Flawed

I've been painting up some of my #illo_advent drawings lately.  It's amazing to see the ones which work on a larger scale and the ones that don't.  Or is it because I'm not used to painting so my efforts are still hit and miss?

Each colour layer is painted separately in black gouache, scanned and coloured digitally.  I like using a traditional medium because of the unexpected marks and mistakes it creates.  Flaws.  I like flaws.  When I work digitally I always end up tidying too much.  This is a way for me to loosen up.  

If you happen to be frustrated by your process and want to loosen it up too I suggest playing with a new medium for a bit.  Recently I've been enjoying crayons and felt tip pens in limited colours.  I haven't found a way to incorporate them into my work yet but I've learned to enjoy the lack of control and enjoy the flaws.

Winter Blues

 Heres my finished #illo_advent for 2020

Have a lovely Christmas.  See you in 2021!

Some of the designs are now available as a set of notecards.  Click here to go to the shop.

Illo Advent

Every year on Twitter a bunch of illustrators get involved in #illo_advent.  The task is to draw an image every day leading up to Christmas.  And all things festive are welcome.  

I've done the advent in the past and have learned that by limiting my colours and the size of my images it's a more a more achievable and enjoyable task for me.  It also means that I don't spend hours on each one.  That can happen.

This year I'm using two coloured pencils (polychromos, if you're interested) and white gouache.  The images are about 2.5cm wide by 5cm tall so there's no room to fuss.  I'm trying to draw something I see every day so my village and the surrounding area feature heavily.  

Here are my Winter Blues...so far.

They're hard to photograph well but here's a shot of a few of them together.

Click here to see my ghost of illo_advent past.