The High Chancellor of T'hara

Although she has formally retired, no minister will dare a decision without prior seeking her advice.

The green peafowl is her pet of choice because "in the light and shadow of power, you can make colors shift the way you want." 

Well, this started as a portrait practice in PS, and I thank Khalahari at DeviantArt for providing this great reference. Peacock from my own resources.

Quite tired of the usual portraiture cliché of beautiful-sexy-young-girls which seems to be so mainstream nowadays, I wanted to depict a powerful and mature woman, in a kind of flemish-style portrait.

The peacock nearly kill me (painting it, not when  took the pic :) ), and I'm still not completely happy with it.

Queens' diplomaticy Talks

I really don't have a clue about what the old Queen Spider and Queen Seed of the Dandelions have to share with each other, but when I saw them in the morning dew, they sounded very concerned in their way to talk.

Painted in Photoshop, as usual.

You so Hot

This is just a quick stuff, made for fun after having seen two chili peppers in that posture. Don't know why, but they made me think of two Spanish slugs (Arion Lusitanicus), which are a kind of obsession for swedish gardeners (here they're called mördarsniglar, or Murder slugs).

I put this picture under the label 90' sketch, but it probably took me a little longer than so, 2-3 hours. I've got some back pain now in late pregnancy and it's getting difficult staying long time in front of the computer.

Bombycilla Garrulus

A very quick study in PS of a graceful and happy bird (Bohemian Waxwing) often visiting our garden.

It is called Sidensvans, Silk tail, in Swedish, and is very much found of Rowan (Sorbus) berries.

I took several photos of this bird, but the quality was always very low because of the zoom, so I wanted to paint a more detailed picture.

Aliens Glandulifera

There was something going on in my mind because of the gorgeous blossoming of Impatiens glandulifera in our garden:

When it happened me to see the first Alien movie on TV, then I understood, and I had to paint this:

I must also say that the famous Salad by Till Nowak was very inspiring too, even if I do not work in 3D as he does.

The anatomy of my Alien is freely inspired by the flowers and the fruits of the plant, and references are of course my own photos. Bumblebees normally love to visit these flowers, but in this case maybe she changed her mind...

Closeups:

Butterflower#2 - Iris

This is another, quick version of the 'Butterflower' (butterfly + flower) concept.

I did it quickly and trying to get a 'macro' photo effect. 

I used a picture of Iris from my father's garden as a loose reference, but I changed the color scheme and petals shape to made the flower more interesting.

Butterflower

I sketched the concept of this imagine in the gone century, at least 17 years ago, since the original pencil drawing I found at home is dated 1994:

I felt like I wanted to paint a colored version of it, soon or later. In a lack of ideas I've picked up the subject and done a Photoshop version, using mainly round and chalk brushes. Maybe I'll try later other versions, with different kind of petals, or pistils, or insects, will see.

If pictures with human subjects are challenging and often leave me with a sense of frustration and low self-esteem, these flower-insects-creatures subjects give me a feeling of freedom and creativity which I enjoy very much, even if the results may not be that good.

Canadagoose

This is a quick sketch (1-1.5 hours), made in between other bigger stuff I'm painting right now. It's, in fact, intended to my other blog, to tell that the gorgeous Canadageese are back to our bay and announce spring time. They fly quick and unexpected, and I never succeeded take a photo. So, I just sketch them.

Their moving through the sky is so elegant and filled with joy.

Queen Radiolaria

I've not really much to say about this painting, except that I felt almost compelled to draw it after having seen the wonderful scientific images of Radiolarians drawn by Ernst Haeckel in 1904 (look here to appreciate his tremendous works).

For the anatomy reference, I credit the photographer Marcus Ranum (Mjranum-stock at DeviantArt) for using his pic.

I tried, after finishing the picture, to set Vibrance at high values, I think that it gives very nice colors, seen in a normal computer screen, without getting strange saturations effects.

And some close-ups:



Billy Goat Gruff /Bockarna Bruse

This one comes from a specific wish of my two-and-a-half years young child: he loves the Norvegian fairytale Three Billy Goats Gruff, also called Bockarna Bruse in Swedish (you can find the plot here), which is a quite popular folktale here in Sweden.

He loves very much the point where the biggest goat throws out the troll off the bridge, and so asked me to paint that scene for his room. I really had a lot of fun painting this. Probably the trolls anatomy could be much better, but since I've got approval from my child, I considered it done so.

So, here it comes:

and a couple of close-ups, as usual:

Do I know you?

One of my main problems regards anatomy and figure painting. 

Last month I decided to improve myself by sketching some portraits found in a old hair fashion magazine. The first sketch was so bad, and did not correspond at all to the photo, so I began, very frustrated, to change a lot of things in the face, until I got a completely weird creature. Back to my usual love for marine stuff, I start to add more and more elements resembling a sea monster. At home, we start to speculate that this creature could pretty much look like a hypothetic concept for the coming movie Avatar and the Deep Sea (or whatever the title will be): a humanoid sea alien depicted in hers first contact with a new species from the deep oceans.

My boyfriend suggested that she(he?) could very much do something, so I elongated the canvas and added shoulders, arms and hands. She is holding some kind of unknown and luminescent animal, for which I loosely got inspiration from googling radiolarian pictures.

