Lone tree near Langverwacht

 Pen and watercolor on paper, 10 x 15 cm:

I haven't done much in watercolor, so it's a medium with which I'm a bit out of my depth. But it's also a medium that can give lovely results, so I'm considering practicing a bit, to see where, if anywhere, that will get me...

In the meantime, I also get up to all manner of other stuff on the web.

R707, Free State

 Watercolor on paper, 5 x 7 inches:

I have been playing around with watercolor, a monstrously difficult medium, but a very attractive one. 

Mini sketches

 Bunch of small sketches in pen and watercolor, ACEO (2.5 x 3.5 inches):

Random bits and pieces

I can't always just work for the market; I'd go crazy that way. I'm an artist, not a money making machine. And thus, in between, I make time for all manner of random things. Like a fun hobgoblin:

It's the evil hobgoblin from Hans Andersen's story The Snow Queen, with his magic mirror. I may just get it into my head to do a whole set of illustrations for the story, which is on eof my favorite Andersen tales.

A portrait sketch:

And some quick studies after Pieter Bruegel, the Elder, and artist whose work I have long admired:

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...

Garden sketches

I went out into the garden, and sketched whatever caught my eye. Ballpoint pen with watercolor pencil.

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!

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!

Snowman

A fun little experiment in watercolor on cardboard, 15 x 21 cm:

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:

Cape Cottages

Fisherman's cottages, Western Cape. Pen and watercolor, 5 x 7 inches:

Flying Things

Studies of marabous:

And a helicopter:

Pen and watercolor on printer paper.

And a few more

Some more random sketches in ballpoint pen and watercolor, on printer paper:

A few random sketches

Some sketches in watercolor on printer paper (which works perfectly fine for watercolor sketching, if you don't mind a bit of warping and they don't have to last into geological time):

Loosely copied after an original by Pieter van der Westhuizen (1931 - 2008); I went straight into the watercolor without making any sort of preliminary sketch, so it's not exactly accurate. But it forced me to loosen up a bit, which was partly the point.

And a similarly loose copy after an oil by Maggie Laubser (1886 - 1973), whose work I admire:

Sketched from various reference photos; I first made the sketches in ballpoint pen and then filled them in with a few washes of color:

Quick sketches

Some quick sketches. I got hold of one of those cheap children's watercolor pan sets, and wanted to take it for a test drive, so I put an egg and two cherry tomatoes on the table, sketched them in ballpoint and splashed some cheap watercolour over them. I think even the cheap colours may come in handy for sketching.

And then a portrait sketch of Ryan, the son of friends of mine. Seven is not the best age at which to try sitting still for more than ten minutes at a time, so I had to work at breakneck speed, and there was no question of making corrections! 

Pencil on paper, 20 x 15 cm:

Endless changes...

Scarcely did I decide to shift my artistic operations to DeviantArt, or I have reason for second thoughts.

I very much like the layout of DA, and the way its galleries work. But it is also a very big umbrella, and I have noticed that lots of the artists there produce some pretty extreme adult-oriented art. I don't personally mind such work at all, but many people do, and I don't want anyone to get into trouble because they ended up viewing more than my own gallery!

I also noticed that DA's discussion forums are positively infested with neo-Nazis and other kooks, cranks and assorted nuts and dolts.

I'll probably continue to make use of their gallery feature, but for the moment I'll be here again, on a more regular basis.

So, let me first play catch-up, with an assortment of some of the stuff I have been up to since I last posted art work here.

Some more drawings:

Small pencil drawings (18 x 13 cm)

And ballpoint pen:

I like the medium, but it has a tendency to fade. I do notice that nowadays, lots of professional artists make use of the medium, and opinions vary somewhat as to how permanent such drawings are. If kept behind glass and out of direct sunlight, they'll probably last reasonably well; I am not too sure.

Some attempts at somewhat more detailed pencil drawings:

I have never been much good at these - I tend to prefer rapid sketches. But they are a good and necessary exercise, and now and then it is fun to sit back, relax, put on some soothing music and spend a few hours with a subject.

A pen and wash sketch as birthday gift for a friend who wanted a picture of a Tuscan-style window:

I also made a stack of these that I turned into handmade greeting cards. Here's a selection:

Some recent adventures in acrylic painting in a next post...