Caitlin's portrait

I drew this portrait for one of my best friend Mary's birthday today. I am happy with how it turned out, i think it is one of the best portraits i have done so far. I had to make sure it was top quality otherwise i would have heard an earful from my friend! :) She loved it. I worked off about 6 different photos to produce the final piece. The pose on one photo was right, but then the lighting and skin tone wasn't, so looked at another photo for that. Looked at another photo for the details in the eyes and mouth. The garden was inspired by a beautiful garden down the end of my street. I used pastel pencils and sticks, quite into pastels lately. Only really have been using them for a bit over a year after I did a pastel workshop at the Fremantle Arts Centre.

pale - Illustration Friday topic

Nellie didn't care about getting a suntan, she preferred to stay pale and protect her skin from the sun.

My Illustration website is online!!!!

Yay! Finally my illustration website is online, I designed it myself aswell. I still have to put the image galleries up which are the most important really but i still have to learn a bit about php scripts before I get my artwork on line. If anyone has any tips on this I would be grateful to hear from you. I am not a web programmer but I know a little bit about web design. Here's the link to my site so far: http://www.shannonmelville.com.au I have uploaded some of the little illustrations I drew for the page titles

One of my favourite places in the world - Buley Rock hole and Florence Falls, Litchfield Park

I go to Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia about once a year. I always love to visit Florence Falls and Buley Rockhole, I love to swim in the fresh clear water (you can even drink it if you like) and go under the waterfalls and there are no crocs! Top photo shows myself and my husband treading water pretty hard to stay in the photo and not get drifted down stream with the current!

Contained - Illustration Friday topic

I am currently on holiday in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. We saw this huge grasshopper about 15cm long, probably the biggest one I have ever seen, it was nibbling on a plant. Next to it you could see it's carapace (shell which it used to be contained in) . I drew this picture from a small viewing screen on my camera, so it is not totally detailed. I took a photo of the drawing, not the best camera, so played around with it in Photoshop. The edited version is up the top.

Resolve - Illustration Friday topic

Resolve: In the new year we often resolve to do many things. I decided to try out my new dual tip brush markers whilst doing a semi illustrated brainstorm of the things one might base new year's goals on. So many different parts of life you could work on. I wrote a few of my goals down in my diary today; one of them is to get my illustration website up and running hopefully in next month. I really want it ready so that when i send work samples to publishers they will have a nice website to look at too :)

I decided to use some realistic insects I painted recently on top of my brainstorm, I think it works quite well, I changed the hue and faded it back in Photoshop too.

Hopefully I can keep up with the IF topics again, had so much work on lately I neglected my weekly topic, now I don't have an excuse!