Flowers

I get a little antsy if I am not creative for a while, and it has been about 4 weeks so I am pretty much going out of my mind. After traveling to Africa and back I have not had much time for anything but I am back in NZ and it's a public holiday! I tried drawing some animals but they didn't work out and I ended up getting really frustrated.

I opened a new canvas and this happened...

The rooster and the chameleon

I warned you that I get bored very quickly! That was the whole reason I started this blog—to prove I could use one style only for a whole month. This one is completely different, pencil, acrylic and digital.

The girls

I have never really illustrated like this before and am still not quite sure but I definitely want to explore this some more. These are the girls I drew this week, which are now available as postcards in my shop.

Kitchen art

Yes, I still work on the fruit now and again.

In frames...

My Gocco

I heard about the Gocco through a friend of mine and was immediately taken. It is a Japanese toy screen printer intended for children but has fast become an adult obsession. You can read more about it here. Unfortunately they are no longer made and haven't been since 2008 but can still be found and so can their parts and fittings. I found one on a New Zealand 'e-bay' and bought it immediately but only plucked up the courage to use it last week.  I made a screen print of my owl ink drawing. I made 85 of them and have listed them as a limited edition screen print in my Etsy shop here. I love the look of the Gocco print. No two prints are alike and there are these tiny imperfections that give the print its unique charm.
I also found this lovely textured paper that came in various pastel colors that has made each print even more unique. Here are some of the pics of the prints drying on my makeshift wash line and the final, dried, signed and numbered print.

Whimsical owl

I suppose you have guessed that I love owls. I created this one using watercolor and ink, but in a different style to the fruit in earlier posts.

Chickens in love

I loved the chicken so much that I created a rooster prince for her...

new birds in my shop

I have always loved birds so I decided to put some in my shop. I do have a few different owls in there, but I wanted to try a different style. These were illustrated digitally, in Illustrator and then coloured in Photoshop. They are available in my shop as postcards here. There is a fantail, an owl, a chicken (my favourite) a hummingbird and of course a kiwi..

New baby owl

Clearly I have been very busy. This is my new baby owl. I received one of those 'Aaaaaw' emails and I couldn't resist. This is drawn, scanned and digitally painted and is available in my print shop here.

Howdy pardners

These are my new illustrations—a little bit of Americana. As usual, they are available in my shop here as postcards.

This started out as an ink drawing, which I scanned in and inverted to give the white outline, and then colored it and made amendments digitally. (Illustrator and Photoshop).

I do believe I mentioned that I cannot keep with one style permanently. I wish I could but I love the change, I live for the experimentation! Maybe one day...

Bull terrier ink drawing

I bought a new ink pen and what better way to 'wear it in' than to draw my favorite dog in the whole world! A bull terrier. I have been blessed to have had 3 bull terriers in my life: Angie, Rothchild and Tyler. I will never forget how much joy they all brought to my life. This is available in my print shop Here. Hope you like it...

Owl ink drawing

I saw a picture of the most beautiful baby owl, so of course, I had a 'must draw that' moment! I have not wanted to do cross hatch again since the 30 day fruit drawing challenge so I used a simple line drawing style that comes a little more naturally to me than cross hatch. I have put it in my print shop on Etsy here but didn't want to sell it in the digital shop.  For those who have been 'watching', I used the same ink pen as I did in the fruit and veg alphabet, which is now almost completely done!

Alphabet fruit 1 inch circles

My fellow Etsians love craft, so why not give them something they can work with? 1 inch circles are pretty popular on Etsy, craft people use them to make pendants and other jewellery, magnets, button badges, buttons, bottle cap art and things for their kids. I made my fruit into 1 inch circles, which sell as a digital download in my digital shop. (Mobijodigital). Once sold, a high resolution version gets emailed to the buyer, which they then print themselves and make their own little gadgets. In turn, selling the finished product to other people. There is very little wait for the product (email vs snail mail) so no shipping costs either.

What is really cool about this is its almost like a pay-it-forward scenario, or wholesale to retail. Anyway, these are the circles I made with the fruit. Obviously, there are 26 in total.

Alphabet fruit poster

I made a poster of all the fruit (sans captions). I never knew how challenging it could be to get 26 images into some sort of grid. I had it portrait, in lines of 5 and had one poor lonely zuccini creating a dreaded widow. So I tried mixing up lines of 4 or 5 fruits, depending on their size and this didn't work either. The way I had it in my previous post didn't leave space for a heading, and was way too busy with the caption text.

I ended up doing a landscape poster, solving most of my problems. What I would like to know is, why do I always try and keep everything symmetrical?

So this is the poster I created, which is available in my digital shop here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/97086035/digital-fruit-and-vegetable-alphabet

Thinking about making it into a memory game! I am having so much fun...

30 Day challenge—complete!

These are all the alphabet drawings together. The ink pen is still going, the watercolours are looking very tired, and I am completely out of brown, but they went the mile, proof that you needn't spend too much money on expensive equipment.

Prices
Watercolour set of 12 colours: $4.00 (NZ)
Ink Pen, 0.3mm waterproof:   $4.99 (NZ)
Board book, 50 leaf, A5:         $2.00 (NZ)
Paint brush: (only one used):   $3.40 (NZ)

Total cost of alphabet         $14.39 (NZ)


Time spent: 30 Days (plus a day or 3 in February if I must be brutally honest!) Obviously, time is money and I have not taken this into account, but truthfully, I enjoyed every minute of this challenge and cannot wait to do another one!

The letter Z, 30 day challenge

I did it! This is the last! It is a zucchini. I can't believe I have finally finished! My little fruit and vegetable alphabet is done and I can give myself another challenge! Yeehaa! I think I will make a poster of these all for my Etsy shops. Perhaps a memory game too! Let's see...

The letter Y, 30 day challenge

So this is a yam. In SA they call it sweet potato and in NZ they call it kumara, pretty lucky that its a yam in other places, or I wouldn't have a Y in my alphabet.

The letter X, 30 day challenge

The long anticipated X. I had no idea what to do for X, but got really lucky when a reader posted a comment on a fruit called a Xigua. It appears to be very similar to a watermelon, apart from its darker outer colour. Can't believe I only have 2 to go...

The letter W, 30 day challenge

I think I am going to avoid leaves at all costs with my last three drawings! Again, not a fruit, but a lovely addition to a salad—Watercress...