Friday 30 March 2018

Autumn Treasures

Autumn in the southern hemisphere. I have long loved weathered late-season leaves, and this time of year there is such a glut one doesn't know where to start. On my morning walk, I collected a bagful, and sketched some in ballpoint and watercolor pencil...


Wednesday 28 March 2018

Tuesday 27 March 2018

A YUGE cow

EDIT, 27/11/2019:

The book announced below has since been unpublished, so it is no longer available at Amazon. I have decided to make it available for free at a rather nice little website I just discovered, called Storyweaver.

My latest children's book, Itumeleng and the Moo-normous Cow, is finally available!



You can read the first few pages on my Books page here.

An Afrikaans version is also available:


It's a bit of a departure from my previous books, in that it is extensively illustrated. I had so much fun with it, I think I'm going to stick to this format for a while!


Monday 26 March 2018

Blossoms and butterfly

Another experiment in Chinese style, following a tutorial I found here. I'm thinking of using it as art project for a bunch of middle school kids:


I didn't have a suitable red, so the blossoms came out a bit too scarlet!

Saturday 17 March 2018

In the meantime...

I have been rather busy, getting my latest children's book ready for publication. It's the first one with lots of color pictures, so there are all manner of technical considerations of which I knew little when I started out, so I am going through a rather steep learning curve, so I have little time for much else. But I did try to fit in some experimental bits and pieces and random sketches.

I now and then indulge in these rather relaxing and meditative pseudo-mosaics, done in ballpoint and colored pencil:



A botanical sketch:


A quick colored pencil sketch after Van Gogh:


And some experimental watercolors, after YouTube tutorials:




I hope to put final touches on the new book by the end of next week, but who knows - things always take much longer than planned!

Monday 5 March 2018

Sunday 4 March 2018

Pomegranate

Just about time I got a bit of oil painting done again. Oil on board, 25 x 20 cm (= about 10 x 8 inches):