Finger cramp

Well it has been a very busy past couple of weeks. But very rewarding at the same time.

Today a couple of guys from my school and myself went to the Special Kids Christmas to draw cartoon characters and portraits. 

The Special Kids Christmas is a charity event that runs every year for kids that have special needs, struggle with illness, or are in underprivileged families - so kids that don't get to experience Christmas the same way the rest of us do. It is held at the ASB Showgrounds in Auckland and has about 2000 visitors on the day. 

So for us it was pretty much 5 hours straight drawing. 

Which means that by the end of it you really do get hand cramp - however the time flies pretty fast, and it is amazingly great practice at portraiture! Especially speedy portraiture. We had a queues of people lining up for a drawing, it was pretty amazing. 

There were so many gorgeous kids - one memorable little guy had a learning disability - but he was so smiley and happy. There was also this most gorgeous little tiny girl. She looked like a fairy she was so little and cute - I drew a picture of her and her Dad.

This is just a quick sketch of how I remember her - but she was cuter, and littler. :)

Overall, it was a heap of fun - and just amazing to see people coming together to do something for others. Really cool. :)

I have books!

Well, things have been a little slow in the drawing department just recently because I have been working - however I am looking forward to the holidays where hopefully I can stock up on a whole pile of new work!

In the meantime - the news is that I have a pile of books sitting on my desk at work - and they are copies of the book that I illustrated. It's pretty cool to see my drawings in print (even though the publisher did some weird things with the layout and editing of them - but oh well, live and learn) - although I must admit it's very surreal, kind of like I can't quite believe that they are my drawings published in a book.

Anywho, if anyone randomly would like a copy - they are $20 (NZ dollars) each, but if you are a follower of my blog you can have one for $15. : )   

Thanks for being awesome everyone.

Buttercup!

My Doubt Monster

Something I realized this week is that one of the biggest things I struggle with are doubts. 

Every single week that we are given an animation at school, before I start it I think, 'Oh boy, am I going to be able to do this?'

All the time things running through my head are: 

'Will I meet up to expectations?' 

'Can I do this job?' 

'Is this even good enough?'

And there always seems to be this resounding echo of:

'No. No. No'

I discovered I pretty much have a Doubt Monster.

And mine at the moment is looking preeeeetty obese and villainous - because I have been massively overfeeding him recently. 

So the decision has been made. 

He is going on a diet. 

Yup...

...I'm going through a bird phase at the moment.

What I did...

...when I was supposed to be working.

Gah

Well I have been scraping my way through the coffers to see if I have anything I can share with everyone - things have been so busy again recently that I haven't had any time to do anything new that I can share. 

So I did find this little guy, whom I painted up earlier this year (eep can't believe that it is almost the end of the year!) - So I shall share him. I also want to do some more of my 'inspirational artists' posts, and have a few up my sleeve, but will have to do a little bit more work before I can do them even a remote amount of justice. 

Also, there might be some very few people who are out there, who would be interested in knowing about a craft that I did last week. I am a leader for a girls club called GEMS, and I've been wanting to do something crafty with the girls for ages. I found a tutorial on an amazing blog I follow - ALISA BURKE. She's a pretty amazing lady, and has some very cool crafty ideas on her blog that she shares. I made the Fall Leaves Wreath and then started making it with the girls last week. We have yet to finish, but so far so good!

So a here's relatively bad pic of mine...

It's not as interesting as Alisa's, and I forgot to put the acorns on! 

But I was surprised at hope quick it was to make. : ) 

Right, now off to bed!

Glow bugs

Trying to be sketchy.

Trying to be sketchy in Photoshop.

Didn't really work.

But that's ok. 

: )

And this....

And since I'm doing random today - I have been listening to Bon Iver a lot lately, and I thought I'd share this up here.

And I love the cover art on the album.

London

"It was a September evening, and not yet seven o'clock, but the day had been a dreary one, and a dense drizzly fog lay low upon the great city. Mud-colored clouds drooped sadly over the muddy streets. Down the Strand the lamps were but misty splotches of diffused light which threw a feeble circular glimmer upon the slimy pavement. The yellow glare from the shop-windows streamed out into the steamy, vaporous air, and threw a murky, shifting radiance across the crowded thoroughfare. There was, to my mind, something eerie and ghost-like in the endless procession of faces which flitted across these narrow bars of light,--sad faces and glad, haggard and merry. Like all human kind, they flitted from the gloom into the light, and so back into the gloom once more." 

~Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four~

This wasn't quite our experience of London, but there was a wonderful feeling of history and even mystery shrouding the city. Having come from New Zealand, which is a very 'young' country in so far as Western history goes; London seemed ancient. And that was one aspect that I loved about it. 

