Sunday sketches - rainy days

A new direction

I've desperately been trying to combine my love for portraits, life drawing, fashion illustration and strong women. And I think I'm getting there. I've a long way to go but I hope that this is a start of a new direction for me. I hope you will join me on this journey.

Sunday sketches

Not really the weather for this woolly hat! But I like it.

It's getting hot in here

It's hot and humid and the rainy season is upon us. It's hard to keep cool. This sketch illustrates how hot I feel just now.

Sunday sketches

The original scanned-in drawing - looks much lighter than original

Colours adjusted slightly to reflect original

Colours adjusted somewhat more

Sepia toned

Colours adjusted to fiery orange tones

I am super busy during the week now building up my PR and marketing business, so only have a small amount of time each week to be creative. Yesterday it rained heavily, which was the perfect excuse to do some sketching and then play around on paint.net. Which version of this illustration do you like best?

Inspiration - Samantha Hahn

I haven't had the chance to look through many blogs recently, which is frustrating. But last Saturday I managed to squeeze in a couple of hours to browse through the amazing work that is on the internet. And Samantha Hahn is just one of the great illustrators that I found. Her work is colourful, delicate and feminine. Samantha's style is very much her own. Her blog contains mostly fashion illustrations but she recently posted some fab sketches of the Eiffel tower. She updates her blog regularly and it's a good read as well as being beautifully presented.

Look what I found

What a great find! My friend Fi found an old portfolio of mine at her house in Edinburgh, which I had fun poring over when I was back in the UK. Most of the work was pretty poor and I left it behind but I liked these images and brought them back with me to Hong Kong. I actually didn't recognise them as mine! I think I drew them from glossies about ten years ago. But the first one might be a self-portrait. They've made me want to do portraiture classes again.

She's got legs!

I had to get my photos taken for my new business. I really don't like getting my photos taken and in my head I am far prettier than I actually am. I was a little disappointed with the results. I look a lot heavier in the photos than I thought I was and I have a double chin!!! So this post is to celebrate the bits of my body I do like. My legs!

Which part of your body is your favourite and what do you do to emphasise it?

Hats off to you!

Aah big floppy hats. Gotta love them! I look terrible in a hat. Always have. From woolly hats to sports caps. I just look funny!

What kind of hats do you like?

I heart monochrome

Miss showers

The weather in Hong Kong has been cranked up to HOT! We have the air con on most days. And I missed the opportunity to buy a little raincoat, which seems to be one of the fashion items for Spring. So I drew one instead! In hot pink, as that's my favourite colour!

Have a great weekend!

New faces - my creative space

Last week I did the sketch below and told you that I would play around with it. And here are the results!

The original sketch.

In stripes, THE fashion story for 2010. I'm stripe mad - I have five stripey tops and two stripey jumpers so I'm very happy!

I'm kinda liking this blonde version of the sketch.

I adore the orange and grey together.

And this teal blue and grey is good too.

A little Italian flavour, inspired by watching The Sopranos all weekend.

And finally, this one is for an old friend from Scotland who now lives in the US and who bought this sketch!

I'd really appreciate your feedback on whether any of these would make a good print.

Dim sum and then some

The dim sum ladies on the island

Morning from sunny Hong Kong! I got up extremely early today so I could have dim sum for breakfast to ease the pain of getting back to work on a presentation that I have to do tomorrow. Cha siu bao and ha gow are my favourite, which is basically pork bun and little shrimp dumplings. Yum! This food definitely makes everything seem so much better.

I was working on the presentation yesterday too - it's a toughie - 30 minutes! But stopped for a little break to do this sketch. I think I'm going to play around with this sketch later today....watch this space.

Remember to enter the COMPETITION! Details are in the blog entry below.

What on earth is my niche? Do I really need one?

Lola art print - A4 size - US$20


Lempicka in red art print - 4 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches - US15

NEW - Curvy girls rule art print - 71/2 x 8 1/2 inches - US$15

Today has been a struggle. I am struggling to take good photographs of my new and existing prints. Above are some of my new photographs and they all look like I am standing on one leg! I am also struggling to find my niche and whether it is important or not to have one. As you can see above, my work is varied!

I get inspired by everything I see and do. I get really excited about something and then I start creating. But then I find myself going off in too many directions. I'm a natural yellow positive personality who will give you five ideas rather than one. But the problem is I have no niche!

What on earth is it? Do I even need a niche. My background is marketing so I feel obliged to have a niche. But does it really matter. I see artists and handcrafters all the time with niches... ;-( but I don't have one!

But then this morning I came across this from SCRIBD:



Maybe I don't need a niche after all.

What does everyone else think?

Mad Men and Sunday sketches

I've had a very lazy weekend. We've not done very much because I was sick yesterday and today it has been raining heavily. So this afternoon, we watched a little of Mad Men. I'm still not sure about Mad Men. While I love the sets and clothes, it's all a bit slow for me. But it's a nice way to spend a lazy afternoon and I did a little sketch inspired by the 50s clothes.

J'adore Garance Dore! - a new weekly post

Hi there! I am inspired by everything I see. And from now on, every week, I will share with you some of the most beautiful work from the internet.

My favourite artist at the moment is French fashion illustrator and photographer - Garance Dore! Her work is breathtakingly beautiful. If I could draw half as good as she does then I would be a very happy woman! I love the image below as it has so much energy in it. And I love the colours.

Lempicka in H&M

This is a sketch of a woman from a Tamara Lempicka painting. This pretty lady is wearing a lovely jumper that I bought from H&M that I find too scratchy and itchy to wear! I must say that it looks a lot better on her!

Groovy baby

I drew this 60s sketch in ink and pencil (top left) and then coloured it in using my computer (using Paint so that's why it's a bit rough). The image below was created by a free ap on my iphone - silly but fun!

Fashionable lady

This is a quick sketch I did in ink. I scanned the sketch in, then made two copies - I filled in her eyes and lips with ink for one of the prints, the other in pencil. Both give very different looks!

I plan to spend this afternoon creating a new Queenie Bee portrait. Watch this space!