Since there were no mentions of Riennahera lately, it's about time it happened. So: it is her blog's birthday today!

Other than that, Harry Potter was pretty brilliant. I wanna go again!

June

It's my birthday today, so you get one of my favourite pictures :)
I'm also going to dress pretty, paint my nails, be very girly and see Harry Potter today, whoo hoo!!

May

I think I am currently on the verge of stressing out like, TOTALLY MAN. In the meantime, have a pleasant May picture for you to relax (as I will probably not do). And even though I have so many things in my schedule, I still have the knitting urge to fight off. Oh dear!

April

I am currently trying to finish off all the calendar diaryness in InDesign - which has proven to be fairly challenging, but I mostly got it now, so I it will not take ages. Neither now or next time I decide to do something like this. I was trying to find a way, so that I would not need to:
a. Number each page with month day
b. Manually type in each day of the week (eek!)

And it worked! Yes!

Latest next week I will post photos of actual final piece. Yesss!

October

Not much to say here - it is my favourite tree :>
All drawings are complete now, I just need to make the calendar/diary out of them! Woop! Should have it all done by next week. :)

January

It's been a few (very busy) days. I have them all done now, it's just a matter of getting stuff scanned... Perhaps tomorrow, since today, I was busy pretendng to be Al Bundy (as 4 people now have pointed out), yesterday I was pretending to be a hard-working art student (in fact I am horrendously hard working slave to art), and other days... Things weren't quite ready yet.

This one is Riennahera, again. I never get bored of drawing her, and I don't think she does either. If you get bored of it... Well, tough! Some are not based on her though, just you wait!

September

Another month. I have almost completed this mini project - I only have a couple of drawings to finish off. They will appear on the website in one bulk once they are completed... Perhaps. ;)
This one is actually one of my favourites. Outfit again - Riennahera's. There really are a few in there that were not ripoffs ;)

March

This is a very special one with brazilian tapir baby. It has nothing to do with march, but is super-cute. And outfit again, comes from fabby Riennahera, who got A2 in Latin. We are all very proud.

August

Continuing the theme of posting the images of months during an incorrect month - I present to you August. Outfit as seen on Riennahera last August ;)

The Hub

One of he most characteristic buildings around. You can see it from the illustration studio at college, and last year I had the pleasure of working in there :) First one of the more properly "underwatery" buildings. More is yet to come!

Today is going to consist of doing some college work (this is the "plan" for pretty much every day, whether it goes according to it or not is an entirely different matter) and doing fun things in the afternoon with Riennahera.

Polar Bear!!!

It's great to finally have a day that is not completely planned from morning till night time. And it's not just that I'm not at work. I have been pretty busy trying to fit all my projects, dissertations, college work etc into my very tight schedule :P today is a chilling day and I will do whatever I feel like doing (obviously, only the things from my Things To Do List - quite a lot of them are enjoyable anyway :))

Anyway, this is the treat of the day - drawing I did for February for my diary/calendar project. I have set myself a deadline to have it done for 10th of November. Might be a tough one, but we'll see. I have jsut started working on the next picture (August - summery for a change. I think I need summery a little bit).

Yellow + Sea

These are two of my favourite so far pictures of buildings. I played a lot with them both and they are the sor of thing that I would quite like to do later on - not necessarily for this project, but surely at some point.

I am finally feeling a bit more settled in my new job too (shoe shop! Mondays and Wednesdays, quite perfect even in last year of your course). And for Halloween we watched (with Mr C) Zombieland, which was quite disappointing after all. Either more guts spilled out or more funny things would have been good... But generally it was so-so. Popcorn we made was pretty good though ;)

ROVs

Remotely Operated (underwater) Vehicle

After questioning Pete what you'd do to investigate deep sunken things - apparentely this is the way!

Pics from Wiki. I unfortunately haven't got one at home to do lifedrawings of.

(Although now that I think of it, I think I do have some photos of similar things from Stockholm's FANTASTIC diving museum :) )

Drawing Journal

It's all about paint mark and line.

