New Design in Three Colour Palettes

After making some drawings from plant subjects, I came up with some stylised shapes to play with.

I made a cut paper and mixed media collage with hand decorated papers, using the coneflower seed head shapes (seen above at top right); then used digital manipulation to come up with the following colour palettes...

Neon Bright

Muted Greys

Yellow and Grey

I have added these designs to my Redbubble and Society 6 sites, where they can be purchased on merchandise or as wall art.

Sketchbook: Trying Out New Media, and Making Simplified Versions

On a trip to Melrose yesterday, I found some Neocolor II watersoluble crayons/pastels in a charity shop. I thought I would try them out in a few sketches. The colour glides onto the page like wax crayon, but is soluble in water. I think that the advantage over watercolour is that you could take them with you and make a quick colour reference sketch on the go, without the need for water. Back at home, you could add water if appropriate. The Ultramarine pastel turned out to be from the Neocolor I range and barely dissolved at all.

These are a couple of earlier sketches taken from a photograph I took in Mungrisdale in Cumbria.

The left hand sketch is made with coloured pencils - quite hard to get any depth of colour or tonal variation. The right hand sketch is made with my current favourite: POSCA pens. They are very opaque, with strong pigmentation. I just have a set of 15 pens with the 1.8 - 2.5mm tip, which forces me to simplify forms and colour choices, and forget too much detail.

Some more POSCA pen sketches taken from my photos of plants and jackdaws. I'm trying to evolve almost abstract representations to use in my artwork. There may be one or two useable ideas amongst the scribbles!

Sketchbook: Dock Leaves

I always admire the colours of the dock leaves at this time of year. These ones were collected from our road verges. This study is in watercolour/Aquarelle pencil on A3 bamboo paper. I was concentrating on colour and pattern in this piece.