Something Up My Sleeve

I have been terrible in not updating my blog - although I promise I have been drawing! (See Instagram photo's as evidence.. and cheeky advertising for my page... jellybean94...ehem).

After finishing an ongoing commission, I was commissioned again to do a project for a client in Austria which unfortunately fell through. However, this gave me the opportunity to draw whatever the hell I wanted! (As you would have read from my previous post - this is something I have underestimated in the past).

And although I would be very excited to start a new commission, I have actually started to get excited about a project I have briefed myself!

So I began where I always begin... Pinterest! So full of awesome imagery and where I collect a lot of my inspiration! It's always good to find an image you love and give it a go to get your creative juices flowing!

That's where I found this image of Mr Giraffe wearing the glasses and bow tie and decided to give it a go. Unfortunately I can't find the original artist but whoever you are, thank you for your dapper giraffe and for giving me a kick up the arse.

Literally after drawing this sketch, I went on to paint my portrait above. I had been talking a lot about getting my hair cut that day - anyone who knows me knows I have very long, touching my butt, personal scarf, always in my mouth, untameable, getting caught in zips and my other-halves beard, not aviator friendly, porn star length hair. It's a love-hate relationship. It gets cut maybe once a year and I feel very weird without it. But after a very blustery walk the other day - being unable to see anything but my brown locks gave me inspiration for this one.

It didn't stop there though! After the 'hair' painting, I went on to character designing my very own Bella The Pig. Yes, I have a pig. No, not a tiny teacup pig. A full on chunky porker who has been my baby for over 8 years now. And she became my inspiration for my next project.

Bella is a Kune-Kune pig and I got her and her sister Inka as piglets when I was 15. These animals are the friendliest things with oodles of personality. I wanted to portray Bella as this silly excited piglet and I think I pulled this off pretty accurately, if I do say so myself!