Here’s a recent look at my painting of a filthy section of waterfront across from the ritziest shopping district in Mumbai. I’ve added mainly neutrals and some lights… not the brightest whites yet, I want to build up the texture and colours first. You can see how it looked before this step here.

I’ve just started on a new painting for our living room from a photo we took in Mumbai, India three years ago (below.) I’m working with acrylic as they are safer to work with around my toddler than oils. And we can share so setup isn’t a big deal – a squirt of paint for Hera, and a squirt of paint for Mommy! The only challenge is keeping Hera from helping me paint my painting, hee hee. The lovely thing about working in acrylic is it dries so quickly, so I’m able to hang it right back up on the wall and be able to consider my next “moves” between paint sittings.

As you can see, after about 40 minutes Hera was tuckered out, so was a very short & sweet painting time!

Tip : Something I learned from Kiff Holland while in college, painting your canvas a bold colour to prime it gives you a fun surface to work on. As you paint over top, leave little flecks of the original bright colour peeking through here and there to give some zing to your painting!

I just finished this illustration for my diary of Hera’s stuff, and thought I’d share the simple technique I use for colouring pen illustrations in Photoshop. Clicking on the images below will bring up a close-up image.

Step 1 | Open the scan of your drawing in Photoshop, and create two new layers below it. One will be your background colour (I’ve used white here), and the other will be for painting in the colours of your drawing.

Step 2 | Adjust the brightness and contrast until the paper is as white as possible.

Step 3 | Select the background of the sketch with the magic wand tool, and delete it. Make sure all little bits of paper speckle are removed so the colour comes out nice and clean.

Step 4 | Set the drawing layer to Multiply. This will allow the colours below to show through your drawing, and make the pen work come out nice and dark as it multiplies over the colours below.

Step 5 | Use the magic wand tool to select the background of the sketch. Then invert the selection so that you have only the drawing selected. Feather the edges of the selection (Menu Bar > Select > Feather.) Click on the blank layer below the sketch (multiply) layer and fill the entire sketch with a predominant colour.

Step 6 | From here in, apply colour to this colouring layer whichever way you feel comfortable. Applying colour on its own layer(s) makes it easy to adjust the colours later while keeping your drawing in its original condition.I use a combination of the paintbrush and the magic wand / lassoo tools to select areas from the sketch and fill with colour. You can experiment and go as elaborate as you want with colour, shade and textures.

Here’s another illustration of a cute dress that sadly Hera’s grown too tall to wear, now part of my diary of Hera’s stuff. Ink with digital colour.

We often go camping on the Murray River in Berri, SA at Bookie Cliffs… the water’s as brown and murky as can be, but being the only fresh water to swim in around here, not to mention the beautiful red and yellow cliff face, it’s a welcome change of scenery. Last weekend when we made the trip again, I brought along my watercolours and managed to squeeze in an hour long study of the cliffs. I don’t get many chances to study landscapes on site, was fun making the most of Hera’s naptime! After that, Hera was very keen to “paint” with mommy on the beach, and that I paint “e mama bear e baby bear” holding “hands.” I even had a bit of fun sketching her while she enthusiastically flipped through my Australian bird guide…. until she noticed that what I was doing was more interesting than what she was doing and insisted that I draw her “hand,” which I was all to happy to oblige.

Wow, I just watched the trailer for Riley’s Lost Tooth… I’ve never had an animated trailer made of my work before, is a bit weird and cool at the same time seeing your characters come alive and move! Here’s the Riley’s Lost Tooth trailer on YouTube. RLT is currently at the printer, am waiting eagerly to see how the finished product turns out!

This was another of my favourite dresses of Hera’s, and was way too complicated to attempt illustrating with pen & digital colour, so again did a watercolour study of it for my diary of Hera’s stuff. I don’t feel I did the pattern justice, but at least captured the warmth & feel of this cute little garden dress.

This dress was one of those great eBay finds for like $10, and Hera wore it till it was falling apart and faded :) I liked it so much I decided to branch out from the ink & digital colour technique to do a watercolour & white pencil study of it for my illustrated diary of Hera’s clothes.

I stumbled upon Polyvore a couple months ago, and have found it really intriguing (and a bit flattering!) seeing digital crafters using some of my artwork in their collages. Polyvore is meant to be a sort of interactive magazine, where you create your own visual style collections “Mix & match products from your favorite stores.” Then you can “Shop looks created by the web’s largest fashion community” by browsing through links provided to where the images originally came from. But from looking through how the site is actually being used, there are a lot of very personal collages being created which have absolutely nothing to do with fashion! It’s so interesting how these things develop and grow beyond their original intent. While it was a bit disconcerting at first seeing my illustrations used without my permission, I like that Polyvore is very good about putting up links to and crediting the artists of the original “pieces” within the collages.

The above collage, “Together…” by WendyG Short Hair Contest!, uses a drawing I did of myself and a woman I met in India who guided me through the wells of Abhaneri (shown in the film The Fall.) Also by the same artist is “Opa’s Best Friend” which uses a teddy I illustrated for my diary of Hera’s stuff. The collage below, “i.am.dreaming, let.me.never.awake” by light.my.saphire, uses my art nouveau inspired butterfly drawing.

Well, Spotty & Eddie have headed out for another adventure… off to Trafford to be published & printed! Was very satisfying finishing up the illustrations and layout right before the holidays, and then after having the author, friends & family put a fresh set of eyes on the book, made some minor improvements to make the book “just right” before sending it off.

I had a lot of fun working on this story… aside from drawing turtles which is so much fun, I like adding little personal touches like using my red sneakers and Hera’s top & necklace for inspiration for Trixie’s outfit. Trixie herself is inspired by a photograph of the author’s mum. I grew up watching the Ninja Turtles, so personalized the cab driver’s license plate to “TRTL PWR” for those other children of the 80’s who may read this book to children of their own.
Looking forward to seeing Spotty & Eddie’s second adventure printed and in my hands finished Here is a sneak peek at a few of the final spreads from the book (clicking on them makes them larger.)