Oh my goodness. I haven’t posted about my art properly for such a long time. For anyone following my weekly ‘acts of wildness’, you’ll know I’ve been busy doing bits and pieces. But I’ve found myself creating pieces thinking ‘I need to write about this’ and then completely not writing about this!
So October seemed like a good opportunity to write about art again. I’ve been a busy bee with a variety of birthday presents and, before the month’s out, I wanted to share these with you properly. Let’s start at the beginning of the month with my friend’s birthday…
A piece of home
When I decided I wanted to paint/draw/create something for my friend for her 30th birthday, I knew straight away that I wanted it to be Malham Cove. This is a very close friend of mine and she’s also my oldest friend. I met her at college when I was doing my A Levels. I found school really hard and had pretty much no friends when I started college but she was one of the people who changed all of that. Malham reminds me of home and home reminds me of her.
The piece is ink and pencil on watercolour. I tried really hard to build the layers of detail gradually and I spent a lot of time looking at it from a distance, checking whether the piece looked right. I think I made my friend cry… (not in a bad way!)
Prints glorious prints!
Lapwing print 
Marsh tit print
Next up was my uncle and my sister. I picked out what I thought were two of my stronger bird pieces and had some prints made – the lapwing went to my uncle and the marsh tit went to my sister. I really enjoyed playing with the colours in the originals of these pieces. Both are watercolours and both try to capture the complexity of colours in both birds. I was inspired to paint the lapwing following my trip to the Yorkshire Dales in May. The marsh tit came from my canal adventure in August, along with a visit to Brandon Marsh Nature Reserve in September.
Birthday postcards
I’m really enjoying painting birthday postcards at the moment. I think I need to revive the Claude & Jolene cards at some point, but I do enjoy these little watercolour pieces! My friend, uncle and sister all received one of these little watercolours for their birthdays. I drew the detail with ink on top of the watercolour layers. The trees were for my sister, my uncle got the balloons and my friend had the flowers.
A special book for a special little boy (and his special pet cat called Bella!)
And the final October birthday piece was my biggest challenge yet. I planned this weeks in advance and practiced so many drawings and ideas in my sketchbook before taking the plunge. This is a (very short) story for my close friend’s little boy for his 1st birthday. Yes, that’s right, the friend who received the Malham picture for her 30th – it’s her little boy. I swear October birthdays run in families!
With their permission, I’d like to share the full story, and scans of the illustrations, with you. The critters and images are all ink on watercolour.
“Oliver & Bella and their woodland friends”
“Oliver and Bella love the woods. There’s always something new to see.”
“All the blackbirds, robins and songbirds sing.”
“And squirrels shuffle through the trees.”
“The woodpeckers drum, drum, drum.”
“And deer play hide and seek.”
“Oliver and Bella love the woods. And all their woodland friends!”
I hope you enjoyed this short round-up. I’m currently working on a few smaller pieces and then it’ll be time to start thinking about Christmas presents…!
Ramblings of a (very!) amateur artist 