This year Tania McCartney started the wonderful 52 Week Illustration Challenge – setting out an inspiration word for each week to use as the basis for an illustration. The community is open to all ages, all genres, all capabilities and I LOVED the idea of doing an illustration every week.
So, I have decided to keep a little diary of my works as the year progresses and I’ll publish each of the artworks at the end of the month. At the end of the year, I may even sell the artworks….let’s see if I can keep on track first!
Week 1 – EGG
My egg illustration was done in 11 minutes. Yes, that was all the time I had while my homemade pizzas were cooking!
I used a scrap piece of mat board (I found while clearing out my art studio) and pastels….
Not my best work but hey, it’s an egg!
Week 2 – KIDS
My inspiration is never too far away from me! A portrait of my boys depicting their clear individual differences as well as their age gaps!
Each of the boys could recognise themselves and I suspect they were each quite chuffed to be transformed into a cartoony-like character!
This was done with watercolour and ink.
Week 3 – CARAVAN
I love vintage things, my house is full of them! So what better than to display a wide range of vintage caravans!
I used water-colour, ink and attached them to make a 3D picture. I had some left over caravans, so I made a partner illustration.
Week 4 – SELFIE
This is a sketch I began with showing the variety of ‘funny faces’ my kids pull when I try to take a photo of them! This was a quick HB sketch in my ‘take with me everywhere’ sketch book.
But, I was so inspired by the 52 Challenge group that I decided I too should do a ‘real’ selfie. It is kind of hard to look at yourself in an artistic way, as there are so many self-esteem emotions attached. I wanted to do it as quickly as possible, so I used cardboard and left over water-colour smidgens with a fairly dry brush. I wanted to challenge myself not to work too wet and building up of my paints, I wanted every brush stroke to count. Of course all I can see are the flaws, face is too round, mouth is not quite right, teeth are a little large, but when I showed my three-year old, he said, ‘Hey mum, that’s you’…..so I can’t be too far off the mark! Completed in 20 minutes so was fairly painless!
Well, I have made it through the first month of illustrations, and enjoyed every minute of it! There are over 500 members of the group and the range, diversity and courage to post work is amazing. I am truly loving this challenge 🙂
Staying creative,
Nicky x
 (You can see all my 52 Week Illustration Challenge contributions HERE)
Trackbacks/Pingbacks