Friday, November 25, 2016

Mail art: More NZ birds

I'm trying to get into the habit of doing one envelope a day (if possible!). I was going for a more ¨cartoon-y¨ kind of look, put perhaps that will come with practice.

Front: A Miromiro bird. I'm pretty sure I've seen these while out tramping. Not sure if I've seen them around our house though.



Back: A Piwakawaka (Fantail) bird. We see heaps of these around our house.



Another envelope. Front: An Australiasian Crested Grebe. What great a hairdo this guy has.


 Back: Seabirds flying around.





Thursday, November 17, 2016

Mail art: Gannet and California Quail




Back and front of some mail art envelopes I made. A couple of birds we see alot of in New Zealand: the Californian quail and the gannet. These are watercolour on 120 gsm paper. I didn't notice the envelope was a bit creased in the photo until I'd already posted off the original.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Owl mail art

I've been drawing birds alot lately, but would like to paint them. I really like Matt Sewwell's style of painting birds in his books. Its all a bit daunting, so I thought to start out I'd practice some owls from his owl book on some handmade envelopes to send to friends. He is so talented. Next step is to do my own birds from my own designs with New Zealand birds. Some of the envelopes hadn't been fully glued together when I took these photos.




 







Friday, September 23, 2016

A New Zealand Little Owl


A New Zealand Little Owl (Athene Noctua).
India Ink, Schaeffer calligraphy pen.

A gratuitous photo of a Dolphin, somewhere near Foster, NSW, Australia.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Some watercolor portraits

Some watercolor portrait sketches on Arches A4 paper.

 Above: sketched with pencil first


Above: No preliminary pencil sketch - just painted straight on.


Above: Just painted - no preliminary pencil sketch. For a just a quick, straight watercolour sketch, I'm pretty happy with it.




Sunday, September 18, 2016

Mailart: Morepork sketch

Another sketch of the morepork looking back over its wing, this time on an envelope.


Thursday, September 15, 2016

Another Little Owl sketch

Schaeffer pen (thanks again Kerrieann!) and india ink.

Gratuitous photo of the view from the top of somewhere in the Tararua Ranges.


Sketch: Little Owls



India ink, Schaeffer pen

Friday, September 9, 2016

Mail art: Otters and the view from our house

Above: Mail art sketch of otters



Above: Mail art sketch of the view form our deck, looking out over the Hutt Valley


A gratuitous photo of the view form the top of Mount Taranaki, North Island, New Zealand

Friday, August 26, 2016

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

After dinner portrait

I seized a short space of free time and did a quick watercolor portrait. Note to self - use a  HB pencil next time instead of a 2B!


300 gsm Archers watercolour paper, A5 size. Daniel Smith watercolours from my amazing penpal Kerrie-ann.

Saturday, August 20, 2016

Plan for textile work


Currently working on a textile mark-making piece. Doing a plan on paper for the left hand picture. Not sure whether this will work out the way I am envisaging in my head...











Saturday, August 13, 2016

Some more portraits

I'm finding it hard to get time to draw at all for months now. So, with much effort, I'm just trying to draw anything whenever I get a moment.







Some quick straight watercolor sketches.



And finally, a bit of mail art. 





Sunday, June 5, 2016




Mapua, South Island, New Zealand