OCEAN in all it's glory!

Ta Daa!!!

I am so delighted that I've had lots of page views while I've been doing this, it's been very encouraging. I had the joy of discovering my boat could float and took some photos of my little man, in his boat, in the 'ocean'...

For now this was trying out an idea really. To develop this, I need to think about how I can create more of a sea for the boat... On the other hand, I did want to combine illustration with using everyday surroundings (like the bath) as props - just like I would have combined my imagination with things around the home when I was a child - like when playing with dolls in the bath for example. I'd like to take the boat out on location and photograph it in a pond setting!

I'm so glad I decided to share this with the world as I was doing it. If I hadn't have announced I was going to blog and tweet as I went, I might have given up at the toilet roll paper mache point!!!

Thankyou again - anyone reading this - for looking! :)

OCEAN just about finished!

Goodness me... Well I'm delighted I have got all the bits of my illustration finished and ready, I'm leaving the final coating of glue to dry overnight (I want the boat to be waterproof!) and can put my image together and photograph it in the daylight tomorrow!

Can't believe I got this silly little boat finished! It took hours and most of them were spent thinking 'what am I doing...'!

This is a little bit of it... Will post the finished result - including ocean.. - tomorrow! Hooray! I'm going to have some chocolate now.

OCEAN part way through...

Crikey. Well I think I underestimated how long this would take but the design has continued to develop in my has as I'm going along... So I said a one day project - it may be literally 24 hours yet!

I've stepped away from the paper mache for a late lunch. As a child I used to wonder why I loved watching Art Attack but never really tried to make any of the things on the programme. Now I am glad I didn't. That programme really was a little dishonest about paper mache. It takes forever!!! And that bit where Neil Buchanan would cover it in tissue at the end and it would magically make it all white and lovely and ready to paint, that has turned out to be the least fun and stickiest messiest bit so far! Really enjoy the bit with paper though, therapeutic and fun.

I'm spending ages constructing this little boat for my illustration even though it's only a part of it! But I like a challenge and am trying a new way of constructing an image.

Having great fun despite the rant about paper mache. Did feel reminded of how nice it feels to get PVA glue allover your hands then peel it off.

OCEAN - one day project

As some of you might know, I've been exploring creative boundaries recently and experimenting with ways to well, diminish them. One of the most common creativity stiflers (don't know if that's a word but it is now!) is fear of something not going right. So I've decided today that I'm going to do a little experiment to face the fear of doing something that might fail and it being public. Maybe some people always work like this but I'm fairly new to blogging and tweeting so I've never done this before. I'm going to blog as I respond to this week's word from Illustration Friday - Ocean. Wish me luck...

12.30 pm

I want there to be a little rowing boat involved.

I had an idea last night about ways to combine illustration with reality, the way I combined imagination with reality whilst playing as a child. I want to open out from how I normally work flat on paper/screen and start bringing in other elements and materials. So I thought the old Blue Peter toilet roll might be a good thing to start with..! This is all the rough plan I have.

My kind of maths

Some more sketchbook pages, from a little pocket sized sketchbook I also use... I found these mathematical diagrams which I thought could be fun to see what I could make them into!

Abracadabra

I've got my thinking cap on

A man in my sketchbook

I've been working only in my sketchbook recently to try to concentrate on my own creativity and not think 'preciously' about finished outcomes (or rather to think as little as possible).

I've been thinking a lot lately (and researching for my MA) about how I can create as freely as possible and how things like the materials I use might influence this. These square sketchbooks I get from Paperchase have a slight scruffiness about them that keeps me from entering the 'this needs to be perfect' mode! These are a few of the pages from my sketchbook that I did recently, of/about a little man I've started drawing - a slightly eccentric man who likes to dance and collect antique furniture.

For a sketchbook experiment, I flicked through journals in the library and found charts and diagrams etc, things I could subvert/draw around/cut up. This is how I did the second and third images, while working in the library.

I asked at the service desk (where they sell stationary) if they had any tracing paper and they didn't, but the security guard (who was chatting to the service desk man) said 'you could use toilet roll, the toilet roll here is like tracing paper'. I laughed but thought it was actually a good idea. So that's what the man on the sofa was drawn on!