The Greening of Oaks and Circles of Birds...

Circles of Oaks and Feathers - For Alexis

 It seems like a really long time since I posted here, and there have been so many things that would have been nice to post if I'd had a little more time. Some things I probebly still will if it means walking back in time a bit, I have some Tales of Wales from our week away in early May, and perhaps some Dragon Tails too!
But for now, I will show you this little painting I did this week as a present for a dear friend on her birthday...

 I really enjoy this kind of work and get lost in the making of patterns and the simplicity of it. When I'm working on a big, serious illustration I can get quite stressed and anxious about the painting of it and often have to keep dragging myself back to the drawing board. But with this Kells style work it is sheer enjoyment and I often find I am smiling away to myself as I paint. A nice way to make a present for a friend!

Hopefully in the next day or so if I can wrest the time, I will post the May sunshine walk that inspired this painting and filled me up with the vibrancy of green growing things, and the awe inspiring freedom of the sky dwellers... It has been just what my soul needed!
So, for now I will leave you with a song I have loved for a long time - usually in a high energy electric rock, but I have just disovered this great acoustic version which holds the spirit of the song even better...
Bye for now...

A Dragon, a Singer and a Fish... or remembering how to paint!

A friend of ours offered to have the children for a bit today so I made an attempt to get on with finishing my three spreads for my dummy book which has been taking far, far too long... wish I could fix that darn time stasis machine!
I don't currently have my own work space in the new house, so I took possesion of our tiny dining room for the day and just, only just, squeezed my drawing boards onto the teeny weeny table!

A great impetous for getting on with chiselling off the old crumbly mortar from the walls of what will become my eventual studio!
I found myself terrified of putting brush to these paintings again after such a long time away from them. I don't usually leave a painting until its finished and never come back to finished pieces to meddle, but events just got in the way of progress on these.
I moved them on and the dragon spread on the easel is now finished, but am having somewhat of a crisis of confidence in the quality of any of them.
I think really this has more to do with the fact that these paintings will have to try to sell my story to a potential publisher, and this being my first shot at it I'm finding it hugely intimidating. Still its a learning curve and you don't know if you don't try it. I'll just brace for those rejection letters and dig around for some self-belief!
Here's a bit of work-in-progress on one of the spreads anyway...


I'm looking forward to getting this whole project wrapped up and putting it all together in its 'promo package' as it were, but actually I'm itching to get started on my next story which right now I have so much more confidence in, I'm really excited about the whole feeling of it.
I'll just give myself a little time to get settled and wait for the words to unravel from the images that have been tucked away in my mind all this time.
The natural rhythm of my creative wanderings seem to be leaning back towards language and writing at the moment, so I feel its almost time to begin!

Dragon Boys! ..........and three days to go for a Raven Giveaway!

Thought I'd just show you the children's portrait commission I finished last week...
These are two brothers, in fact the brothers of 'Lucy Rose' that I did a portrait of back in the Autumn. Apparently when they saw their sisters they liked it so much they requested one of themselves... its really nice for me as an aspiring children's book illustrator to have that come from the children!

The Dragon Boys! Lewis and Cadan.

I was actually quite happy with this one, it was good fun, though the decision to paint them in armour came quite late on in the drawing stage... they definately didn't look right riding a Dragon in T-shirts! I hope they like it! I am currently waiting to hear from them after the weekend...

And finally don't forget....


There's still a few days left to enter my 100th post blog Giveaway to win your choice of a mounted giclee print of one of these fellows... Just leave me a comment on the original post here, and I'll be putting names in a hat on Sunday! (Would be nice to have a nice full hat!! Perhaps with feathers on!)

Huginn & Muninn II ...

Hello folks, hope your New Year has started well, and thankyou all so much for visiting me here during 2011 and for all your kind words, encouragement and friendship along the way!
Lets hope 2012 will be a healthy and a happy one for everybody!

So here is the first painting of 2012 and the second in the series of Raven paintings I've been planning to do! For want of a better title it is for the moment called 'Huginn & Muninn II'
It is funny how its worked out - when I was working on the first Ravens painting there was a wild winter storm blowing and howling around the house, and again for this second painting the winds were furiously rattling the sash windows and stirring up the skies.
To add to the wild lament of the Stormsong outside, next doors dogs were howling mournful accompaniment, as if the wind's ghostly song were calling to some deep ancestral wild-wolfish memory! Very atmospheric!

(Closeup detail)

I painted this larger than the first which gave me more room for expression in the penwork on the Ravens which I like, but as yet I am undecided whether the sky is working or whether there's too much going on in this one. I want it to be dramatic and full of movement, but not too fussy either... one to sleep on maybe...
Although there are parts of the wet-on-wet and salt that I really like just for their own sake...




I did enjoy these two fellows though, and think they're better drawn than the first pair. There is something rather magnificent about a Raven... I wonder which should be Huginn - or Thought, and which one Muninn - Memory?


Here are the two so far together, I think I prefer the sky in the first and the Ravens in the second! Oh well, tonight I think I might stretch some more paper ready for a third, slightly different this time... (Sorry about the slightly murky photo in the second one!) Hope you like them! Bye for now...

Huginn and Muninn... on the wings of the storm

please respect my copyright of these images

This wild sky with its wind hurled messengers seems a very appropriate painting to show you tonight as I sit writing next to the window that is rattling with the night's savage temper of storm.
The wind and rain outside are ferocious, seething around the house, flinging icy spats of rain against the glass... that hollow boom, powerful, elemental, ominous...
I'm glad to be inside, wrapped in layers against the drafts!

