Ladybird's Flight: January 2017

Tuesday 31 January 2017

Tuesday 24 January 2017

New art supplies.


For me an art store is as deadly as a book store.
It is sometimes part of my preparation process for a new creation.





Thursday 19 January 2017

52-Week Illustration Challenge: Week 3

Week 3: Australiana

This week was a new challenge for me. To actually commit to adding watercolour (wet pigment) to my drawing plus try creating waves. My illustration was inspired by my a family photo. I still need work on developing the wave painting skills but all in all I am fairly happy. See below from more photos.


See the 52-week Illustration Challenge page for more information about this art work that I have created.

Monday 16 January 2017

3 Great Places to Donate Old Books in Australia.

In our recent house downsizing I had the large decision of what to do with all of my books. I couldn't keep them all. So donating them was an easy decision.
1. The Australian Children's Books went to the National Centre for Australian Children's Literature
2. Gently loved Children's books went to the charity Buk bilong Pikinini to send to Children's Libraries in Papua New Guinea
3. All my other books went to Lifeline Canberra for them to sell at their Bookfairs. Please contact your local Lifeline to see if they accept books. 




Saturday 14 January 2017

Books on my bedside table

Here are some books I plan to read over the upcoming weeks. 
Thanks to Harry Hartog for the gift voucher that I won.



Reviews to follow at a later date.

Friday 13 January 2017

8 Steps in how a drawing composition develops.

There is a fabulous Facebook Group, 52-Week Illustration Challenge. Each week of the year there is a set theme that the group members illustrate.

This post is about how the week two theme ‘feathered animals’ inspired the composition of a drawing.



  1. Theme. Take the theme of the week and develop an idea based on the theme e.g. ‘feathered animals’ hence a bird was chosen to be the beginning point of the drawing.
  2. Choose the materials that you want use for your final drawing. For you this step might come later in your drawing process or it might even.
    • Pigment materials. Pencil, ink, watercolours, pastels etc. REMEMBER to use waterproof ink for the drawing’s outlines if you want to add watercolours to your illustration.
    • Pigment Application. Pens, nibs, brushes, fingers, sponges etc.
    • Paper. Paper type and colour. REMEMBER Consider which paper is best for the drawing materials that you have chosen to use. E.g. watercolour paper, pastel paper etc
  3. Develop the initial idea. Draw a number of birds until you have one that you are happy with. For me that meant about 50 birds to be happy with the shape and size of the bird.
     
  4. Composition Plan. Think about how you will develop your drawing from this point. Will you do several sketches and then create a final drawing taking in all the best elements or will the drawing be developed on one piece of paper that you keep building on? I sometimes sketch ideas on separate pieces of paper then using a light box trace each element onto the final drawing. For my ‘feathered animal’ illustration I used a photocopier to copy my final illustration page each time I added a new element. I then sketched ideas and new elements to the photocopied page until I was happy with the composition to be able to transfer the element to my final illustration.
  5. Choose a location. Now you need an environment for the bird to exist in. In this drawing it is of a bird flying away from a tree but it could have been soaring over a cityscape of buildings.
  6. Develop the drawing location. Give the drawing more details of interest. This could be done by adding more elements, patterns or colour.
    • Add knots to the tree trunk. 
    • Add flowers to the foreground.
    • Add something to show the air – patterns of swirls created by the North Wind, how does the wind react in relation to other elements in the drawing?
    • Add colour – I decided not to do this for this illustration as I wanted a drawing that you might find in a chapter book.

  7. Look at the composition and see if anything else is needed. Do you add patterns to represent the leaves of the tree or something else? E.g. two love birds on a branch.
  8. Know when to stop. It can be tempting to add just one more thing to fill in an empty space. Empty space can be just as important to a drawing’s composition as the elements. In this instance I decided not to add anything to the right mid-ground of the drawing, other elements could be added to this space depending on the story line of the book.

Thursday 12 January 2017

52-Week Illustration Challenge: Week 2

Week 2: Feathered animals

I have found it interesting to watch my drawing grow.



See the 52-week Illustration Challenge page for more information about this art work that I have created.

Thursday 5 January 2017

52-Week Illustration Challenge: Week 1

Week 1: Whimsy



"All the shops are closed but you can still get ice cream at the movies!"




See the 52-week Illustration Challenge page for more information about this art work that I have created.

3 musical things to enjoy today.

1. See the movie Trolls
2. Play the piano 
3. Listen to David Bowie