Hello! I am still alive.

Hi everyone! Wow...I've been gone a year...a whole year! I don't believe how much time goes by so fast. Feels like when you are a child, time just crawls by so slowly and when you grow older, it speeds up much to quickly. I am sorry for my sudden departure from my blog, but I am back. I've missed you all so much!

I guess I needed some time away while I thought about my art, where I'd like it to be, where I really want it to go and generally to sort my whole life out. And I finally think I'm ready to tackle tackling the whole art business seriously, because, I realized during my working days at my day job, that it's where I truly want to be. So, I have been around the interwebs on various social sites that are my regular haunts, and trying to improve my work. I think I am finally getting better and to a place on how I want it to look.  I am totally looking forward to sharing that progress with all of you. *big Internet hugs*

So! I guess you could call this illustration my first after a whole year away. Looking at it, it has turned out to be a turning point drawing where I feel I've changed so much.

 

 

 

This little lady is called "Bewitched". She was for an October auction on Facebook last year. I am happy to say that she found a lovely new home. One of my first successful sales in a long, long time.  She was done with pencils and white ink on Deleter Art paper. She actually took nearly three months to finish! But, that was probably due to a hectic work schedule at the time.  When you work in florals, you come to dread the holidays. *laughs*

 

 

So again, so happy to be back! I hope all of you have been well? Cannot wait to catch up on lost time. See you all very soon! Cheers!

Portrait of a Lady

Good Tuesday afternoon! Finally feels like summer here in Vancouver, after a rather chilly start to this month.  It is very lovely to see the beautiful sun and feel it's kind warmth.  Also been pretty stormy in a lot of other places this year, eh?  Those of you that have been through some harsh storms already,  I hope you are all well and safe.

So, I posted this a little bit back on Facebook..(which I've been naughtily been on more and more lately.)  Since I had started a picture book for my mum, as a gift for her birthday back in May,  I soon realised that I wasn't going to finish in time.  So, I created this as a backup drawing for her.  It was finished about three days after her birthday and I was so happy to finally give it to her!  She loved it.  Which makes me more happy. *laughs*

I wanted to go for more realism this time around and found a gorgeous photograph in a hair magazine and just could not resist the call to illustrate it myself.  The fur ruff was quite the process!  I started out with flat pencil rub and slowly built up the lines, then took a fine pointed eraser to create highlights in the ruff.  That process I did several times over, until I was eventually happy with how it looked.

I didn't want to overdo the background or do something that was too busy and have the woman disappear, so I kept the background simple and uncluttered.  I kinda really liked doing more of a realistic style and so want to do another like this at some point.  It was so much fun!

I've been pretty busy lately working out the kinks to my book, revising the writing and characters; and, been have loads of fun creating maps and drawings for it.  I never thought map making would be that joyous to do!  So far, things are going slowly, but surely. ^_^

I wish you all a wonderful and sun filled day!  Cheers!