Fiery alpine forest

After upgrading my watercolours to the winsor and newton artists range i finally got all my kit together and was having a little play. The fire came from mixing winsor orange (red shade) with quinacridone gold....cant wait to find the time to play some more...watch this space!

Ashcombe park cafe

My watercolour efforts have been rather non eventful lately due to having to earn money and do some proper work LOL, been busy animating a commercial and will remain busy for a few more weeks yet, but today i just threw caution to wind and took a few hours off! why not? surely thats the point of being your own boss eh? So Patch and i had a pleasant walk up to Ashcombe park and i sat down to do this little sketch. Forgot to pack a pencil so had to just dive straight in....my previous attempts to do this have all failed miserably but with a bit of patience and some cool jazz tunes soothing me from my iphone i am quite pleased with this one, especially as i only took my little mini field watercolor kit. Not happy with the red banner....note to myself...put a decent red in that kit!

Alien design

and now for something completely different! an alien sketch  i did for a recent commercials pitch. Digital using sketchbook pro.

Cloud study

Cloud study, Weston Grand Pier. pen and ink, watercolour.

Value studies

 Trying out some value studies of ashcombe park cafe, above is the sketch done on location and below is the tonal painting, definatlly an interesting exercise.

Clarence park cafe

Clarence park cafe on a sunny day in august...one of the rare ones! started this one as a plein air study, only got to paint the roof then got called away to do something else so i finished it at home from memory.
Watercolour.

Watching the air display

What an incredible day for a spot of plein air painting. Debi happily sat soaking up the rays whilst we were treated to the second day of the Weston air show. Watercolour.

Anchor Head recent watercolours

At last the sun has shone on us! here are my efforts from the last few days......i feel i am improving slightly...what do you think? comments welcome.

Animation test using After effects

Thought i would post this simple test ive just done, i need to gen up on animating in after effects (which ive only ever used for very basic stuff before). Finding this very enjoyable!

Toes in the sun

A welcome spell of blue sky in this poor summer we are having inspired this little iPad painting done in procreate.

Lunchtime sketch

Sat in the sun next to the SS Great Britain Dockyard cafe in Bristol, this very busy cafe scene made for an interesting outline type sketch with a splash of watercolour before heading back to work.

Debi checking iphone by the pond

Todays painting in my garden on a beautiful sunny day...for a change! I drew this using only  negative shapes. Some bits i feel are still overworked but i feel like i made some progress with this one. Double page spread in sketchbook, 18''x 6'' watercolour and ink pen.

I'm currently spending a couple of weeks animating with the guys at Hi-Sim in Bristol. They have been putting together a short piece over the last 15 months in rare downtime spots they get, I've been lucky enough to do all the animation for this piece and it should be finished pretty soon. All I can say is that it's a game of footy between a bunch of alien robots in the desert !

Patch on the rocks

Watercolour sketch of Patch sleeping off a long beach walk at Anchor Head, W-s-M.

Outdoor office anyone?

On this beautiful and rare sunny June day I packed my kit up and spent a glorious afternoon in this little cove just around the corner from Anchor Head. Being freelance really pays off on days like these!

Just chilling!

Watercolour 6.5'' x 3.5''.  Another beautiful scorching hot day at Anchor head in W-s-M, UK, low tide and this couple just admiring the view whilst soaking up the rays. After getting my new watercolour set and pad i packed a picnic and spent a very leisurely afternoon doing this.

Garden Watercolour.

25 degrees C, dug under the stairs and found my watercolour set....BBQ on, cold drink in hand and sunhat..what a very pleasant way to spend the day!

Inkpen, water colour and Gouache on watercolour pad. 

5'' x 3''

A bit of an old dragon......

One of many, many designs done for pitches long ago and forgotten, tucked away on my hard drive until now...breath some new life you old dragon!

I think its quite nice to see designs in a state of development...shows the workings going on underneath.

Just looked up and saw the sky!

From iphone to Cintiq.

Todays sun was setting the new leaves on this tree alight as i sat enjoying a leisurely outdoor breakfast, so i whipped out my iphone and started finger painting in Artrage. later on uploadedit on my PC and worked it up using my Wacom Cintiq. Just limited myself to the roller tool which was quite effective i think...stopped me focusing too hard on detail and allowed me to randomly create the leaves. In retrospct maybe the finished one is a tad overworked? oh well, all part of the learning curve.