Sketchbook Friday!

Elliott and Amélie in Wonderland - pencil sketch

This week the kids were watching Alice in Wonderland, they like the real life Tim Burton version, so I was doodling while they watched the movie.  It's one of my favorites too, both the Disney Cartoon version and the Tim Burton one, just so much imagination in the world they create! I think this doodle might have to become clean art at some point, I quite like it! Feel free to click the above image for a larger view!

To see previous sketchbook Friday's click here!

 

Payneful Feat map - digital illustration

Please click on illustration for a larger view!

I am  posting this instead of the regular Sketchbook Friday illustration. I've been working on it in my free time this week, and wanted to share it with you all. 

This July myself and 3 fantastic ladies are doing the Oxfam Trailwalker's 100 km hike, sound easy enough? We have to do this hike in under 48 hours! We've been training for the past 2 months, and are hiking a minimum of 30 km an outing now. This is an illustration of last weekend's hike. As you can see we have a lot of fun, and are getting quite the workout. Our support person is in charge of keeping track of our time, since we need to stay on target, but we are easily distracted. Perfect set up for a Family Circus style map non?! 

If you are interested in sponsoring us, or checking out our Facebook Payneful Feat page here are the links!  Thank you all! 

*The Family Circus logo is not mine, I am using it for parody purposes only on my personal site.

 

Sketchbook Friday, Eddie and Violet - coloured pencil sketch

Here is another Sketchbook Friday drawing. These two are characters I made for the kids of their aquatic pets. For Valentine's day we got them a little jar with each a Marimo ball in it. For those of you who don't know what a Marimo ball is, it's a kind of algae that grows in lakes into a velvety ball. The kids want a fish aquarium so badly, but they are still little, and I know the work would fall to me, and I just don't have the time right now. So this is the substitute for the time being and the kids LOVE them! You would be surprised to see the amount of stories my 5 year old has written about these little guy's adventures. Who knew two little green balls of algae could be so much fun!


If you want to check out the Marimo balls, there is a good Etsy store called eGardenStudio, where I purchased mine, check them out, they have lovely ideas for unique gifts!


Celeste xo

 

To see more Sketchbook Friday's click here! 

 

Sketchbook Friday - Jasper and his spring - pencil sketch

This week's sketchbook doodle is one I did a while back, it's a little series about my sister's cat Jasper and his spring.  He loves his springs, and his cat tunnel, so do my kids when they go visit! 

 

Sketchbook Friday Elliott and the Octopus - pencil sketch

So part of my new plan, is to do more blog posts. I have plan to post 3 days a week and Friday's are going to be called Sketchbook Fridays (catchy non?). 

The idea here is that I share with you something unfinished, from my sketchbook. Sometimes they are roughs or doodles that will one day be finished art, and sometimes they are just little drawings I do to amuse myself (like this one).  Ask any artist/illustrator and they will tell you, for every 1 drawing that sees the light of day, there are probably 20 that don't. 

I hope you enjoy these, most of them are just me reminding myself why I love to draw. No rules or restrictions, no deadlines, doodling while waiting in line for something or appointments, or just while watching tv.

Céleste

Sketchbook page - charcoal, paper

So one of my new years resolutions was to just draw more, for fun, with no real end result in mind.  As a freelancer I am always thinking "but how can I make money off this?" and sometimes lose sight of drawing for the love of it.  So here we go, drawing for fun, just because I can. Click on image for a larger clearer version!

This page was done in different charcoal pencils, willow sticks, Conte sticks... I don't think I've used this type of equipment since college! It was fun, and messy, and relaxing, which is the whole point of this exercise. Hope you enjoy this peek into my sketchbook!

 

Downy Woodpecker - pencil sketch

I had so much fun with the chickadee, that I decided to do another one. This is a downy woodpecker, with a lumberjack vest.

 

Chickadee -pencil

Just a quick doodle while I was waiting for some feedback on other projects, but I quite like this little guy! 

Bunny - pencil sketch

I don't know about you guys, but I have one kid who LOVES his bunny. He won't go anywhere without it, and needs to snuggle and play with his ears to be able to fall asleep. I love this, partly because it's adorable, and partly because i am a huge fan of the story the Velveteen rabbit.

I did a little sketch of him for Elliott, but really like the way he turned out so I am going to try to come up with a project that I can use him in. Right now I am thinking a fabric pattern with Bunny and other of Elliott's favorites, maybe to be made into a pillow case or something. Or perhaps a wall in his room with little framed sketches of his favorite friends, like the family photo wall we have in our hallway.  Or maybe both! either way, it was fun to draw something of a still life, but with a little added character. It's been a while since I did something like that!

C~

Hi guys!

I decided to do something different today and post the process I went through on a recent (very quick) project I did for WWF Canada . It's WWF's 50th anniversary and in celebration of that, they wanted a birthday panda illustration for the front cover of their children's newsletter. I was excited and honored that they chose me to illustrate it for them.  As you know, I've done work with WWF Canada for the past 10 years (wow, didn't realize it was that long until I wrote it!)  So it was exciting for me to do this for them. 

I started with a concept. They wanted a Panda bear celebrating his birthday, something cute for the kids. So I started by coming up with a cute panda character design...

 

Then once I did that I made a list of friends that would celebrate with our Panda. Since this is for the Canadian newsletter, I choose Canadian wildlife, that is on the endagered or at risk list. Animals that I know WWF has programs set up for right now. Then I worked them into the composition. (doodle right of the panda designs)

Afterwards I worked on some roughs for the other animals to be placed in the illustration. 

 

Then I worked on laying them out, and creating a couple options for the editor at WWF.  

I tried to keep everything pretty natural, the decorations, the "table" even the candles ended up being bees wax lit by two very accommodating fireflies! Here is the final art (text and logo are part of the mock up, their in house designer lays it out, so the final print might be a little different then this one below).

  

 

As I said this was a very fast turn around project, I had 3 days from submission of roughs to final art.  So there are not as many revisions or steps that can happen in other projects, but this gives you a nice idea of how I work.  Thanks to WWF Canada again for the fun project! 

Check out their website for info on the animals in the illustration.

Woodland Caribou

Polar Bear

Vancouver Island Marmots

Black footed Ferret

Monarch butterfly

Burrowing owls

Northern leopard frog

Silly Bird - pencil crayon sketch

Just a silly sketch I came up with while doodling with my 3 year old.

Hawkeye in socks - pencil sketch