its raining cats and dogs in our household :)

When one is surrounded by pets who demand much of your time~ its only natural that they in turn become much of one's art inspirations….

a quick A4 size sketch and 20 mins watercolor of Kerbi (my sons name) 
or Tiger (my choice of name for this wild spirited feline) 
Don't you just love those fearsome mesmerizing eyes?

It seems so unfair to sketch Tiger without also completing one of Tobie and so I had to hurriedly attempt an A4 sized watercolor to try to capture the essence of his scaredity cat eyes~ but we know better than to be fooled by him! The vet can bear testament to the fact by the scars on her arms when she made a house call to give Tobie his injections!

experimenting with textures

many layerings of masking liquid to create the hair curls, contrast and highlights

experimenting with salt to create a more 3 D effect for the tuna fish

after which both paintings were created into a magazine cover using bighugelabs effects

This has been a fun weekend indeed <3

borrowing a page from posh, charles & Keith~

I think Victoria's latest collection of clothes are awsome~ but not the weird "swimming cap" thingy the models were wearing!
So I substituted it with pixie haircut and sunglasses~

but looking back , I think I should have stopped and left the illustration undone ~

would have been more dramatic?

and dont you just love the new range of gladiator heels that is the current rage?
I think Charles & Keith deserves a pat for their latest collection too ;)

painting is only as good as the photo referencing~

Indeed I would make a most horrible commercial artist (not that I am good enough yet hee hee)

Time is so precious to me that I have so little to spare …therefore I only want to use it to paint something that I have affinity for or that tugs at my heartstrings….
thats why my favourite subject matters are my sons, my pets, sceneries that has nostalgia for me, something that I wanna do e.g diving or traveling …
in short, I only want to make the investment of time to do the art piece IF it speaks to me~

And I find that apart from being passionate about the painting subject, good photos are essential as references…
Luckily I have loads of archive photos that will not make me lack subject matter and I do envisage myself very very occupied for a long long long time, hahahaha.

That said, while photographs make good reference ….to really see tiny details, the photos if printed has to be of high quality…
If space does not permit, then I prefer to work direct from photos straight from the camera but my ultimate choice is I love to reference photos using the fantastic lighting from my iPad's screen!
Mac's technology is awsome to bring the photos alive in such vivid colors and thats what makes the difference between making the painting more realistic, in my personal opinion!

Here's Elmo done from my ipad photo reference ~

                              
                                      A4 hotpressed 220gms acid free paper
                                 and all framed up with app from bighugelabs~

all framed up~

loving what bighugelabs mat app does to photos ~
If only I wasn't so paranoid about doing online payment….I really should support them by subscribing…maybe I should just take the plunge?

Today I'd rather be at the beach~

some days are better spent imagining…..especially Mondays….

looking at archive photos of Maldives and remembering the fun we had when we tried to wild goose chase for the hundreds of manta rays promised to be Halfungu during the monsoons of 2010~

but luckily we were blessed to see a couple at Male….

I shall try to paint some the manta shots sometime soon~

Meanwhile I can't wait to be at Sipadan again~

10 days can't come fast enough !!!

                                 a set of small watercolors on beach @ Maldives
                                           2.5" x 3.5" on 300gsm paper

my first watercolor on uw critters~

I hv been itching to paint some of the wonders from underwater~ it was in fact this idea that made me go back to art in the first place~

I am quite happy and excited about outcome on today's experimenting with my seahorse….

A4 watercolor on 300gsm paper