Here are 2 months of illustration challenge entries. They are still losing out to my daily doodles for time and effort but some of them turn out well. In fact once more I have been one of the picks of the week! All but one of the entries over the last 2 months I have drawn from imagination, which I consider to be progress. Only the magpie was based on a photo, and even that got suitably altered.
The prompts were as follows: week 14 – camping, week 15- ocean, week 16- mirror, week 17 – collector, week 18- grandmother, week 19 – adventure, week 20 – still life and week 21 – ink.
Week 21 – ink is the week for which my image was selected as a pick of the week. You can check out the 52 week illustration challenge blog here to see the other chosen images for that week and all the other weeks.
Week 21, Ink. A pick of the week for this prompt! This was all going to be in black but my pen ran out part way through. I’m glad it did, I like the blue. Done straight with alcohol based marker pens and a spot of white gel pen.
Week 20 – still life. Here’s some sunflowers from memory as mine haven’t grown yet; done in children’s felt tip pens.
Week 19, adventure. Every book is a new adventure. A quick pencil crayon sketch.
Week 18. Grandmother. Here’s my take on the classic grandmother idea. Biro and pencil crayons.
Week 17, Collector. One of nature’s great collectors is the magpie, and also very pretty; I don’t know why they get such a bad press. Pens and pencils in my A5 sketchbook.
Week 16 – Mirror. I call this sketch ‘Mirror, Signal, Maneuver’ I don’t know about the rest of the world but that’s how we’re taught to drive in the UK. Biro sketch – I decide to forgo colour this week as I wasn’t particularly happy with the results last time
Week 15 – Ocean. The deepest ocean is still largely unexplored. This picture features the following: vampire squid, giant tube worms, gulper eel, giant squid and a hatchet fish. I’m still working with limited art supplies which is a shame as I liked this picture until added colour.
Week 14- Camping. Telling scary stories by torchlight. This didn’t turn out exactly like it did in my head, but like every good workman I am going to blame my tools. I am on holiday with very limited art supplies and now my black pen is suffering.
Tuesday 01-03-16. A spot of fan art. I went to see Deadpool and thought he would suit a simple sketch. It got more complicated, nothing seemed the right colour.
This month I managed my greatest illustration achievement to date, and that was to be one of the editors picks for the week for the Illustration challenge. I was truly chuffed, you can see my picture amongst the other picks for week 9 – watercolour of the illustration challenge blog.
Below are my 5 entries for March, as usual with me some of these I think are good, others were rushed token efforts. But I am still on time and have not missed a week and I am duly impressed with myself. The prompts were as follows: Week 9 – Watercolour, Week 10 – Animal, Week 11 – Mother, Week 12 – Non-dominant hand and Week 13 – Movement. I am without a scanner at present to the images aren’t the best.
Week 9 – Watercolour. I haven’t attempted watercolour in many years, and as luck would have it I don’t have any watercolours to hand, so I went more with coloured water. Black and white gel pen and some cheapo pencil crayons. Based on a photo I found online. Delighted to be one of the picks of the week for this prompt.
Week 10. Animal. Pencil crayon and gel pen, the usual for me. This does have a pale blue background but the scanner is too harsh to capture it. The quality of the entries this year is immense, quite intimidating really
Week 11, Mother. A mother is one who teaches you to ignore the recipe. Gel pen, felt tip and a touch of crayon.
Week 12, non-dominant hand. Well this was harder than expected, I’m usually quite handy with my left, apparently not for drawing. Gel pen and pencil crayon. Tip for you all, don’t try and write in gel pen unless you are in control, it slips and slides everywhere; I had to switch to biro for the writing.
Week 13, Movement. Once a physicist always a physicist I guess. Gel pen and pencil crayon. I do love a pendulum wave.
Below are my efforts for the February’s 4 weeks of the 2016 illustration challenge. I seem to have been cutting the deadline pretty tight on these so some were a little rushed but over all I’m pleased with these. The prompts were 1920’s, Printing, Kindergarten and Horizon. As a I mentioned last month, the standard is really high and next month I’m going to add a few of my favourites for the month assuming I get their creators permission.
Week 8 – Horizon. Some line art using a black gel pen. I’ve titled this ‘Lead Me to The Horizon’
Week 7 -Kindergarten. Nothing more fun than crashing things together. Gel pen and pencil crayon. It’s a shame he looks almost old enough to go to college.
Week 6 – Printing. Last minute digital drawing showing the eternal battle between man and printer. Finger drawing on my tablet.
Week 5 – 1920’s. Classic gangster, marker pen. I’m happy with the simplicity of this.
I may not have posted my doodles lately, but I have been drawing them. So now that I have finally got around to getting them onto the computer, here they are. There are a lot of practice collection, cartoon faces, eyes, noses mouths, feet, hands. But also several drawings done as a favour for a friend and a few random sketches that took my fancy. I did manage to end the collection on a splash of colour which I am very pleased about after days of pencil sketches.
I don’t know if I ever mentioned before, but with these and the 52 Week Illustration Challenge entries, I don’t get a re-do. I have one page of my sketch book assigned to the task and I have to make the most of whatever I end up doing; I cant just start a new one if I don’t like. It helps to keep me focused and settle on one image, otherwise I could be forever chasing a better doodle. I just though I’d mention it in case you’ve ever wondered why there are sometimes pictures that don’t quite seem to fit in.
