New Digital Painting/Illustration: Veg!

Hi again.

Today's digital painting/illustration is simply of vegetables, in Krita pen and wash digital watercolour...

And what am I going to do with it? (No idea, to be honest, but am sure its purpose will emerge. Have almost never yet produced something without it having a role to play somewhere...eventually :-))

If it strikes you that this has a perfect use, please let me know!

By the way, in contrast to the little bear cub the other day, this image didn't wander into my head. But you can't just wait for inspiration to strike, can you?

So I decided that I'd draw the next thing that came into my head, whatever it was. Randomly, that was a carrot... and then the rest followed anyway.


In the meantime, hope it helps you feel healthy and bright in these wintry days.

-Update the next day (5/12/2019).

So it turns out I am happily wrong...this image looks *amazing* on a whole range of items, from T shirts to art prints...(See for yourself at my Redbubble shop here...)

New Digital Painting/Illustration: Sending You a Bear Hug

Was going to take a longer break, but this little bear wanted to be drawn in Krita and shared. (Suspect he wants to be uploaded for sale to make his way into more people's lives-will do that tomorrow!)

Update 3/12/2019: You can now send someone a bear hug on cards, T-shirts, stickers and much more...

More soon...

AEDM 30: A Christmas Ecard...

It's the final day of Art Every Day Month. And here is the e-card I've designed for hubby and me to send this year.

They've become a tradition like any other. And this year, our donation to go with it went to planting trees with the Woodland Trust.

As ever, you're also more than welcome to use this graphic as an ecard too.

The full link for donations to the Woodland Trust is:

 https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/support-us/give/donations/

Thanks so much for bring part of, not just my Art Every Day challenge, but also my year and my life. It's lovely to know that people have been enjoying these posts.

I'll be taking a break from daily posts for a few days, but will be back soon!

AEDM 29: "Crochet" Effect Mandala Pattern

It's Day 29 of Art Every Day Month, and today's design came about by accident.

Following a recommendation, I went to try out SumoPaint, an image editor that (at time of writing) seems to be free-to-use online. (And please note, I'm not being paid at all for saying anything about SumoPaint, I'm just a curious new user of it).

It looks fantastic, and would appear to have lots of tools included that are similar to Photoshop and other more expensive apps.

I ended up playing only with the symmetry painting tool in various sizes. And after some playing around (there's really no other phrase for it, it was great fun :-)) out popped these mandalas.

They've got something of the appearance of wool, so have likened them to crochet in naming them. But you might see something entirely different in them.

As a sidenote, for speed and familiarity, I created this quick actual pattern using the mandala motifs in Patternshop (an excellent free pattern-making program that I think have mentioned before).

But in fairness to SumoPaint, there may be a way to arrange motifs there that I simply haven't found yet. They do mention "Pattern fill" which, along with *lots* other features in the app, I have yet to explore.

All-in-all, SumoPaint looks like an interesting app to watch.

More tomorrow.

AEDM 28: "Thanks So Much": Free Printable

I'm from the UK, so we don't celebrate Thanksgiving as it is today in the US....But it still seems a great idea to take time to be thankful and generous.

So, for Day 28 of Art Every Day Month, here's a free printable that you can use in any context where you want to be thankful (and even sell anything you make from the printed sheet: my full "angel policy" for crafters is here).

Thanks for your visit, too -and have fun with this.

More tomorrow...;

Free Christmas Printable & Colouring Page (AEDM Day 27)

This free Christmas printable is 5000 pixels square and full size, making it fab for any projects you want to create using it when printed out.

If you'd prefer to colour it your own way, you're also welcome to print out the black-and-white version as a colouring page...

Either way, enjoy!

These are also my art for Art Every Day Month day 27, so there'll be...

More tomorrow...

AEDM Day 26 & New Illustration: Orange Slice

For Day 26 of Art Every Day Month, here's a slice of orange on a work top, in Krita...I'm out of time for anything more fancy...

More tomorrow...

New Digital Paintings: Hellebore (AEDM Day 25)

It's Day 25 of Art Every Day Month, and am trying to decide between the splattered and non-splattered versions of hellebore flower (also called the "Christmas Rose"). What do you think?

Version without "splatters"

And the version with:

In any event, more tomorrow.

New Digi Watercolour Sketch in Krita: Scissors (AEDM 24)

Yep, it's day 24 of Art Every Day month. And I'm at that stage in a challenge where I'm casting around the house for things to draw...:-) (Also grey London in November doesn't necessarily hold all the appeal it might...for me, at least).

