Bretton Park

I have been out walking around Bretton park.  Some of the trees have alluring and graceful silhouettes and it would be great to sit and draw them but I am going to have to wait a few months before I can do that.  I didn't get the chance to browse around the galleries at the YSP as i had to get back to the car before it became dark.

I did a drawing at home of some ivy from a photograph I had taken.  I have been inspired by Jill Bliss an illustrator/designer to use felt tip pens. The bright orange is very distinct but adding more colours could be visually striking.  I will do more tomorrow.

http://www.jillbliss.com/

Hannah Stouffer

I have been browsing through artists and illustrators that have commercial designs on iPhones.  Some of the work is very sophisticated and I enjoyed looking at designs by Hannah Stouffer who is based in CA. She is an illustrator and uses hand drawn techniques and combines with cad illustration. I like the vivid colors which has inspired me to add to illustrations to an image of Siouxsie Sioux that I painted in the early 80s.

Here's the link to Hannah Stouffers site. http://www.grandarray.com/home.html

Inspirations

Some time ago my cousin gave me lots and lots of useful things to be creative with such as paints, inks and fabrics. One of the carrier bags that was full of fabric had a lovely design of a turquoise peacock print.  As I grew up in the 70s my memory was refreshed with an image that I had forgotten.  I have no idea who created it but I decided to trace over the original design in Adobe illustrator as the bag was a little tatty. I am pretty much self taught using illustrator and it gave me the opportunity to practice using the pen tool.

The peacock design was the inspiration for greetings card designs I created for the latest Tigerprint competition for contemporary florals.

Christmas

Over Christmas I went to Cubley hall in Penistone for a meal with my family.  It was originally a farm, after the war it became an orphanage. It was built up into a popular pub in the early 80s.  It has some really nice features such as the entrance door.

We visited my sisters house after Cubley hall and my nephew and niece, Luke and Adele, presented me with some paintings they had created in November.  Very impressive for children aged 11 and 9.  Luke and Adele explained they painted the backgrounds first and used a variety brushes to develop foreground tones and trees.