Illustration Friday - Duet

This week's Illustration Friday was 'Duet'. For this theme, I decided to stray away from my usual digital illustrations of people and draw some birds in a style I love - tattoo art. Swallows are often used in tattoo designs and here I drew this swallows duetting a song together. This image was made with graphics pen and watercolours.

Illustration Friday - Toy

This week's Illustration Friday was 'Toy'. As soon as I saw the theme, I realised I could explore my new passion for vintage advertising. I created this poster in Photoshop and Illustrator as a tribute to the old fashioned posters of the 40s and 50s. 

On the version above, I added some free dust and paper textures to make the poster look worn (to add to the vintage feel), but the original version with no textures is available to view below:

Illustration Friday - Cultivate

This week's Illustration Friday is 'Cultivate'. Immediately I decided to put my spin on the theme - I had the idea to show a human being caring for herself in the same way we care for plants, which also highlights our vulnerability as a race.

A long time ago, I was a pixel artist, and I decided to revisit my pixel art roots with this piece. I used a lot of neutral greens and beiges to make the image seem natural and green to fit the message.

Illustration Friday - Stir

This week's Illustration Friday was 'Stir'. I immediately had the idea to play on the word, and use the idea of stirring from sleep, as opposed to the action of stirring something.
I also tried a very simplistic colour scheme, deciding to use purer, more pastel blues to illustrate the freshness of the morning. Since I left a lot of white on this image, it was very hard to add a background that didn't distract from the image.

Illustration Friday - Warning

This week's Illustration Friday theme was 'Warning'. My idea was to take the traditional 'Warning' sign, and use it to warn of something different, like the nudity of my subject. Censorship is something I feel really strongly about and I like making art that reflects my views. I also tried a different feel to this piece, trying a different hair colour and overall colour scheme to contrast the bright sign.

Illustration Friday - Swarm

This week's Illustration Friday was 'Swarm', and I had the idea to try my hand at typography. Instead of the  traditional swarm of bees, flies or locusts, I decided to make my image out of lots of butterflies. I really love typography, and I'd like to explore it further in my future work.
Pick of the Week - Thank you so much :]

Illustration Friday: Layer

This week's Illustration Friday was 'Layer'. For this I had so many ideas, I found it hard to choose just one, so I tried combining them into one image.Here, the 'layers' are the colours, as well as the pieces of the face e.g the eyes, and the skull that is on display. This shows all the layers of the body on display.
I also added the arms behind the body to give the drawing yet another dimension. The whole image, to me, has a surreal feeling, which I haven't really experimented with before.

Illustration Friday: Sweater

This piece was for the Illustration Friday theme of 'Sweater'. I decided to do a more sketchy, whimsical piece instead of an illustration, and sketched up this little guy, lost in the vastness of a too-big sweater.

Illustration Friday - Reverse

This week's Illustration Friday theme was 'Reverse'.
My idea this week was to do a mirror image, where one side of the image is the opposite of the other. I decided to use a mirror image of two women - one happy, one sad - which I based off of photographs of myself.
I did this piece in graphics pen and went over it with water to blur and bleed the ink, though the effect isn't so apparent in this photograph.

In a crit, I was told to:
- Improve my picture quality as the photograph isn't so clear, or up the contrast in Photoshop so the image is easier to see.
- Photograph my work in a sketchbook instead of pulling it out.

Illustration Friday - Surrender

This week's Illustration Friday was 'Surrender' - easily the most inspiring theme I've had so far. The theme gave me the freedom to explore one of the avenues of art that I truly adore - macabre art. I was hit with this idea immediately, and after many days of hard work I finally arrived at this result.

I've placed my illustration after a jump, as the subject matter may be sensitive for some people.

Illustration Friday - Dusty

This week's Illustration Friday theme was 'Dusty'. I drew this image in Photoshop, trying to get a slightly watercolour-like effect with the colouring. 

Illustration Friday - Chicken

This was my entry for this week's Illustration Friday with the theme "Chicken". I showed this to my Graphic Design class at college, and they said to:
+ Add colour, though some people liked it in black and white.
+ Remove the double hyphen next to 'This Time It's Personal'
+ Clean up the lines to make them smoother and better joined.

The next theme is "Dusty", I'm excited to see what I can come up with next!