Mapping the Thames

This weekend has been an extremely busy one, not least because I've had confirmation of a really exciting commission!

I don't want to say too much about what it's for until I've made a bit more progress, but I've been asked to produce an illustrated map of the River Thames.

Now, I have ALWAYS wanted to draw maps. When I was at school I wanted to be a cartographer. The fact that maps can be both attractive and functional interests me and the detail really appeals to my love of intricacy.

So, when I got asked to submit a small sample for consideration, I jumped at the chance.

This is just an example of a tiny section of the map and it's going to be changed slightly, but you get the idea.

I decided to use watercolours because I love the way they highlight the texture of the paper (and they're so fun to paint with)!

I had a go at painting Windsor Castle, using some of the same techniques as I use in my doodles.

I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed doing these paintings and I'm so excited about getting stuck into this project.

It's the first time in a while that my drawing board has actually looked like there's some drawing going on! Today I've been sketching out the curves of the river, which is definitely easier said than done.

I've invested in some new Winsor & Newton watercolours as I used my old school set for these paintings and thought it was about time I get a 'grown up' set! I felt like a child in a sweet shop buying these!

Back to the drawing board now!

If you'd like to follow this project as it progresses, please follow my blog using one of the buttons on the right and pop over to my Facebook page where I'll be posting regular updates.

I'm sharing this post on the following blogs:  Handmade Harbour and Paint Party Friday.

Pet portrait painting in progress - that's a lot of p's!

Hi everyone! I've been hard at work on a few commissions this week which is great fun!

I've had the house to myself as Sam has been away on a stag weekend, so it's been good to have plenty of time for painting.

This pet portrait is the main piece I've been working on. It's still not finished, in fact there's quite a way to go.

I've got to paint all the little hairs on the ear, add detail to the nose, finish the collar and tags and refine the shading.

I've been taking photos at each stage and am hoping to make them into a video when I'm finished. Until then, here are a few to show how it's progressed.

The last image in that series shows the dog looking very dark. To lighten it up I've painted tiny white hairs over the whole thing which I will then cover with a tan coloured wash to bring it all together.

I'm working in acrylic paint because it dries nice and quickly, allowing layers to be built up with no drying time in between. I've never tried oils but would love to have a go!

Here's where I've been working at the dining room table. It now has a few nice acrylic splodges...shh!

This week I've also been working on a paper cut kirigami cityscape. I'm still only at the cutting stage, the windows are taking ages! Eventually, when all the details have been cut, I'll fold it and it'll magically turn into a 3D city. Well, here's hoping. The last kirigami I did went wrong, so fingers crossed I've got the measurements right on this one.

Next Sunday, I'll hopefully have a finished pet portrait to show you!

If you've enjoyed this post, please pop by my Facebook page. I update it regularly during the week and I'd love to welcome some new faces!

I'm sharing this post on the following blogs: Paint Party Friday, Handmade Harbour, Be Different Act Normal, Manon Popje's Illustrations and Tatertots and Jello.

3D layered watercolour painting - Sea Turtle

I'm linking this post up to WOYWW, although this time I don't have any photos of my workdesk. Evening crept up on me and my camera is not too keen on functioning in the dark!

Popping up frequently on my Pinterest feed are some beautiful examples of paper cutting which I've been safely tucking away on my pin boards ready for a flash of creative inspiration to strike. Well, strike it did at the beginning of the week and I came up with this. An 3.5" x 2.5" miniature layered 3D watercolour painting.

To give you an idea of how small (and fiddly!) it is, here's a photo of me holding it.

My main inspiration for incorporating watercolour into a 3D paper cut design came from KateCreates, an artist who I've been following on Facebook for a while. Her wonderful Facebook page can be found here and her website here. She creates cheerful pieces featuring campervans, boats, quirky houses and portraits. Her work is layered which gives a lovely feeling of depth, especially in those featuring jumbled houses inspired by Cornish villages.

As for the subject matter, since spotting sea turtles on a snorkelling trip from Perhentian Kecil in the Perhentian Islands, Malyasia, I've had a little soft spot for them. Sadly, according to www.seeturtles.org, six of the seven species of these graceful creatures are threatened or endangered by human activity. They are incredible reptiles which spend the majority of their lives at sea, the females only coming ashore to lay their eggs every 2 to 5 years.

