Imagination

This is a personal project in which I had a great deal of fun painting. I honestly dont quite know why I decided to put a flying pig in there, but I'm sure I had a good reason at the time. The man/floating head on the left is a famous Irish author. Those of you looking at this who are Irish, and dont know who it is then great shame must descend on you until you find out...

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Ominous night activities...

This was the final painting of the four double-page spreads I did for my children's picture book. This is easily my favourite of the four. I started off quite tentatively with these pics but got much more confident as i progressed. I was so very conscious of what colours to use and where and when to use them that I had to sometimes take a little step back and look at them from a distance. This is the night scene near the end of the story and i wanted to make it ominous and a little eerie. Other than the creatures(obviously) its all various shades of blue, mainly ultramarine. Hope you like it folks...

NO PHOTOSHOP WAS USED IN THE PRODUCTION OF THESE PAINTINGS. ;)

Finito!!

This took a few hours but I'am relatively pleased with it. The colours amongst the creatures work well together and i think there is a good contrast of dark and light spread around them. The sky brings the island forward, which was what i was aiming for, but it has been commented that it is perhaps a little too striking, that I should have gone for a more neutral colour. This is indeed a worthy observation but its such a dramatic area of the story that I wanted the sky to be quietly menacing. I loved doing this pic but I am glad its finished as it was time-consuming and delicate work...It has been a valuable learning curve tackling this type of pic, and a good exercise in patience too!

Double-page spread from book

Here is the first pic 'done' for the children's book...Honestly I dont really know how I feel about it yet...I think I like some of what is happening in there but its one of those strange cases where I've been working on it for so many hours that I've become a bit numb to it... The light green area in the top right of the pic is where the text will appear...It appears to have a good balance in places but there is areas that still need work...

Has Bush's luck run out?

This is an editorial project I did last year for the cover of The Economist. I remember being quite pleased with this at the time but I would approach it differently now. The lighting and shadow is basic at best but it was never intended to be "realistic". Still, the colours are a little subdued and dont seem to grasp your attention like a cover should. But I suppose, "there are no mistakes, only discoveries"...

Reverie

This started out as a quick sketch that I did in Hyde Park in Sydney. Its alot more graphic-like than I would normally go for but people seem to like it which does surprise me.

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