Illustration Friday: Future

A quick pen and ink drawing, with digital colour, to get back into Illustration Friday. We’ve had a few day-job conversations involving E. Nesbit’s The Story of the Treasure Seekers, (due to: Albert-next-door’s laconic uncle; the name-checking of the characters in the first line of C. S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew; and a delightfully unreliable narrator)  so there’s a mildly Edwardian twist to this image.

There have also, however, been several recent discussions touching on Lovecraft, which may explain the sequel image below.

 

Illustration Friday: Egg

The morning I went on holidays, I received a new illustration job. So that took care of what to read on the flight, and I spent much of the downtime between weddings, touring Melbourne with my mother, driving to the ACT and hanging out in Canberra working on sketches and making some test cut-paper swatches. So this week’s Illustration Friday picture was made at my older sister’s dining table with note paper and a box cutter. But it was (a) done and (b) posted! Several Illustration Friday pictures of late have only made it halfway.

Also: here is the latest cover o’ mine to be announced! Catherynne Valente’s The Bread We Eat in Dreams, from Subterranean Press. A process post will come in due course.

 

Illustration Friday: Wool

Another cut-paper illustration, to experiment more with shadows and try out some new paper (80gsm – some recent pictures were on something closer to cardboard). It was easier to cut, although not of course as robust.

I’m working on more pen-and-ink illustrations at the moment, too, it isn’t all silhouettes! But I have some possible projects in mind for the cut-paper, and Illustration Friday is always an excellent opportunity to practice techniques and ideas – how much detail and movement can be put into a small image, whether I can draw sheep…

 

Illustration Friday: Storm

A tiny (5cmx6cm) cut-paper illustration for Illustration Friday. This is (as so often) a test patch for several other projects, one of which is working on capturing the shadows cast by the paper rather than dropping them in digitally. I do not, however, have a modern functional camera, so this is taken with my phone, and assorted living room lights, and the picture raised by a piece of kneadable eraser. I may need to call on some photographer friends to show me the way. Possibly if I cut the picture to a larger scale, getting a decent resolution for print would not be an issue.

 

Eclipse Online illustrations – October and November 2012

In 2012, Jonathan Strahan relaunched his anthology series Eclipse as an online publication, Eclipse Online (through Nightshade Books), showcasing two original short stories each month. He asked if I’d like to be involved and I said yes (possibly with more vehemence than that implies!).

So, since October, I have been drawing two spot illustrations a month, for stories I am very lucky to be reading. I do so much reading for illustration that I don’t always get to read stories I’m not illustrating. The two, I am happy to say, overlap surprisingly often, but I don’t always know in advance that they are going to! And these are stories I’m so glad I haven’t missed out on reading.

October

The first was “The Contrary Gardener” by Christopher Rowe (fellow Steampunk! contributor, a story of a high-tech agricultural future with an ending which was not what I had come to expect from stories in such worlds. I sent Jonathan a selection – we went with the last. I like the bounding white clouds, but I still cherish a fondness for the brussel-sprout styled balloon.

Next followed the elusive KJ Parker, with “One Little Room an Everywhere”, a title with which I fell in love. The voice, the pragmatism, the gold leaf and icons – an enchanting story, and although it is a cautionary tale as much as a fantasy of magic and buildings, neither the main character nor the story itself are at all unlikable (a common failing of stories of ill-advised behaviour).

This illustration, too, is pen and ink with colour and texture added digitally. I do like this picture – it captures a little of what I enjoyed in the story.

November

The first story for November was Eleanor Arnason’s “Holmes Sherlock: A Hwarhath Mystery”, a detective story of translation, admiration, secrets and art photography, and one for which I struggled to choose a representative image because the alienness (or otherwise) of the Hwarhath was not for me the main point of the story – but could override an illustration of one of the more active or landscape images.

And last for November 2012 and this post, Nina Kiriki Hoffman’s “Firebugs”, a tale of joint and several individuality, arson and belonging.

With this story, I was trying not to be all Midwich Cuckoos and went for a more symbolic image. Because of the formatting of the site for Eclipse Online, the all-over background of this image and the last one would be discarded for future stories in favour of self-contained spot images.

 

Illustration Friday: Wings, and February

I have conflicted feelings about the original, Hans Christian Andersen, “Little Mermaid”. It’s not a happy story, per se (although I am more sympathetic the older I get). It’s Jane Eyre without the happy ending.

I did have a number of cut-paper birds and feathers which I hoped to make do double-duty as cover sketches and an Illustration Friday picture, but they are ALL being used, so instead I did a little cut-paper header for February:

And here is the image on the February page of my kitchen calendar:

In other news: There was another flood! We were not flooded, but we didn’t have power for a few days, which is the reason for the latest Dalek hiatus. I did manage to post all about the Stranger Things Happen cover.

 

Ilustration Friday: Myth

So I arrived home from work, in the rain, and promptly thought, “I know what I should do, after I eat these eggs and some roast beef with mustard! I should design and cut out an entire A3 silhouette picture!” As it is, this is as good as it gets tonight – tomorrow, after I resharpen the knife and regain sensation in the relevant fingers, I will tidy up the furry bits, and maybe add a touch more detail if the recipient (this is also in payment of an IOU) thinks suitable.

It says:

Once upon a time (but “once” is always & ever after)

And fortunately that last curl of vine adds a nice closing bracket because otherwise I would have completely forgotten to add one in. But otherwise the letters appear to be in the correct order, yes? and facing the right way? Because I lettered them straight onto the reverse and didn’t check in a mirror, and at this point my ability to read is questionable.

 

Illustration Friday: Ocean

I had the paints out while working on ideas for a project, so played around with them for this week’s Illustration Friday topic. I wanted to try this more posterlike style (and this is very much a sketch for a larger idea, which is why the shadows are erratic and I left the pencil lines in), and these colours were obvious because we were at the time in the middle of a heatwave (39.6 degrees at 5pm!). I was inside in the airconditioning, painting in the vicinity of my parents after having worn out my voice reading Agatha Christie to my father.

Aspects of the blue one I like, but it is too angular. More ’80s than the first. But the gouache is fun.

 

Illustration Friday: New

Happy New Year!

I spent much of the holidays eating, and occasionally stirring myself to work on illustrations. I didn’t wear shoes for days. This Illustration Friday picture is an altered paper cut, with a layer of stained paper behind it. The original was made as part of a journal of ideas for a larger project coming up in May (help!).

You should be able to see a larger version by clicking on the picture, which will take you through to its Flickr page.

This year bodes for many more projects – wedding invitations, book covers, internal illustrations, all sorts of things in progress already (shoes aside, it was a very productive holiday). Also, editing the Large Amorphous Manuscript.

 

Illustration Friday: Glow

And I’m back to Illustration Friday (remind me to tell you sometime how important it has been for me). This couple are Jack-be-Nimble and Nancy Etticoat, from their respective nursery rhyme and riddle. I cut them out of black paper to try out a new swivelling blade, after returning from Darren Hanlon‘s Christmas concert with Deb last night. The colour is digital.

In other news (since I’ve been away from Illustration Friday for two months): I have posted about the book cover development for Crandolin, things that are out as ebooks, and my American sketchbook.

Oh, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!