The beautiful Perhentian Kecil, Malaysia

I wanted to capture the grace and beauty of these animals and they way they interact with their environment. A quick browse on Google Images threw up many photographs of them swimming with fish around vibrant coral reefs. I combined several elements to create an original underwater scene.

I started by drawing out each layer, three in total. They were outlined in waterproof black ink, painted in watercolours and left to dry thoroughly before wedging them in a heavy book to flatten them. Then came the tricky bit, cutting out each layer with a craft knife. I began to regret choosing such wiggly corals for the foreground! An hour and a few hand cramps later, I had all the layers ready to assemble. They are stuck together with very small squares of adhesive foam tape, a couple of layers in the case of the turtle to bring it up to the right level.

 Et voilà! Now it is stuck on my wall alongside my other miniature creations :)

If you have enjoyed this post, please consider sharing using one of the buttons on the right-hand-side. I love to read your comments too! Some of my paintings are for sale in my Etsy shop if you fancy taking a look :)

Today I'm sharing this post here: WOYWW, Domesblissity, Lovely Ladies Linky, Pretty Things for You, Savvy Southern Style, Cornerstone Confessions, Paint Party Friday, Blue Chair Diary Illustrations, Handmade Harbour and Manon Popje's Illustrations.

Watercolour painting in Dartmouth and Babbacombe and some more cheeky seagulls (WOYWW and PPF)

I'll start this post by telling you how excited I was on Wednesday to learn that I had been randomly selected to win the Wicked Wednesday ATC Challenge! You can see my entry here. Thank you very much to the blog's author Jenn and to Funky Hand for the prize from their downloadable collection! I'm working on some ideas for next week's theme 'Christmas in July' already!

On a separate note, I love this amazing summer we're having down here in South Devon. Apart from a thunder-stormy blip a couple of nights ago, the sun has been shining every day! It's great to be able to get out and about to do a few paintings 'al fresco'. Here are some of my recent ones. They're about A6 size, no special paper or anything - just for fun!

This is Kingswear painted from Dartmouth. It took about an hour - of course, I had to treat myself to a portion of chips to keep my painting energy levels up! I'm linking this one up to Paint Party Friday.

I really struggle with painting water. I'm in awe of artists who manage to create beautiful, realistic paintings of sparkly, sunlit seas. If anyone out there has any tips on how to paint water with watercolours, they would be greatly appreciated! In this next painting I tried to add a little more texture with some grey wiggly brush strokes in the sea, but I'm still not completely happy with it. It's Babbacombe beach painted from the harbour wall.

The greenery is a little more vibrant in this one as I was sitting in the full sunshine and wearing sunglasses! Notice the house (well, half a house) in the top right of the painting? Earlier this year the cliff dropped away, taking half of the house with it!

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday

Here's what's on my workdesk at the moment for WOYWW! I've had a little bit of time to work on a few paintings which I hope to start selling in the very near future. If anyone is interested in putting in an order in advance, please let me know!

This little guy is nearly finished, just needs a bit of tidying up and a frame and he'll be ready to go. I hope these will 'fly' off the shelves!

I'm thinking of ideas for a few other challenge entries too. Haunted Design House are running a challenge to create a chunky ATC that fits a dark, gothic or halloween theme. I have in mind to use fimo or porcelain clay in some way. So much to do, so little time...

Today I'm linking up to A Creative Princess and Domessblissity.

A lovely day painting with Dad - watercolour landscapes, seascapes and boats (including mini watercolour tutorial and WOYWW)

I had a fantastic day painting in Lympstone and Topsham with my dad on Sunday! I inherited my love of drawing and painting from him so it is nice to spend some time together doing what we both enjoy.

So, armed with sketchpads of varying sizes and paper, pens, pencils, paints and fold up chairs we took to the beach to do our first paintings overlooking the river in Lympstone.

My dad sketching away.

I took photos as I painted so I've decided to make this into a mini tutorial about how to paint in watercolours (or rather how I paint in watercolours!)

How to Watercolour

First of all I sketch out the view in pencil and make any adjustments before painting. Then I pick out the areas such as the sky and sea which will need a wash of colour and dampen them with a wet paintbrush. They should be a little shiny when tilted to the light. Then, as can be seen in this photo, I add a gentle wash of colour using wide, fluid brush strokes horizontally from the top to the bottom.

