Return of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 46

Week 46: Endangered

Freehand composite sketch in waterproof black laundry marker on watercolour paper, with painted watercolour highlights. References were photographs found in Google Image searches.

Update:

Week 46: Endangered II

"New Zealand Kakapo." Sketch from a photo, found in a Google Image search. Drawn freehand (no pencil lines!) with a black laundry marker on green card. Background is watercolour spatters (around a temporary paper mask). Highlights in watercolours.

Week 46: Endangered III

"Count them while you can." Lions in gold Quill Metallique card, cut "paper doll" style, initially with two tails each, then elements removed and added to break up the symmetry. Details in black Sharpie and white Puffy paint. Count them while you can, 'cos they are disappearing!

Week 46: Endangered IV

"Mr Minotaur thinks about organising a snack." Drawing in finepoint black Sharpie. Highlights in watercolour on white Quill linenbond, collaged onto cream "marbletone" card.

Return of the 52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 21

Week 21: Stripes

"Pinguins". Pinstripe tuxedo penguins, freehand-cut from photocopied pinstriped material, collaged onto a salted watercolour background, with handmade paper ice mounds, white Puffy paint eyes, and black finepoint Sharpie details. Adjusted to grey tones in Photo.

It actually felt like one of my simpler collages. Glad I went with photocopied fabric and not actual fabric, as I think the edges would have frayed. The sky was my second attempt at salting (didn't realise it had to be rock salt, but this time I raided my salt cellar and it worked quit well!) Turning the blue section to monochrome was actually an accident in my new Photo app, but I liked the effect. The original sky is a gentle blue.

Update:

Very excited that my "pinguins" (above) were reposted by the TOFOP gang, the Facebook page for Wil Anderson and Charlie Clausen's hilarious "Thirty-Odd Foot of Podcast"! (Charlie once revealed, in an early episode, that he couldn't say "pinguins", and it became a running gag.)

Week 21: Stripes II

Here's "The leopard who changed his spots". Freehand-cut tiger (from the patterned paper cover of an old sketch pad), decorated in black Sharpie and white UniPaint opaque markers, watercolours, and then collaged onto red handmade paper with some fur fabric remnants.

I finally glued down all the elements. I was so scared I'd wreck something! Sometimes collage has a mind of its own. I must say, S. John Ross, the late Silhouette Man of Luna Park Sydney, is my inspiration when I'm freehand cutting shapes out of paper. It's very empowering to create with only scissors - and no pencil guidelines or erasers!

Week 21: Stripes III

"Barber shop, Ann Arbor, Michigan". Watercolour with black and red Sharpie markers and white opaque Signo. I photographed this traditional, rotating, striped barber pole in winter, during a vacation to my penpal's home town in USA. Loved the row of outdoor chairs for waiting customers - rain, hail, sleet or snow.

What's cookin'?

Any idea what's bubbling away on my cooktop? I'm dyeing two customised puppets!


And this becomes...


... this!

Yes, they are a pair of customized puppets, now dried in the washing machine spin-drier. The completed bat has wings cut from brown felt and the new eyes are flat beads in a pink plastic, Supaglued over the original black giraffe eyes. 50 cents for a packet containing lots (of future replacement eyes?) I love bargain shops!

The panther's eyes are some teardrop-shaped yellow plastic "jewels", originally bought for a different project. The only reason for turning a tiger into a panther was to give the bat a dunking buddy, and use up the leftover dye.


These two new additions (above) look rather sedate after the cooking pot episode!

The Year of the Tiger this week

Our students at school celebrated Chinese New Year this week, and the Tigger cushion from the library couch - and my synthetic tiger skin rug - made cameo appearances in the annual K-2 celebrations.

Big cat dreaming

Big cats mural, behind bars, on the wall of Mount Druitt Office of the the NSW Department of Education & Training.

I pass this clever mural - I love the way it incorporates actual metal bars - every time I attend a regional meeting at Mount Druitt Office. Tohight, it was just on dusk when I walked by, but it still photographed well in the fading light.