I have a new blog

I've moved to tumblr: http://madebynicky.tumblr.com/

Commission

Commission

Golden Oldies

Beauty and the Beast

Holiday Illustrations and Vintage Frame

These are some of the illustrations I did on my holiday in Wales. I brought a gorgeous vintage frame! I love it

Tree Spirit

I wanted to try a simple way of colouring, keeping a limited pallet for a change, as I usually go overboard with shading with loads of different colours. I've always loved Abigail Larson's way of colouring and wanted to try it out. There's something really appealing about the hand drawn sketch with the subtle computerised colouring.

Beauty and the Beast

I've decided to enter a competition to win the opportunity to illustrate the new Michael Morpurgo's "Beauty and the Beast". It would be amazing if I won, as the book will be published with my illustrations! This is a little sketch of what my Beauty could look like. I did another drawing similar to this with her in a rust-coloured dress. I think that coloured dress could be better. Still working on the design of her. Next I will be thinking of how to draw Beast.

Some Sketches

I've started colouring this one in on Photoshop (above).

Some more successful sketches

Sketchbook

Bluebell

Did some watercolour painting last night, finished it off today. Also added some more to it in Photoshop once I scanned it in.

Fanart for Holly Black's "The Curse Workers" book series.

Photoshop CS2 and Wacom Intuos4 graphics tablet

Ondine

Watched "Ondine" today and drew the main character Ondine. The film is a modern fairy tale that tells the story of a fisherman who catches a mysterious woman in his nets. His daughter belives she is a magical creature, a Selkie.

Digital painting done with Wacom Intuos4 and Photoshop CS2. Inspired by Txema Yeste and Cecile

Foxy Lady

"Wide Open" Exhibition Show

This is what the final pieces look like mounted at the exhibition in my college.

I have also written a small poem to go along with the images to help tell the story better.

"She found him there by the waterside and swam towards the rock he did perch on"

"Leaning forwards, she grabbed and tugged his hair. In to the water he did fall"

"She dragged him deeper underwater, struggling all the way"

"Keeping him alive in the deep, living things did start to grow, upon the sailor she stole"

"For many years he did stay, chained to the sea bed.

The deep sea can be such a lonely place."

Start of Final outcome

So this was one monoprint that was dry enough to start drawing one of my final pieces in the story I will have. I was looking for shapes in the monoprint to lend it self to one of the images I had in mind. There seemed to be an eye shaped section in the middle of the green that was clear, so I used this as my starting point for the image.

I used pen and ink to create the line work and then worked over this with white ink, white acrylic and charcoal to get more depth and detail in the piece.

I burnt the edges of the piece, creating a circular shape to imitate that of a telescope or porthole. I also used my woodburning pyrography tool to burn holes like rusty bubbles in to the piece. I want to create a weathered rusty look with these pieces. Really pleased with how the first one turned out, now have to do 4 more!

Progress

Tried some Chinese collage printing. I used a zinc plate to print these textures. I also used cut out shapes from the monoprints that I have done previously. This creates a really unusal effect which is quite nice.

With this one I drew over the top of one of the prints, using a fine liner and white ink. Really nice effect, but I'm running out of time to try and experiment more with this technique to do more prints!

I drew over one of the monoprints with pen and ink. Really like the effect that it created, using the spots of colour to create shapes in the man's face. The blue on the side of his face transformed into a jellyfish and the red turned into shells. Really like the use of colour.

Ideas...

Trying to think up a storyline for my sea myths is difficult. There is so much I could use from my research that could be helpful to create something. I have too much information for once! At the moment, all that keeps sticking in my head is to do something on mermaids. However, I don't want to be really cliché about the project and do something obvious like mermaids.

I had a thought when I was coming home on the train last week of a storyline. A mermaid/siren seduces a sailor, but then turns into this evil deep-sea fish that drags him down to the depths. She keeps him alive under the water in the depths and slowly things start to grow on him - barnacles, starfish, seaweed, coral, jellyfish etc.

Thinking of doing 3 big drawings of this story and a flipbook to show how she changes and drags him under the water. I dont know whether this is still quite obvious or not, but this is what I have in mind at the moment, and i'm running out of time!

Burning Bubbles

Adding more to my Amphitrite illustration - burnt bubbles. Really fun to experiment with my new Pyrography tool.

Tore the edges of the paper so when I burn the edges the fire is more contained to where Iwant it to burn. (a little tip I heard)

Found my Dad's old fishing equipment with some fish hooks! Decided to try and see if my idea of hanging the pictures up with fish hooks would work, which it does.

Really like the shadows that are created by the holes in the paper.