This is a painting I have made for my sister in law on her fortieth birthday which was today! We framed it for her in the workshop in dramatic black and gave it to her as the storm began to gather its furies in the twilight...
It is of 'Huginn' and 'Muninn' - 'Thought' and 'Memory', the two Ravens that accompany Odin and bring him knowledge of the world. They are birds of portent, and it is said that Odin gave them the power of speech, and their presence in turn gives him another of his many names - 'Raven God'.


Here are some more closeup details...

I love the unpredictability of using watercolour washes like this, I have an idea of what I want - the colours, the dynamics... but the joy of it for me is watching the paint move to its own purpose, not quite knowing where it will rest, the beautiful living quality of the paint... I love it...


I used my Artists Rotring ink pen over the wash rather than under it to get a deep crisp black...

I intend to do a series of these on a larger scale, a project that's been burning in my mind for a long time now... but as ever just waiting for that precious elusive spare time! I can hear the Raven croaks, the wingbeats invisible in the back of my mind, the ravelling winds rushing... they are crying to be painted!
I am pleased with the result of this first attempt, and its the first painting I've managed to produce for what seems like ages. Our business devours all our time, especially at this time of year, so it is a small victory for me to get it out there! Hooray!

Ooh, the wind is really howling now, lamenting like a wild bereft thing out in the wide dark, crying for the lost and forlorn with a throat of night and emptiness.
I'm off to make some cocoa with extra chocolate and full cream milk! Hope you liked the painting :)

WIP - A Flight of Dragons... to leaf or not to leaf?

All images copyright of Carrie Osborne 2011

Finally the Dragon spread - first of the three full colour spreads I need to go with my dummy book roughs, is finished (nearly!)
This has been a long project with trying to steal time here and there to work on it when I can. Its a double page spread so the 'gutter' or fold of the book runs down the middle of the illustration, and the text will go in the paler areas on the right hand side of the page.


I had intended to embellish quite a few of the spreads with small amounts of silver leaf through the book, a flash of moonlight on silver scales here, fish glittering in water there....
So the painting phase of this one I think I'm done with, which leaves the question - to leaf or not to leaf???
It would have to be subtle in case a potential publisher didn't want to go down the foil route, (because I do want to try and get this published if I'm very, very lucky and if I get over my fear of travelling to London!) but of course scanners and printers don't reproduce reflective qualities all that well.
I think I'm going to get it scanned before doing any silver leaf just in case...
Some details for you:

Also I thought you might like to see some work in progress shots...


After stretching paper and drawing out, I always start with the most chancy and most terrifying bit - the big wet-on wet wash... this can either make or destroy a painting before its begun! But thats exactly what I love about painting this way with watercolours, there's an unpredictable element where the paint moves to its own purpose, merges, spreads, and it can be really beautiful and unexpected.


Of course I know which colours I want where and which I want to merge so there is a fair amount of deliberation before placing each heavy stroke of colour, then just keeping my nerve enough not to interfere with it too much as it starts to move!
To add another level of unpredictability I've really got into using salt, both fine grain and rock salt on my washes, and I love the effect you get, though its quite easy to get carried away and do too much!

Here's a few drawing board shots as it progresses...

After each night's painting I usually scribble notes to myself around the edges to remind me what needs doing next while its fresh in my mind, sometimes its several days before I can get back to it. I'm still undecided about that moon....!

I hope you don't mind the self-indulgence of this rather long post... getting the first spread done is a real milestone on this project and means I'm very nearly at the end of it, (which I never thought I would be at times!)
The next stage will be the most daunting - trying to get appointments to show it to publishers, laying it bare and bracing for the inevitable critisms and rejections which I am more than prepared for... but you never know until you try do you!

WIP - Lucy Rose... the paints come out at last!

Lucy Rose WIP

I managed to snatch a few hours here and there at my drawing board this week, not on my dragon spread which is still patiently waiting for some paint to give the creature life and substance and moon-frosted dragon breath... but on a little commission that's been tucked away in the back of my mind as the deadline creeps up on me!
She's nearly finished, just a few more tweaks, a couple more hours maybe but that needs to wait for another night when my eyes have rested enough to see what needs to be done next!
Here are a few work in progress shots along the way...


The little girl's Granny has commissioned this for her birthday, I do hope she'll like it... its always a little differant painting a child I haven't met compared to painting a child I know well... we'll soon see if I got her right! I hope she likes Unicorns!

Boys and Bees - finished (I think...)

Copyright of Carrie Osborne 2011

Well, I think its about finished... or at least I've come to recognise the point at which carrying on will only make it worse not better! I have a few niggly bits but if I don't point them out hopefully no-one will notice... but on the whole I am pleased with the likeness of the two boys and I hope their Mum will like it!
Here's a few details, sorry about the rather murky photos!



Well, its far too late at night and a stormy wind has galloped up around the house to rush darkly through the rain ragged trees outside. It is way past my bedtime as usual and I'm the only one left awake, so I'll leave you now and say Goodnight!

WIP - Boys and Bees, a portrait for a friend...

I thought I'd show you a bit of 'Work in Progress' that I have been doing today. I think the drawings mostly all in and ready for painting now... This is the portrait I'm doing for my good friend of her boys - I'm pretty certain she doesn't know my blog so the secret should be safe!
It has departed a bit from my original idea that I showed in a post here... I think I'll still do the Dragon roundal at some point but the boys would have been so small in it, and I think that's what was stopping me getting started on it. Sometimes you get stalled for a reason...
Maybe I'll start painting this one tomorrow...

Here's a close up of my elusive hawk in the oak leaves...

And a close up of the boys with the bees...