Draw My Image: watercolour

Showing posts with label watercolour. Show all posts

Tuesday, 11 November 2014

Kauto Star

(click for larger view)

a portrait for an upcoming charity auction aiming to raise

money to re-home and rehabilitate ex-racehorses.

Tuesday, 7 October 2014

Sunday, 6 July 2014

Cookie the Hamster

a little thank-you card for a friend's daughter

Thursday, 12 June 2014

Miniature Schnauzers

A recent pet portrait commission.

Process picture - pencil prior to adding watercolour:

Portrait on a Postcard - Amelia Earhart

My Dad is an engineer and for a good part of my childhood and teenage years he built model aeroplanes. Gliders, spitfires, an Utterly Butterly biplane...we spent many days out at Cosford and Duxford at air shows, and while my Dad and brothers could recognise and name each plane on sight, I felt a lack of connection towards all mechanical flying things. I can appreciate now how beautifully aeroplanes are designed, and the skill that goes into making them aerodynamic, and the role they played in history, but back then I used to say "I hate aeroplanes!"

Anyway...I'm a different person now. I really enjoyed drawing Amelia Earhart's Lockheed model 10-E Electra.

I was reading about how when she was a child she kept a scrapbook of clippings about successful women working in male-dominated professions. Not only did she go on to become an aviation pioneer - the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic - but she also did so much to help other women, as president of the Ninety-nines (organisation for female pilots) as a careers advisor to women at Purdue University, as a member of the National Women's Party, and an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Sunday, 8 June 2014

Garden

Dan and I are growing gem lettuces, tomatoes, kale, courgettes, peppers, chillies, french beans, strawberries, rosemary and mint.

I know it's not the done thing for an illustrator to have so many different styles, but I am always fighting between making nice little neat tight drawings and making big loose messy paintings, and I can't see how the two can ever be reconciled. I love working in a detailed and precise way in ink or gouache, but it's so much harder to be loose and it's what I admire in my favourite painters...there's something more human and authentic in going against the urge to make things look perfect and tidy, and it feels really good to paint without worrying what anyone might think about the end result.

If you're in your comfort zone drawing neatly, I suggest you buy a big paintbrush, maybe a Daler-Rowney system 3 SY21 Long Flat Acrylic brush (I know...very precise - it happens to be my favourite brush). You can't be neat with it. It holds too much paint and water. You can use the edge to create lines, but not so precise and not much in the way of detail. But that's good - it's liberating to face up to your weaknesses. It's a challenge to try to suggest something with as few brush-strokes as possible.

Friday, 23 May 2014

Portraits on Postcards 2

Last year I invited people to commission a postcard-sized portrait of someone they admired.

The response was wonderful and varied - inspirational figures included Vivian Maier, Charlie Parker, Edgar Allan Poe, Etta James, the Dalai Lama, David Lynch…

15 of these postcards have been collected in a zine (available here:http://etsy.me/RZpRIs) designed to be shared with the people you admire.

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I am now inviting *new* commissions for portraits on postcards.

They could be famous people, literary figures, activists, poets…or they could be your own unsung hero. They might be your Grandpa. Or your cat. Anyone, as long as you can say why you really admire them.

E-mail me at: emma.ridgway (@) live.co.uk (note: no "e" in ridgway) with the name of a person you admire, along with an explanation of what you admire about them, and any photographs for reference.

Drawn in Winsor & Newton ink and painted in Cotman watercolours on Langton watercolour paper, postcards will cost £15 ($25 or €18), and will be shipped out (worldwide) at no extra cost.

If you wish, you can make this a gift to someone.

All finished artworks will be scanned and will eventually form a book.

Monday, 4 November 2013

David Lynch & the Dalai Lama

Friday, 13 September 2013

Process pics

A few months back I completed a painting for a client in New York who commissioned a portrait reflecting the style of classical Hollywood.

I really loved working on it - it taught me to plan out my images beforehand, because I have always been someone who draws straight off in pen and ink without any kind of pencil guide, and I always felt like drawing in pencil first was somehow cheating (thanks, Aubrey Beardsley).

But actually, the longer the process of making something, the more room for discoveries to be made, and it's often where the best ideas regarding colour and composition have chance to step in.

Lately my process is: detailed light pencil sketch (focusing on areas of colour) > then watercolour > then add ink lines (sparingly).

If I draw in ink before I watercolour the tendency arises to stay too strictly within the lines, and the colours can't interact as much. There is still plenty of room for improvement - I always feel that I could paint much more loosely than I do - but it's all part of the learning process.