Category: Artwork

Badger in the Woods

6/6/2020

New to my RedBubble store is 'Badger in the Woods'. He's spotted fox down by the stone circle. I'm not sure if they're friends or not. Tawny owl is aware, awake in the day... perhaps something is about to happen.
Here are some details:

As a one off piece it means I can take my time over the art. I altered parts of the picture again and again until I felt pleased with the mage.

I started by sketching out the idea:

I was going to attempt to paint this straight onto the drawing conventionally, but I mucked it up! Luckily I had scanned the drawing first as a precaution, as I suspected it would be beyond my watercolour skills to pull this off on cartridge paper at such a small size. I had scanned the image at 600 dpi - the larger the better! So... in Photoshop I started to lay down a base layer of colour...

The start of the base colours in Photoshop.

Tawny owl at the start of the painting

Tawny in the finished piece

I felt that I had created a problem with the monoliths in the clearing. I made the badger smaller and the monoliths larger. But after a deal of fiddling I decided to push the stones out into the distance and add the fox...

Detail of the altered monoliths, with an added foxy:

This artwork is now available in my shop! You can have a poster, a print or a greeting card, even a mug! There are many gifts with this design go have a look!

0 Comments

Cats in Hats

4/6/2020

0 Comments

I'm a sucker for a pun, and in my eyes, if something rhymes it's a winner. So the title Cats in Hats has inspired much thought in my easily amused noddle and sparked a decent amount of creativity, as you're about to find out.

First off we have Dick Purrkin, the infamous highway cat. This original artwork can be purr-chased from my online store!

Watch out for Captain Cat, the treasure loving pirate puss of the Carribean. He's available to buy in my Redbubble store.

Captain Cat T-shirt

Ahoy thar! sticker

Here's Purrlin the Grey, the magical wizard inside an enchanted cavern. He's also available from my Redbubble store:

Magic Cushion

Wizard Greetings Card

Here's a very sleepy boy... Tired Tom, he's just off to bed to snuggle down with his favourite book, 'Puss in Boots'.

Here are some very rough sketches with more hatted catties.

0 Comments

Scooby Fan-Art

1/6/2020

0 Comments

Here's my fan-art for Scooby-Doo. As a kid I was ever hopeful that one episode the spooks would turn out to be real, but they always turned out to be some shady dude in a disguise. So I have made some real spooks for Scooby-Doo, Petra style.

0 Comments

The Magical Beech Tree

25/5/2020

0 Comments

This is just part of a bigger picture that I’m working on for a poster for my RedBubble store. The finished picture will show the entire tree and it’s various inhabitants. I really love doing this kind of work, taking my time over a piece.
The British countryside and it’s folklore has always filled me with a feeling of magical intrigue. I could lose myself in an ancient woodland world full of talking owls and pixie tricks.
I’ll get back onto this soon hopefully, life is just so full of things you have to do, I never seem to get enough time!

0 Comments

Koala Character

17/9/2019

0 Comments

This little koala character first appeared in 2006 in my first picture book If Big Can... I Can written by Beth Shoshan and published by Meadowside. The book was shortlisted for the Booktrust Early Years Awards for Best Emerging Illustrator. I really like the little chap and hope you will too. He needs a lovely home to go to. The size of the paper is 8" x 10" so you could just pop him in a standard size frame. I used watercolour pencils and colour studio pencils plus white gouache on pro artist quality cartridge paper, to create the picture. So if you'd be interested in owning a bit of original art then follow the link below...