Here’s a bit of daft face painting for a Halloween party. Almost identical to a disguise I adopted two years ago but this time with a willing sidekick.
My friends at the party were most disturbed by this look and failed completely to recognise me…
Job done, I say!
My lovely friend Amalia (herself a talented watercolourist) asked me to design and paint a mural for the back room in her Vejer pharmacy which she is renovating.
The room has an impressive archway and will be used as a venue for workshops on health related matters such as diabetes, pre- and post-natal care and managing stress through yoga and meditation.
Amalia’s brief for the mural was that it should include plants and impart a sense of harmony and tranquility.
I selected various plants with tranquililising properties during a web search, printed photos and set about developing drawings in my sketchbook.
I came up with two options for the mural; one using the arch as a frame for a botanical drawing of an entire valerian plant
the other embelleshing the arch itself with a more stylised arrangement of kava, valerian, passionflower and chamomile.
Amalia selected the second option which I then developed into a more detailed drawing (below).
I drew just the left half of the design in detail. I then photographed it and used Photoshop to duplicate and flip it to create a mirror image. I printed out the drawing and packed it in my suitcase in readiness for my trip to Vejer.
Being faced with the actual wall was quite daunting at first, I had to be up and down a ladder to gain proper perspective as I worked which took its toll on my neck and ankles!
I drew the left side of the mural onto the wall in pencil. When I was happy with the layout I traced it in sections, flipping each one over so that I could copy the mirror image to the right side of the arch.
I painted the white parts first; then came the colour…I made a chart as a mixing guide.
Using the grey-green wall colour as a base I added tiny amounts of acrylic paint to get all the subtle shades required to colour the mural.
The mural is certainly subtle and elegant and has been received very generously.
The pale colours do make it difficult to photograph the entire mural well however, so here are some details:
Two of my lovliest friends tied the knot in London earlier this summer, so I made them a wedding card featuring a joint portrait.
First I trawled through their Facebook albums for a suitable photo from which I drew a simple outline of each of them in pencil (below).
I made two separate drawings so that I could experiment with the joint portrait composition.
Having photographed my pencil outlines and uploaded them into Photoshop there was a space where an ear should’ve been so I went back to the drawing board and invented one.
Having settled on the composition I ‘cut out’ and tidied up the line work in Photoshop (above).
Working in layers I collaged the coloured elements, starting with the rainbow sunglasses (above). I found the generic rainbow and heart images from a google image search.
I block coloured the skin, hair and background with the paint brush / bucket tool.
To add a little shaddow and depth I duplicated the line work layer twice, off-setting each new layer very slightly in different directions and setting the blending mode to overlay.
On separate layers I used the brush tool at 0% hardness to add the skin highlights (white, 100% opacity, blending mode soft light), hair sheen (flesh tone, 100% opacity, blending mode normal) and darker skin tone (pink, 18% opacity, blending mode normal).
I used the star pattern in the brush tool (white, size 600 approx, blending mode screen) to add the glint on the sunglasses in two layers.
The final touches were the extra heart layer to pep up the background (white, 100% opacity, soft light blending mode); the text (white, 100% opacity, blending mode normal) with an offset layer behind it (white, 70% opacity, blending mode overlay) and the white glints on the text (same as for the glasses).
I was chuffed to bits when the grooms told me that they loved the image so much that they wanted to use it as their post-wedding thank you card.
I sent them a couple of alternative colourways and their printer did the honours!
And here they are, the gorgeous couple (above) and surrounded by their friends and family on the glorious day (below).
I made this little pen and watercolour sketch of the view through the castle ramparts at a recent meeting of the Vejer Sketchers.