Tuesday 23-02-16. A colourful boat. Finally the return of some colour to my doodles. Marker pen.
Monday 22-02-16. The last of my doodles at a friends request; to be used to represent a tapas work shop.
Sunday 21-02-16. I really like this one. I was experimenting with line thickness. I think perhaps some colour would be good. Gel pen.
Saturday 20-02-16. Vaguely based on Humphrey Bogart. I really was just after someone sat down to practice awkward perspectives on.
Friday 19-02-16. Trees as a favour.
Thursday 18-2-16. Trail running as a favour.
Wednesday 17-02-16. Caught an old version of Pride and prejudice. Tried a quick sketch for that genre.
Tuesday 16-02-16. A sketch to represent massage, for a friend.
Monday 15-02-16. Sketch to represent yoga. At a friends request.
Sunday 14-02-16. Fircone sketch for a friend.
Saturday 13-02-16. Just some extra practice at eye shapes really.
Friday 12-02-16. Cartoony eye practice.
Thursday 11-02-16. Mouth practice, still a week area of mine in terms of expression.
Wednesday 10-02-16. Nose practice.
Tuesday 09-02-16. Quick mannequin style sketch.
Monday 08-02-16. Hand practice.
Sunday 07-02-16. Sketch of an illustration challenge entry I really admired.
Saturday 06-02-16. Feet practice.
Friday 05-02-16. Cartoon face practice. The girls are just generic but the guys are meant to be Aladdin and Tarzan.
Below are my efforts for the first 4 weeks of the 2016 illustration challenge. I must admit some of these are a bit half hearted. The standard this year so far has been intimidatingly high.
Before Christmas I mentioned I was working on some Christmas crafts, and after flicking through a few old posts and photos I realised I haven’t shared the results of my efforts, so here they are. These were all given as gifts, one was commissioned by a friend; the others I made for my siblings.
Based on one of my favourite entries in 2015’s 52 week illustration challenge. I made a new version and added a cat.
An unexpeted creation. I threw down a bunch of watch parts and it looked a bit like a bike so I went from here. I’m quite impressed with the shapes.
The collection. The big picture is a painting based on awful photos of myself and my sister painted on old crate wood. I actually created a program to discretise the colour scale of the photos to aid in creating this style.
One of the base pictures for the painting.
The other base picture for the painting.
Comissioned by a friend, graphite drawing of her niece
2015 is nearly over, and I have managed to do the last 3 weeks illustration roughly on time. Go me!
I have enjoyed participating in this and shall continue with next year’s challenge hopefully completing all weeks on time, unlike this year.
The link for ‘The 52 week illustration challenge’ blog page is here if you would like to see the rest of the world’s contributions, or are considering participating yourself.
Week 50 , party. Felt tip pen, black gel pen and a spot of pencil crayon. It’s not a party without a hat.
Week 51, Family. Felt tip pen. Felt tip pen and black gel pen. I am currently working on the most awful paper in the world.
There’s no greater indication that the family are home than the massive collection of shoes at the door.
Week 52, world. The last illustration of the year! Pencil crayon and black gel pen.
It’s the world.
In an oyster.
See what I did there.
I’m on track! I submitted last week’s on the 8th and this week’s today (10th)- ahead of schedule for me.
Week 48 – warm (2nd-8th December), is not one I enjoyed, I saw so many cups of hot drinks, log fires and the like that I just couldn’t think of anything and so put it off until the last minute. In the end I rushed a quick drawing as you can see. Not my best piece of work but it’s something.
Week 49 – History (9th-15th December). I had many more ideas for this one and decided to get on it early. It’s not quite what I had in mind but overall I quite like it.
Next week’s prompt is party and I have many days to come up with an idea.
I joined the illustration challenge back in August during week 32 which had a prompt of fabric. The weeks run from Wednesday to Wednesday and week 47: Play has just closed. Below are all my entries so far; you’ll notice I have filled in some earlier entries, and missed a few later ones, such is life.
Week 47: Play. I don’t like this one much but hey ho.
Week 45: Peace. Gel pen drawing then coloured digitally.
Week 43: Monsters. The monster selfie in felt tip pen.
Week 42: Instrument. I like this gel pen drawing.
Week 41: Sweets. Gel pens again.
Week 38: Fauna. Pencil sketch.
Week 37: Geometry. Not my best doodle, the gel pens were very gloopy, but it fulfilled the brief.
Week 36: Dance. One of my favourites, the Robot Dance, pencil crayons.
Week 35: Botany. My one and only painting amongst this lot. Acrylic on black paper. I like it.
Week 34: Japan. Purely digital drawing with my finger
Week 33: Mythology. Really dislike this drawing and considered not putting it up.
Week 32: Fabric. I like the pile of tartan fabric drawn with pencil crayons.
Week 4: Insect. Soft pastels and some digital touch ups, inspired by the cult hit Firefly.
Week 3: Retro. White gel on black paper, works quite well I think.
Week 2: Italy. David. Another purely digital drawing.
Week 1: Fairytale. Felt-tip pens and markers. I like this, is she the heroine or the witch?
