Birdface

In between work-for-pay, I’ve been doodling. This drawing was prompted by thinking about the difference between being highly strung, and hyper aware:

Introducing Porcupine

More work in progress illustrations for The Broken Path:

This time, a character called “Porcupine”.  She’s standing in front of the fountain in Company Gardens, late at night.
The first few lines:

Then the rest is painted in using only black and white:

The drawing is nearly done:

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Broken Path cover: Work in Progress

I finally got going on the design for the cover of “The Broken Path”.  It’s a challenge, as it needs to work on its own, and look similar enough to the cover of “The Story Trap” so show that it’s a sequel.

Rough sketch:

Interesting things happen en route, I like the fresh look of this hand by itself, and the black version is also interesting:

I’m playing with doing an open version of the hand as well:

And this is what it looks like at the moment. Very unfinished still:

A night visit to the museum

Another work-in-progress for my book.  This time, depicting a scene where a witch visits the Museum of Natural History after hours.  This is not a finished drawing. Not happy with it yet, but it’s getting there

A story about a little girl and her dog

Work in progress: the first of the “plates”, or  full page illustrations of significant moments in my book.  Here Rebecca tells her sister Pippa a bed time story, like the ones she used to tell when Pippa was a little girl.

 

I do these drawings by hand on paper first, then scan them in and paint the rest in Photoshop.  I like working in black and then erasing the excess away to create a sort of lino-cut feel.

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Chapter Crabs

Working on the little drawings that will go at the end of each chapter.  Something like this, maybe:

Here is another one:

 

Story Drawings for The Broken Path

Yesterday I started (at last) the illustrations for my book The Broken Path.  Just rough pencil sketches so far. This is a scene where Rebecca tells a story to her sister Pippa:

 

And a whole lot of crabs:

 

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Drawing on my phone

A whole new medium for me to discover: drawing on my phone. Actually, drawing directly with a
finger on a touch screen is really tricky.

Glowing Girl with Branching Thoughts

This is the first drawing in a long time that was for no particular project.  Started off not knowing what would happen and just went along till it seemed finished. Today was a public holiday, so no teaching for me.  I indulged and spent some hours doodling on Photoshop while listening to “Widdershins” by Charles de Lint.

Grey roses, shadows and chains

This might be it: the cover for my new book The Story Trap.  Is it finished?  Not sure. I’ve been working on it all day and can no longer see it.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll look at it and start changing things again…

The big change from previous version is the pattern in the mirror, the roses are completely redone and no longer pink, and I’ve inserted more shadows.

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Another step closer

I did some more work on the cover image for my book.  Not finished yet.  But closer.  The plan was to put an open eye in the mirror she’s holding but it just did not look right.  Much better empty.

I was listening to Ursula le Guin’s “The Tombs of Atuan” while I drew this.  Quite appropriate :)

Cover image: Attempt number one

Severely unfinished!  First attempt at a cover image for my book “The Story Trap”

Pippa gets a digital haircut

I trimmed Pippa’s hair.

She used to look like this:

In the story, this is the moment when she’s just climbed over a gate into somebody’s backyard and is about to try and break into their house.  She’s wondering why they have no burglar bars…

Pippa with lavender

OK – so this is a drawing of a character in my story called Pippa.  Except that I imagined her with short hair when I wrote her. Whoops.  Will probably have to give her a digital haircut.

Lizard on her way

Some fan art

This is a portrait of one of Debora Geary’s characters – a girl called Lizard who features in “Witches on Parole” and “Witches under Way” which I’ve just read.  Lizard is a poet – so she should have had some words among her tattoos.  Maybe those will still arrive