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.

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.

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.

 

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.

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.

Mailart: Morepork sketch

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

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

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

Some quick pencil sketches

 

  

and some thumbnail sketches:

 

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.

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...

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. 

 

 

Mapua, South Island, New Zealand

Sketches of photos appearing it the Listener.

 

Coastal road near Motueka, South Island, New Zealand