almost too lovely to eat

illustration friday - sneaky

That's the local fish shop opposite Hackney Baths, East London, sort of. Acrylic, watercolour and collage on paper.

summer still life - basil

now sadly in decline, the trusty basil plant grown from seed earlier in the year and painted a few months ago.

illustration friday - burning

A quick illustration, one of the first things that sprang to mind. It's not a self portrait, since in the first place there's no ginger cat in the house (yet).

illustration friday - breakfast

this one's for my dad, whose breakfasts are legendary and consist of several courses, even on a weekday. his menu is usually a variation of a smoothie followed by my mom's homemade muesli with fruit and then coffee and toast and a selection of jams and, on the weekend, omelettes. 

watercolour and collage.

illustration friday - giant

watercolour and pen on paper

tulips

prob have to tidy up this image as it's a bit blue, but here it is for now. this was done a month or so ago, using matchstick ends to draw in the lines initially so it'd stay loose and free. 


click on image to enlarge.

watercolour studies - tart and tea

I haven't posted for a while. Been doing some colour studies, research, trying to get somewhere new. This is building up to a series, here's one of the studies so far. I'm hoping for greater simplicity as I go along.

from my sketchbook - seedlings

beans and courgettes ready for planting out are so tempting to draw. 

difficult subject what with all the translucent plastic going on, and still working with a randomly textured background, this time with masking fluid printed onto the surface.

I always find experimental work harder to live with at first, but it's the only way to make progress and discover new things, so here it is,  over textured splatty feel and all.

illustration friday - detective

A good detective always blends in with the crowd...
Collage, acrylic and watercolour on paper.
Click on the image to view larger size.

from my sketchbook

 

a warmup sketch from last year when the dahlias were a dime a dozen at the florist. watercolour and collage.

hackney fragments

on sunday I was inspired to paint these teeny treasures we found in the soil in hackney. very fun to paint.