Watercolour washes for the sky and sea.

Next I repeat the same process of dampening and applying paint evenly for the other block areas of the picture such as the trees and fields.

Trees and fields painted in.

I decided to zoom in one one section of the view to make the painting more interesting.

It is important to wait for each area to dry before painting the part adjacent to it as two wet areas together causes the paint to run and lines become blurred (which is great if this is the effect you're after!). I paint in all of the little details last and always work from light colours to dark colours. This is because watercolours are so translucent that putting light colours on dark colours can just result in a muddy mess.

Almost finished!

I didn't use masking fluid here but it can be handy to block out areas such as the boats which allows you to get a nice smooth wash without having to paint around obstacles! I didn't actually finish the painting as we decided to move on, but I'll add some finishing touches at home as the colours look a little weak at the moment.

We had cake and tea for elevenses at a lovely little café opposite the Swan Inn pub.

The Swan Inn, Lympstone

We sat there sketching the pub for a while and had two huge slices of cake between us!

It's making my mouth water just looking at the photo again!

Shears Cafe, Lympstone

Once full of cake and tea, we drove on to Topsham for a change of scenery. We gravitated towards the first pub we saw and spent a few hours painting and eating lunch (as if we hadn't eaten enough already!). I'm linking this photo up to What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday. As I wrote in my last post, my workdesk location is always changing and this time it was a in a very nice spot!

A table next to the river would have been better, but beggars can't be choosers!

Here is the painting halfway through. I sketched it out in pencil first, then added the pen roughly and used the same watercolour techniques as above to paint it.

Painting from Topsham

Finished!

Having painted a couple of landscapes I then turned my attention to something a bit smaller. I drew this lamp with ink pen, hatched in the shadowed areas and then 'painted' it with water.

Before painting

After painting

When we could finally move after our burgers for lunch, we walked a little further downstream (or upstream, who knows?) and sat in the sun to draw. We could only stand the heat for 20 minutes, so here's the result.

A teeny sketch of a sailing boat.

Our final sketching spot was by an old church in the shade of a tree. This one I did on watercolour board. It needs a lot more work (and obviously some colour)!

You may have noticed I turned the ramp into steps to make it more rustic!

So that was the end of our day, phew! Here are a few of Dad's drawing and paintings. I love that we've both interpreted things slightly differently - Dad was a lot quicker than me and ended up waiting for me to finish!

Well, after this whopper of a post I think I need a lie down! I'm working on some new seagull drawings to feature next time so keep an eye out. Please follow my blog if you'd like to keep updated with my creative endeavours! Thanks for popping by!

I'm partying at the following link up parties! Manon Popjes Illustrations, Hickory Trail and Savvy Southern Style, Cornerstone Confessions. Technorati Claim Code G4HY5XW7GAG4

A peek into my sketchbook and an overdue comic strip journal page!

I've finally found the time to catch up on my comic strip diary! Today I bring you a whole week on one page. I used my very fine waterproof pen as I had in mind to paint it in watercolour for a special colour edition. Unfortunately I didn't get around to adding colour, so it remains in black and white. Hopefully I'll have a bit of time this week to paint it, but until then...

A whole week of sunshine

This is only a brief post today as I have been working on a painting to go on our wall. At the moment, having just moved in, we have plain white walls which are just begging to be filled with lovely paintings! I have a little obsession with painting seagulls at the moment and as they seem to be everywhere here in Torquay I thought they'd be the perfect subject. I drew it out today onto watercolour paper and outlined it in waterproof ink.

'Seagulls' - © Clare Willcocks

The chips in one square are to add a bit of interest, after all, they are a seagull's favourite food!

I took the ferry over to Brixham the other day with the students and took advantage of an hour while they had free time to do some drawing by the harbour. I sat on the slipway in the sunshine and had a lovely afternoon sketching the replica Golden Hind, Sir Francis Drake's ship, which has pride of place in Brixham harbour. This drawing needs painting really, to stop it looking so busy and make the boats easily distinguishable. I may get around to it one day!

Golden Hind, Brixham Harbour, Devon

I just had time left to sketch a little sailing boat.

Sailing Boat, Brixham Harbour, Devon

I also finished my greetings cards today, but I'll have to share them with you next time as I forgot to take photos of them! See you guys soon!

I'm linking this post to Handmade Harbour and Balzer Designs.