However, this has led me to attempt a quick watercolour sketch in Krita, of scissors. And, as I hardly ever draw man-made objects, am reasonably happy with this as a quick first attempt.

More tomorrow.

Rainbow Layer-Cake in Digital Watercolour: AEDM 23

For Art Every Day Month Day 23, here's a digi-watercolour (in Krita) of some rainbow layer cake.

Now, if you know me, you might already know two things. Firstly, that I'm always wanting to draw more food, but hardly ever do.

Secondly. that I've deliberately (but by choice) along with hubby, not eaten sugary food since about July 2018.

But when a neighbour's kid really sweetly offered us a slice of her birthday cake, neither I nor my hubby had the heart to refuse.

The cake was delicious (and it turns out, it's what you eat *most* of the time that counts)

And more importantly for this blog, it turns out that drawing food is huge fun...and I'd love to do it more often.

Speaking of more, there will of course be ...more tomorrow...

AEDM 22: An Inspiring Quote from Barnum...

Art Every Day Month, Day 22.

Came across this inspiring quote from PT Barnum today, loved it and decided to illustrate it...But am running out of time for the day. Outside of the context of the AEDM challenge, I'd have spent a *lot*longer making sure the text can be read, and "texturizing" the text itself. (Background texture in ArtRage 6, lettering in Krita).

However, just for now, this is going to have to be today's post...As there will be, you guessed it....

More tomorrow.

A Special Announcement...

Special announcement... Ooooh, this is exciting...I've been approved to compete in this year's Wraptious Christmas Competition, with these designs (available on either prints or cushions).

It's effectively a pop-up Christmas shop, with three trees planted for every order placed.

But whether you just want to buy or browse, I really need your help. This is because every single like and share I receive until Friday 13th December counts as a vote in the competition.

So, please visit, like and share this page: https://www.wraptious.com/collections/autumn-2019-submissions-by-clare-walker

Many, many thanks!

Winter Whimsy Botanicals in Krita: AEDM 21.

It's Day 21 of Art Every Day Month.

And today, I was inspired by a brilliant winter greenery tutorial by Shayda Campbell on YouTube.

Christma has always felt a bit "blah," grey and difficult to illustrate, as everything turns so
Now, as her tutorial is for physical watercolour, I knew that some changes would be needed to pull off a similar effect in digital watercolour in Krita 4.2).

For example, graphics pens are wonderful. But colour mixing, mostly at least, has to take place with them in different strokes or layers, rather than mixing on a palette.

And once there was one change...Well, suffice to say that I seem to have ended up with mistletoe rather than cedar...no pinecones, holly with many less berries,  and very whimsical white berries, that  don't look like Shayda's snowberries at all...

In other words, the final result doesn't really resemble the actual tutorial in any way.

But I did learn a lot from the technique, and enjoyed playing with a much lighter colour palette than I normally would. Thank you Shayda for a great and inspiring tutorial. It certainly isn't your fault that I seem incapable of following anyone's tutorials without going completely into my own world instead. :-)

More tomorrow.

Penguins & Mistletoe (AEDM 20)

Following on from yesterday, AEDM 20 shows what happened next: a possible penguin romance, complete with mistletoe. Am still not certain whether this will turn into a card or something else as yet. But this is where I'll leave the art for now. There's time before Christmas yet for something to get added or changed here.

More tomorrow.

New Digital Watercolour Work-in-Progress (AEDM 19)

For Day 19 of  Art Every Day Month, I made myself practice what I preach. Have been saying for ages that it's important for people to realise that lots of paintings and graphics take more than a day to create.

But it feels really challenging to post something "unfinished£. Yet, unless I do, a) I won't be walking my talk, and b) I can't reasonably expect anyone to understand how long some tasks really take.

So here, for your delectation and delight (?!) is an unfinished work-in-progress, currently featuring the image that popped into my head and kick-started the process: a penguin in a red hat.

More tomorrow, when I'll be as interested as anyone to see where this goes.

Thinking of You Card & Repeat Pattern: AEDM 18

For today (AEDM 18) I've had a sudden unfortunate need to design and send a "Thinking of You" card with a co-ordinating pattern inside. (You may recognise this leaf motif (slightly modified) from day 14).

I'll probably put this on sale in due course, but right now, I just want to get this sent to the person who needs it.

More tomorrow.

New Digital Painting/Art Journal (AEDM Day 17)

Day 17 of the Art Every Day Month challenge, and this is as much a note to myself as anything else.
Joy comes naturally to me...but so does an accompanying smidgen of guilt if others aren't in the same place.

