Day 69/100: Look What Turned All Christmassy...

 Day 69/100...And in a surprise turn of events, these motifs became Christmassy. (I was expecting an Autumny colour-way to emerge, but these motifs were having none of it).

More tomorrow, when with luck, there may be a finished design.

Day 34: Does Anyone Know What These Are Called, Please?

Must confess that I don't even know the correct name for the bush upon which this today's sketch is based.

The entire bush was about 4 feet high  and three feet wide in total, with every set of leaves looking something like this sketch (growing in a sheltered section of a park, near a lake, in mid October in London, UK, if that helps).

If you happen to know the name of this (very pretty, and probably very common...) bush, please do let me know, perhaps over on the Facebook Page. Many thanks!

(Sketch in Mozart Komorebi watercolours, and Faber Castell Ecco pen).

New Digital Painting (And a New Idea)

Amazing! I've (finally completed another digital painting that's in line with the season. (Unless you're reading this in June of course).

Anyway, this is "Autumn berries" and in Pixarra Twisted Brush digital oil pastels, as before.

The New Idea...

But what it also represents is the start of a new idea. It started when staring once again at all the tech spread out by The Computer Man in our front room.

The cases for all of it are still pretty plain, despite the fact that decorated laptop, tablet and laptopskins have been around for ages.

So it dawned on me that pretty, small digital-but-traditional designs like mine might look pretty good on tech. Having already been impressed with Zazzle, I've put some designs up to try them out.

So if you'd like to jazz up your tech, or send a phone case as a gift to someone, please hop on over to my Zazzle store.

Red Rose Digital Painting

An experiment with a plain, black background for this red rose.

I was surprised that this background worked at all, given that roses are such a symbol of summer.

Anyway, now I'm off to look at the roses for real, whilst the sun's shining...

PS. Update: Gifts based around this design are now available...

Romantic Red Rose Painted Phone & Tech Case iPad Mini Cover by BoundingSquirrel
Browse more Red Cases at Zazzle

Tall Poppy Digital Painting

I've just realised that I've made an error...Part of a new digital poppy painting has also made its way into my new Facebook banner and Google Plus header...before I'd had a chance to post it here.

So, to rectify that, and to celebrate the ever popular poppy, here's "Tall Poppy"-another digital oil pastel piece.

I'm going into hiding for a few days to work on some new projects-news as soon as I have it.

Update: "Tall Poppy" gifts are here.

Red/Orange Poppy Phone/Tablet Case iPhone 5 Case by BoundingSquirrel
View other Poppy Casemate Cases

How abstract is *too* abstract?

How abstract is *too* abstract? Or, depending upon your point of view, can there ever be such a thing as *too* abstract anyway?

Just to reassure you, I'm not asking this for theoretical reasons, like some medieval cleric wondering about the number of angels he could fit onto the head of a pin. No, there's a practical purpose.

The thing is, I'm enjoying creating inspirational poscards at the moment, and people seem to like them. So far so good. But  like the rest of us, I've been used to pin-sharp natural photographic scenes as a backdrop to such things, (I'm thinking about majestic mountains with the word "Courage" emblazoned at the bottom, etc.)

So part of me feels constrained by this. The other feels it's high time that inspirational images came in all shapes, and specifically, softer, more feminine, and maybe more abstract choices. Hence my dilemma.

I have no answer to the question posed in the title of this post...