Drawing journal is current college project. It is meant to be researchy-connected to our main project for the year. I decided to just do a series of drawings that will be connected with my main project by a theme, and also use it as a field for researching and working out the way I will draw/paint the final illustrations in. Some of those drawings I like quite a lot, so I decided to put them up here :) It is all drawn in a little journal book which I made specifically for this purpose - it has days of the month marked on each page. Some of the drawings in it are just on one side, others are on both - but since it is a book, there will be a line dividing it in the middle. For the first time this doesn't bother me :)

(almost) November

Following a request by Group 2 Gosia, I am dropping painting (not really) and putting up some more of THIS.

This one here is first one in months series I started and this is November. I also have January (or February, need to decide still), but it isn't scanned yet. I kind want to make diaries or calendars with these things... But we are yet to see what comes out!

November always makes me think of Day of the Dead/All Souls Day and visiting graveyard - which is what we always did as a family to visit my grandfather's grave. Also that's when the Autumn kind of ends and Everything Dies!! Probably just hibernates, but that's nowhere near as dramatic.

New layout!

Oh the glory of the new layout! I wanted something new and something Autumny - at least more than the last one.

Also check out the TWIN SISTER (although not identical twins) layout I made for Riennahera!

Now I should just crack on with new website design for my portfolio... Hmmm.

Jam, baby!

I am thouroughly regretting not making any jams this year. Although last years delicious strawberry-rhubarb was a bit of a failure, as it never sealed properly (so I had to have lots of strawberry rhubarb jam within 3 weeks, which was best before time suggested by my jam master - granny J).

Instead I painted some... I really like the colour scheme in this one.

Wolf Hat & some website talk

Ohhh, he's angry!!! I wish I could be where he is. And have the hat.

I am really struggling for good walk areas near where I live. The closest thing is the Canal, and you can have really pleasant walks along there. I need proper FOREST though. One you can go in and get a bit lost. Back home there were loads of forests you could go into, finding old cementeries and walking surrounded by trees for hours! In Edinburgh - the local places are nice, but they all seem pretty busy. Pentland hills are great too (got lost there quite a few times, hihi), but then they are a bus drive away... The world seems to be against me today.

On the less interesting note, I am planning on changing a few things on the website, menus, portfolio bit etc... And I spent about 5 hours today messing with code, preparing it for the changes and there is actually almost nothing noticeable about it, apart from the portfolio bit which might seem a bit bare/cluttered now (to be changed soon). At least the actual changes will be now well easy to make... Once I get round to do them.

Bees, Zombies and a Haunted Bathroom

The other 3 illustrations for the same project as wolves (which was to illustrate 4 out of 10 bizarre stories). I do have some studies for those final illustrations too, but they are nowhere near as exciting as the wolves ones!

The stories were about: bee beards, a new course called Zombie Studies and a bathroom that was posessed by Satan (or so believe the owners) who apart from watching people wash would turn off the heating in the room. Shocking!

Wolves - the final illustration

Final illustration for the wolf thing. It's an illustration for a text about this couple that lives with a pack of wolves... There weren't many details in the text on how it is technically meant to work. The person that wrote it was more keen on making fun of those people, as opposed to giving accurate information.

Wolves 2

A few more observational drawings leading to the final piece :>
Ink on paper.

I really enoy coming back to this medium, it used to be my favourite when I was younger.

I wish I would live somewhere where you can actually come across wolves. Near a forest or something. What I get at the moment is nowhere near as interesting.

Autumn Cat

I don't really now what to say about it - the weather outside is miserable yet again (the benefits of living in Edinburgh), there isn't many trees around where I live that would look this pretty... I just felt like doing some autumny themed things and cats are cute. What more would one need?!

Acrylic on card, my favourite medium I suppose ;)

Also on Etsy.