Then I pondered on this...When you think about it, it does no good at all to dim your own joy too far...It may in fact lead a person to be less effective in helping others than they might otherwise have been...and to have fewer reserves to draw upon in their own time of need.

Just on a personal level, felt like a point worth remembering-as well as a great chance to practice digi *watercolour* lettering (and backgrounds) in Krita 4.2.

More tomorrow.

Simple Mistletoe Watercolour (AEDM Day 16)

Day 16 of Art Every Day Month.

Just a little 2" by 1" watercolour miniature of some mistletoe for today-it's been unexpectedly busy today,.

More tomorrow.

Free Printable: "Election Bingo" Card (AEDM 15)

It's Friday, and time for a bit of fun...

Here in the UK, politicians have been released back into the wild for another election.

So, in order to make the tedium of watching it all a little more fun, I've designed this bingo card, that helps the user to spot all the various kinds of behaviour that politicians tend to exhibit, and which becomes exaggerated during election periods.

This card deliberately applies to politicians of all political persuasions (and probably in many countries outside the UK, too).

So, if you feel like printing this off for your amusement whenever there's an election where you are, please feel free.

There are no prizes for this, obviously-just the satisfaction or otherwise of a completed card.

And finally, there was no political intent behind these colours. It's hard to find a colour that someone somewhere hasn't used for political purposes. And it's cold here at the moment, so I went for warm colours.

More tomorrow.

An Autumn Leaf Watercolour Story...(AEDM 14)

Painting leaves in pen-and-wash is an autumn tradition for me now, as for lots of other people...Maybe even, almost a cliché, for some.

 And yet, I like how this turned out. (Particularly as I genuinely did paint it in the 20 minutes I had whilst hubby was in the shower...I'll be trying speed painting again! :-).

With this leaf though, there's also a story.

Now, don't get me wrong, I *love* autumn colours, and have always understood we're lucky to get them.

But this year, that's taken on a whole new dimension.

For, like many people, once the leaves had got into the, "blowing into the house, leaf piles in the street, "Will the pavement turn leaf-sludgy?,"" stage, I was getting tempted to moan along with everyone else, and to bemoan the onset of winter that fallen leaves herald.

Then, a chance remark by a Facebook friend changed everything.

She lives in a very different part of the world. So different in fact, that she had to go on a day-long hunt for any autumn colour at all, and (rightly!) celebrated that she found two gorgeous leaves in the process.

After reading that, I didn't even notice that it was freezing cold, drizzle-drenched and blowing a gale the next time I went outdoors. Instead, all I could see (and actually *see*, this time) were trees and streets cloaked and carpeted  in russet, burnt orange and gold...And all I could do was to marvel, as if for the first time, at how amazing that really was (and *is*).

And so, I painted one of the next leaves to blow through our door, out of 100% gratitude...

More tomorrow.

Update and PS: I've wonderful person and artist whose original comments inspired this piece supported it enthusiastically, so I'm more than delighted to be able to link to her own wonderful work as a thank you.

AEDM 13 Leaves Turned into a Kaleidoscope Design...

It's Art Every Day Month Day 13. And again, here's something entirely different.

Spoonflower's theme for their latest contest was "Kaleidoscope".

So I was aiming to simulate that "brightly-coloured-bits-of-glass-fractal," look of my childhood kaleidoscope (which used to fascinate me for hours).

Somehow, part of my (very bad) photo of some leaves outside ...went through 5 different digital programs, (Picture  to Painting converter, Gimp, Serif Craft Artist, Repper, Photoshop Elements and Gimp again...all with various settings and twiddles therein)


and turned into this...

More -and most probably something different again,  tomorrow.

New Art Journaling:Sometimes You Need to Throw Paint (AEDM Day12)

As you can see, this is rather different from the "neat" colouring page on Day 10.

I did open up ArtRage 6  meaning to add neat digi-colour. But then, something about all that keeping-within-the-lines was infuriating. (It's also been a heck of a few days, one way and the other).

Quite simply, it felt like that the page was so prissy, (even though it was *my own design*) I'd rather take it and shove it somewhere that the sun doesn't shine, rather than "stay between the lines" any more.

And so, much layering and paint-splattering in ArtRage 6 (and following the total obliteration of the original message), this is my piece of "Art Every Day Month," art journaling for Day 12.

More tomorrow.

Art Every Day Month 11: Gingerbread Birdhouses

These gingerbread birdhouses (complete with gingerbread birds) in repeat are actually a re-working of something I did at the very end of last month). As the reworking of colour and general neatness took ages, am hoping this counts as "art" for today!