Now I had to deal even harder with anatomy issues (well, I punished myself..) so we took some pictures of myself and my hands and paint them into the first concept, until I felt somehow satisfied or, better said, fed up. (I can anyway tell that I don't usually look like this, at least not in public). I'm still not very convinced about the result, but at a certain point I wanted to go further.

I need to find a way to get a more saturated image, normally I work at home and the colours look bright, but then, when I look at the pictures from another screen, the image becomes dark, desaturated and muddy.

And a couple of close-ups:

Queen Bee

Before Christmas time I was asked by a friend to draw a picture for a tattoo. Since it was intend as a present for her husband, I was allowed to publish it only after X-mas holiday. beeing intended for a tattoo, I felt the task quite challenging, since it implies that the drawing is permanently fixed on skin.

The requirements were to draw something inspired to this song from the Italian band Marlene Kuntz. The attitude of the Queen Bee must be aggressive, somehow insolent, and she must hold a pot with honey between her legs. I decided to draw a couple of doodles, with a robotic style, the second one with a more antropomorphic and sexy approach to the anatomy:

The first one was chosen and then refined, including both a colored and a monochrome version. Since the deadline was close, I feel that the result could have been improved, especially about boots and some details of head, which I would have made more hi-tech/cyber, lets say. Here come anyway the final drawings:

Swans

It has been long time since I posted some quick sketches.

Last Sunday we went to our cottage by the sea, and notice a couple of swans still staying here despite the hard, cold climate, and the ice slowly covering the sea surface. It would have been nice to take a picture, but the birds weren't that close, so I tried instead to take some quick pencil sketches while watching them with binoculars (not the most comfortable way to draw, but I think it is used by many birdwatchers).

Once at home, I sketched them quickly in Photoshop after the pencil drawings.

The Sorceress of the Hound

Among vacations, a no-sleeping child and many things to do, I didn't update here for a while. Anyway, in April I got a commission from a colleague and friend of mine, who owns a caravan and some competition dogs together with another girl. They asked me to draw a decal, which should be 100 x 30 cm, and be put on their caravan.

There must be written "LC witch on the way", in Swedish since this is their nickname in the world of dogs competitions. It should also represent a self-confident witch mastering two dogs of defined breed (afghan and whippet), which must be also easily recognisable from the picture. The dogs would like to run after a hare, but the sorceress would not let them go as they want.

She provided me with own photo references of the dogs, while the witch is not intended to look like the girls.

My idea was to use a cartoon style, since it's ironic and requires strong colours and shapes, which could be seen on the way by other cars. This was a very interesting and funny challenge for me, since I'm not really a cartoonist.

The first idea was to use a Disney-like approach, so this was the first sketch of the witch, plus the whippet:

I wasn't really satisfied with the characters, since they weren't coherent with each other, anatomy was annoyingly bad and the whole concept non that funny.

After some weeks I got a completely different approach, so this is the final result:

The sorceress haircut recalls the afghan ears and tail, as well hers slim arms should resemble the thin complexion of the whippet hound. She doesn't need to make such an effort to held the running dogs, since a couple of magic hands is working for her. On the other way, the hare is very aware of the situation and takes its time to drink a cocktail. The background contains very few and simple elements inspired by the swedish landscape (mushrooms, blueberries and fir forest), and is dark to highlight the magic thunderbolt and the dogs.
My friend said she was satisfied with the work and concept (for them, dogs anatomy was an important issue), hope they like it... for me, I had a lot of fun doing it.

Below, some details:

 The Witch

The Afghan

Whippet

Hare

Another sea beast

This week I continue to sketch hands and people from magazines and live. It was a kind of funny try to sketch a someone's hand in 30 seconds during a long meeting (to the ones who will object that's not a professional behavior, I can reply that it has been demonstrated that drawing during meetings and presentations helps to keep alert). 

But, for my evening paintings, I did something in the same way and with the same style of the previous post. This time just a little bit prettier than the last one, a kind of mix between a fish, a blackfish and some other species which name I don't remember. I had fun also creating some custom brushes in Photoshop, which I used here.

A couple of closeups follow:

Another marine creature

I've realized that it's very funny starting with some casual lines on a dark background, and try to create something out of it. And, since my favourite subject are, definetively, horrific and a bit disgusting creatures, that's what was coming out from the experiment. (well, I love also elfs and similar beautiful things, but painting the beautiful is very difficult, painting the ugly makes much more fun, and maybe is even less stereotyped)

Here follows a couple of close-ups. I'm very well aware that one cannot expect wet surfaces under water, as the mouth of this kind of blackfisk-lamprey is depicted, anyway I find it enhancing the disturbing feeling about this monster. The delicate flowers are used by the monster to attract and bring food to his mouth.

Limacina helicina

Today my boyfriend went out with our little child, so I could have some quiet hours to spend for copying a quite cool picture from my sea animals book. This is a snail called Limacina helicina which lives among the Plancton.
With this work, I realized that painting a copy is not the biggest issue. A photo has already a defined shape, correct proportions, perspective, palette and values. The big deal is to paint something completely invented. This one is my big problem, right now.

Jellyfishes

I need to speed up my way to paint. I love odd creatures, from every kingdom. Today I bought a wonderful book about sea life. Today I had a couple of hours just for myself. 

So, here comes three speed paintings: a Melicertum octocostatum, a Cyanea capillata and a Haliclystus auricula, about 20-30 minutes each. I enyojed it very much.