Pink Bulb

Painted this last year. Acrylics on card, framed. The frame also hand painted :)

No background story for this one, really. Just been plaing with layers and colours (the flowers on Bulb's outfit).

It's not in my usual style. And all the pink is actually neon pink. Pretty cool, eh? ;)

Here on Etsy.

Wolves

...though not in the walls.

Some research drawings for current college project. Quite fun drawing these, I say.

Inky pen.

Mariella of the Forests

Came across this recentely.

Over a year ago I started writing this very complex fantasy story with a lot of separate plots that would eventually come together with a big BANG and... Thats roughly where it ended, in planning stages. In my great A4 hardbound sketchbook. I have a few designs of characters that were meant to go in it, some plot bits and bobs written down, but generally the whole story went 'on hold' because I decided to focus on Eelcat for the time being. And then... I looked at the sketchbook few weeks ago and really want to work on it again! Although I doubt much will come out anytime soon, as a warm up - here's Mariella, the girl that talks to dead people or something along those lines.

It's black and white acrylic paint, some arty pens and pink eyeshadow. Oh yeah!

(the study of medium it was done in suggests that it was in fact done about 1,5-2 years ago :P)

Recycled Saloon Canvas Bags!

This is going to be a fairly long post, prepare yourselves! I present...


This is a set of canvas bags I did a long while ago for a specific saloon/recycling event, which was organised by Alchemy Arts. (The Fi's sister :)). I have sold quite a few of them since on various occassions, but now that I finally got myself together and made the etsy store, they are all available on Etsy! I just really wanted to put a post together with all of them and have them all exhibited in one place - both ones I no longer have and ones that are still for sale. So, here we go!

Here's the first one of them - Malin and the Eelcat! Or to be more precise, Malin and Linda dressed as cowgirls. (If you click on the name it will take to to more photos).












Next one in line is the slightly shy Red Lady (number one, as there is another red beauty).















This one here is the Green Girl! Nature loving cutie.
















Then there is the Pretty Purple!






























And the Red Lady number two! (She's out of stock)


And finally, the Blue Bimbo... Or is it?!
















Model is obviously Riennahera :)


One last thing I'd like to say is that Malin and the Eelcat were finally updated (and I am intending to do it on more regular basis now - yes, again...)

Dark Forest

A pretty new addition to my sketchbook.

I was feeling a bit down and after trying to draw same thing about 5 times and still not being happy with it I just started a random scribble and this came out. Miles happier with this one than the monsters that came out (and I will never actually publish as they were just rubbish).

I am trying to come up with new design for my main site, since that one is very dark and I got a bit tired of it. And it's so black and white... I want something autumny. I have some ideas (especially after scrapping the idea number one that just wouldn't come out right - as mentioned above), but I think it will still be a bit until I actually do it. And autumn is almost here!!!

In the meantime I am reading one of my favourite books ever - Moominvalley in November. You can only read it if it's cold and miserable outside though, otherwise it won't be the in the quite right mood.

Rainy Royal Mile

It's pretty miserable in Edinburgh today. Raining and all that, just makes me want to snuggle up on sofa with a cup of tea and read Moomin books. (Which sadly, I don't really have time to do).

This is a painting from a cuople of weeks ago, posting today because it fits the dreadful weather...

Morningside Makers Market

This month I had a stall at Morningside Makers Market. It was the very first time I did anything like that (I mean, I has been on stalls, just never had one with only my stuff on it!).

I was selling cards, prints, canvas bags and some original work. Overall it was a great experience, but I think I have learned a lot too. I'm glad that at least my stall didn't look empty (thanks to advice of Carmen of Craft Reactor :) )

If you didn't make it but are dying to buy my work, some of it will be available on my Etsy store :P

Here's a couple of pictures:



Special Great Thanks go to:

• Laura D., for spending 4 hours with me cutting cardboard, putting stuff in polypockets and doing other highly uninteresting things

• Riennahera, for spending even more hours with me at the stall keeping me company (and looking after it when I did a home-run caused by me forgetting my business cards