I was going through some of our photos from a few years ago when we were living in that great city, and got a bit reminiscent. I'm home sick at the moment, and don't have any drawings that I can share just yet, so I hope you don't mind if I diverge into some photography. Here is some of what we experienced in London...

The Albert Memorial ~ Regent's Park 

(and behind it is the Royal Albert Hall)

The view from out the window of our attic flat in Notting Hill

Decorations at Oxford Circus

St. Paul's Cathedral

(with the usual queues out the door)

Green Park Tube Station

(despite the crowds - I really miss the tube!)

The Natural History Museum

(and the museums are awesome)

And the iconic Buckingham Palace

Hurrah for London!

Right, I'm off to have a cup of tea.

Prom night

Well, we don't really have 'prom' over here - but it's pretty much the same thing we just call it a 'ball'. Unless things have changed since I was at school. 

I was doing some sketchiness today and then decided that I would take the time to colour! Coz I do love colour and these days don't get heaps of time to do it! 

So I did this...

Which really came out of nowhere. Then I coloured it...

What is so crazy is that I kinda prefer her expression in the sketch - there has been something lost in the redoing of her face in the final version. Maybe it's just me coz I've been looking at it for too long or something. Anyway, overall, it was fun to colour something - and get something finished. And I kinda like her dress. : )

My high school ball dress was bright bright pink. 

And look, since I'm feeling super generous - I'll even share a picture. 

It's small and blurry, but it was the only one I am brave enough to share.

Hehe, yup. My friend would probably kill me if she knew I had put this up here, but, hopefully she won't know... : D

Hope everyone had an excellent Monday!

Getting real

I was quite happy with this pic - coz it was a really quick one leaning out of the back of the car while we were waiting at the lights. It's an old church in Auckland city. 

Those are the best kinds of photos often aye? The ones that are accidental shots that you feel pretty sure are going to fail (and they often do), but then every now and then, you get a gem. And although this one won't win any awards, I'm happy with how it came out. :)

Here is a recent Instagram-sketch. 

To be honest with you, over the past 6 years, Josh and I have been dealing with infertility. And as a result recently we have been faced with some crazy difficult decisions. The kinds of decisions that people shouldn't have to make. And that most of the time (thankfully) people don't have to make because it's taken out of their hands. 

I'm just thankful, that despite the fact that it seems like Josh and I are the ones having to make these really serious decisions, ultimately it's in God's hands. 

So very thankful for that - because I don't trust my own decision making. 

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." ~Romans 8:28

Ironically, (or perhaps, not so ironically) our wedding text.

  We'll get there in the end. Here's just hoping that we will survive in the process!

Thanks for checking in - hope that everyone has a lovely weekend. :)

It's late...

So here's just a couple of pics for you : )

Boom bo boom ba

I am quite a music fan - and have very random and eclectic taste in regards to music. I like jazz and blues, indie and rock, house and pop, old and new. One artist that I have been enjoying recently is Kimbra. She is cool because she is very clever, quirky and a Kiwi. I love the way she dances. She's unique, and her music is eclectic too. To top it all off, she is a gorgeous girl - and I love the cover of her new album. So I did some fan art of it. 

I must admit, I'm not entirely happy with it - it doesn't quite look like her; and I went a bit overboard on the hair (which is typical - I do get carried away with drawing hair). Also the painted stuff I made up, because the original artwork was too epic for me to replicate (and I was working off a 3 inch square image) - so one of these days I might redo it - especially to get her hair and face right.

Anyway, I hope you like - and if you haven't heard Kimbra's music yet - check it out!

Here we go

Due to the busyness of life I don't have a lot of drawings that I can put up here unfortunately. However I do have some Instagrams. Hurrah!

And I have been having a bit of fun turning some of my drawings into Instagrams - so here's one of those for ya too. : ) 

This one is taken from a trip we did down in the South Island of New Zealand, a gorgeous little place called Akaroa. 

Here's me sketch Instagram : )

And I took this one this morning on my way to school - this awesome red tree art installation outside the newly refurbished Auckland Art Gallery.

Hair cut day

Today was a hair cut day - which means it was a good day. : )

I love getting my hair cut - unfortunately I am never quite bold enough to do something really cool like rainbow coloured highlights or radical length change. However I am enjoying having longer hair, and my hair is pretty curly (aka. frizz bomb) so some days it can still look pretty radical just on it's own. 

So today although I didn't go for those radical styles or colours I decided to embrace the curl and got my lovely hairdresser to just chop away and give me lots of layers (which he said gave 'activity' to my hair) and a chunky fringe thingy! Which is the chunkiest fringe thingy I've ever had - so I'm excited. : )

Anywho, enough about my hair - back to business!

I had a bunch of fun drawing up lovely ladies today. 

So here they are.

