Heads and cows and things

I have been rather busy drawing illustrations for the latest children's book I'm working on. In between, made time for the Instagram "100 heads" challenge. Here are #12 - 15:

And a selection of the illustrations. The mostly empty pages will be filled up a bit with text. That, at least, is the present plan. The thing has not quite come together yet; I may or may not make extensive changes:

More sketches and illustrations

A few more sketches for the Instagram "100 heads" challenge thing:

And some more illustrations for my latest children's book. Lots more still need to be done:

New experiments

I have been rather wildly experimenting with all manner of things. I am developing ideas for an illustrated children's story:

The first of the above is in acrylics on cardboard; the second in watercolor. I am more inclined toward watercolor. Other attempts with acrylics did not work out quite satisfactorily. Illustration is really a new thing for me, and it's a quite different skill set from "fine art" (i.e. stuff intended to be hung on a wall). Thus a little journey that is both fun and frustrating at the same time.

Two more in the #100heads Instagram challenge. Due to lack of time, these heads are going to have to be pretty sketchy:

Studies of cattle, as preparatory work for the illustrations - the story will feature a cow:

And in between the cattle, some studies after Hergé's Tintin books. No time studying Hergé's work is ever wasted!

My latest sideline, Chinese brush painting:

I can't get hold of real Chinese brushes around here, so I just used a pointy western one. But this is yet another steep learning curve. The style is not nearly as easy as it may look!