55 mins
“I Never Noticed The House Was On Fire” This is a painting for an upcoming group exhibition about memories. When I was a kid I grew up in a household where my parents were functioning alcoholics. They gave me toys, put me in front of the tv, and sent me outside to play to keep me distracted from what was going on. When I look back almost all of my childhood memories revolve around these things. I became obsessed with these imaginary worlds and I learned to draw by copying my favorite cartoons and characters from children’s books. It was not until I was much older, that the truth could no longer be hidden from me. The imaginary world of cartoons and books kept me shielded from the harsh realities of home. As I grew into an adult that form of coping grew with me as I created my own imaginary places inspired by the ones I loved as a child. A healthy place to escape.
I printed my black and white zentangle drawing on marker paper and colored it with alcohol markers. At first it was a bit to garish with too much contrast, so I painted a warm grey over the whole piece. That gave me what I was looking for. Of course, THEN I completely undermined that with making a bunch of wild colored ones (two shown here) by playing with them in Photoshop. I shall be using this (along with my Zentangle koi posted la while back) for printing blank cards that we sell for charitable (mostly foodbanks) organizations.
Freehand sketching in ink from a photo reference I found online, to practice conveying that lots-of-stones look without drawing all the stones (photo credit: K. Mitch Hodge). Micron pens + alcohol markers.
My first venture into artist grade colouring pencils - and I'm smitten! I never thought I could achieve such boldness and blendability with them! I'm still getting used to them and will think about choosing smoother paper with less tooth next time. The texture and weight was more for the water-based gouache along with alcohol inks (which are very unforgiving to even primed heavy paper!). Apologies for the unevenness of lighting between the 2 sides of paper; will correct that when I'm making proper image files.
A colorful aerostatic hot air balloon seen from below sits against a deep blue, starry background. The design is vibrant with red, white, and blue segments, surrounded by scattered small yellow and white accents.
A serene coastal scene with a building structure in the foreground on a colorful blue water body, likely a canal or lagoon. In the background, there are boats floating on the water under a cloudy sky.
Newest work! Alcohol inks for the sky, oil pastels for O'Neill himself :). A2 canvas - biggest I've done in a while! This was a present for the boyf, who is a massive Stargate fanboy!
Combination of traditional and digital art. I actually hand painted this on some very textured paper with oil pastels a while back, so to 'tidy and clean' it I had to employ digital means. The background was done with alcohol inks, the 'flow' of it I was particularly proud of :).
Butter # Who knows ny more? : The Scotch Angus. I gotta say, bottles a NOT easy subjects!.... And neither are butterflies. So a tricky one whichever way you look at it. This was certainly one to have fun with :)
New slightly improved version here : https://www.doodleaddicts.com/uploads/13873/
Part of my challenge to myself to sketch directly in ink this month, and to play around with using alcohol markers for value (a new tool in my arsenal).
