Return of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Bonus Challenge

Tickle the Imagination magazine is running a bonus challenge this week, on the theme of "Cocoon". The upcoming winter issue will have a home focus, and 20 of the editor's favourite illustrations will be included in the issue.

Bonus Challenge: Cocoon

Cartoon sketched in black Sharpie, painted in watercolours. Brown paper and watercolour paper collaged onto handmade paper.

Return of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 4

Week 4: Insects

Mixed media collage, with potato printing and sponging in acrylic paints on brown paper bag and black card, decorated with white Signo pigment ink and black, green, silver and gold Sharpies.

Update:

Watercolour cartoon on damp watercolour paper with mixed media and black Sharpie.

Week 4: Insects II

Black "Stained" Sharpie ink on dampened watercolour paper, painted in watercolours with white pigment Signo highlights.

Week 4: Insects III

52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 34

Metamorphosis roulette: cocoons often look alike. Will I get a butterfly, or just a moth? Collage of torn card, crumpled brown paper bag and watercolour paper, black Sharpie, lettering in Word, and a light watercolour wash.

Week 34: Butterfly

Update:

Black ballpoint, watercolours, opaque white Signo. Childhood poem recreated in Word. From an era when all children's poetry had to rhyme. The poem was selected for a book that my primary school teacher-librarian, Janette McKenny (later Mrs Mercer) created the old fashioned way - and had bound in leather. "Just One More". I have enquired of the school and it seems to no longer exist. The original artwork pages for each poem were coated in egg-wash and I suspect it may not have withstood the decades. The butterfly above, of course, was painted this week!

Week 34: Butterfly II

Stained-glass window butterfly (in black card and cellophane layers - four original pastel colours of pink, yellow, red and blue) flies over my back garden - near the tree that inspired Tree Week. The result is way more subtle (and better) than originally intended. I was on my way to the newsagents to buy traditional sheets of cellophane giftwrap (with its vivid translucent colours) but ended up at the Chinese bargain store, buying four rolls of cello. But the unrolled portion was revealed as being so pale as to be almost transparent - and it took four layers to reach any kind of intensity of colour!

Week 34: Butterfly III

Blooming what?

Unknown flowering plant in a hanging basket. When this was purchased from a garden centre at Batlow, several years ago, it was a mere stick, with one flower on it. Despite a short unproductive time at first, it blooms very successfully these days. When photographed, the flowers appear as if they are delicate butterflies!