And the Instagram of the day...

Pic 'o the day

It was such a wet spring day today. I had to walk up through the domain and past the museum in (albeit small) heels - I admit, it was my choice. However as I was puffing my way up the hill suddenly it started pouring with big, fat rain. Actually - it was cool! And I just threw all caution to the wind - took off my shoes and sprinted across the squishy, spongey grass. 

It was great. 

You should try it. 

It doesn't hurt (too much) to be a crazy person every now and then. 

: )

Anywho - drawing of the day:

(I think she's having one of those days)

And Instagram of the day!

So, so keuwt!

This was the closest I could get to them before the Mum ushered them all away.

And fair enough too! Who wants paparazzi chasing after their children. 

Oh, and P.S.

I discovered the joys of Instagram for my iPhone last night. So exciting! And free! So I'm looking forward to popping some pics up here too of my daily life. 

They won't be works of art - but they are memories shared.

(Wasn't that poetic?) 

:)

This was my first one taken this morning on my way to school - the cherry blossoms are blooming. Which is yay.

 Also I thought I'd share this one with you. This is the character that we are animating at the moment (less hair and clothing as you can probably tell). The two drawings were on my animation disk and my lamp was on behind it - so I thought I'd take a picture and see how it came out. I kinda like it : ) so I hope that you do too.

tweet!

Well, I'm making do while my man is away over in the USA for a week - at least I think that time will fly by because I'm so busy at the moment! 

Off to do some illustrating, in the meantime I'll leave you with some sleepy little birds...

Fairy

I'll admit she's still a little unfinished (i.e. I haven't colored in her second pair of wings yet) - but she's finished enough for me at the moment!

There are a few things about her that bug me, but it was really nice to use color pencils again. Here she is in her rough stage...

In a couple of days I'll pop up some pics of the girl that we have been animating over the past couple of weeks. She is the character that we are going to be animating for our exam which starts next week and is two weeks long. : p

More doodles

I'm trying to digitally paint this one up, so hopefully once I'm done, 

(which at the rate I'm going could be quite a while away) I'll pop it up!

Thanks for stopping by!

oxo

Not much time!

Well it seems like life is getting away with me a bit - don't have much time for the things I need to do let alone the things I want to do. So here are some older sketches from earlier in the year in the meantime. 

We will make it! We just need to keep on keeping on!

(says Hannah talking to herself - first sign of insanity)

Random Animal

I was supposed to be drawing Bush Babies - and this is what came out. 

A strange cross between a cat, rat, tiger, and giraffe maybe?

Anyway - thought I'd pop it up - whatever it is. : )

Wow!

Pretty amazing - Rhiannon at her gorgeous blog Pierced Beauty - has done a post about me for her Friday Featured Artist thread. 

Her blog is very very cool - you should all check it out - she is an excellent photographer, artist and creative, and shares a lot on her blog. As well as that she is a very generous person and refers to heaps of other amazing bloggers too - so her blog is a trove of creative inspiration.

And thanks to Rhiannon for featuring me! :) And make sure you go visit her!

Mysterious...

My friend and I have a theory about road cones. 

Auckland has a LOT of road cones, and we have often speculated on where they have all come from. Oftentimes it also seems that there are a billion road cones all set up around an area that doesn't even have any work being done on it. 

And also more often than not, the workmen standing around these areas of cones are doing just that - standing there. Scratching their heads. Eating their lunch. Etc. 

So this is our theory...

Hardworking Beavers

So here's poster no.2 - the Hardworking Beavers. :)

Animuls

Been working on some posters for my amazing lovely friend who is brave enough to be a primary school teacher - and a good one at that! The school she teaches at is a lovely little Christian school that is being established down in Queenstown, in the south island of NZ. 

They have character traits that are part of what they want to teach the kids about, and with the help of the kids came up with some animals that they related to the character traits. So she asked me if I would come up with some posters that would incorporate the word of the character trait with the animal. 

So here's my first (hopefully) complete poster - creative being the character trait - and a finch to go with it. : ) 

Will pop up the others as we go!

Wizardy

Woo hoo!

I have been having a lot of fun doodling in Photoshop - it was really weird at first (and if I'm being honest, still is a little) - but I think that I'm getting the hang of it. Still not amazingly brilliant at color stuff but here's hoping that practice makes perfect right?

So tonight we have a wizardy/sorcery-ish type character. My flatmate was reading out some of Lord of the Rings which inspired me to do this. What an epic book! I need to read it again soon. 

Canary-ish

I don't know what you guys think - but when I first saw this guy (after I had drawn him haha) I kinda thought that he looked a bit angry. 

Then I thought, no - more like suspicious.

Actually, he looks like he is scheming something.

Discontent?

And now I have no idea. 

What do you think?