Illustration Friday and GIVEAWAY

Fuel ©Caroline Soer

This week's Illustration Friday word is 'fuel'.  I decided on a bird and berries theme and actually painted two similar versions of the same illustration this week.  The one above started life as a watercolour on which I'd used quite a lot of masking fluid.  I was aiming to get a sort of outlined, batik/silkpainting look.  Well, needless to say it wasn't a successful experiment so I tweaked it back to life with with a good helping of acrylic, some gouache and watercolour pencils!

 After I finished that yesterday,  I started on a second painting.  I've taken photos of the work in progress.  This first shows the mountboard ground with torn paper and hole punched collage covered with gesso and the first brushstrokes.

A little more detail added.

 Some final details added with coloured pencils and a craft knife to (carefully) scratch out some highlights.

Fuel II ©Caroline Soer

The final piece - it has lots of texture.  I'm not sure which one I prefer, how about you?
Well, if you're better at making up your mind than I am, you could stand a chance of winning a print of your preferred illustration by taking part in my  GIVEAWAY!

How do you take part?   Anyone is welcome to join in - regular followers or visitors alike - I really do appreciate all those of you who follow my blog and take the time to leave me comments - but it's ok to be a quiet occasional visitor too!  All you have to do is first quickly hop over to Facebook - I've recently set up an art page there and would love it if you would  'LIKE' my  page  - the link is here in the sidebar on the right.   Yes, you're right - a little shameless self promotion !!!   To be included in the draw next TUESDAY NOVEMBER 1ST you'll also need to come back here to leave a comment on this post to say which of my two 'Fuels' you prefer.  Easy! Oh, and you could DOUBLE your chances by promoting my giveaway on your own blog or FB page,  and becoming a follower here (if you aren't already) if you like.  Just don't forget to mention that in the comments section here!  Thank you and good luck to everyone - I'll be back next week with the winner!

Illustration Friday

©Caroline Soer2010

The word this week is 'journey'. My offering is a watercolour on gessoed mountboard that I painted for Laurel as part of a travelling book exchange, a while back. On the opposite page is Robert Frost's lovely poem 'The Road Not Taken'.

So many projects, so little time!

You may remember I posted this work in progress of mangosteens a few weeks ago and promised to share the result when it was ready. I have lots of unfinished pieces like this in the cupboards in my studio - I wonder just how many of you can relate to that?! I start off all enthused by a subject and then go off on a tangent when another idea pops into my head! So, a couple of weeks ago I decided to take a few days to finish several 'half baked' projects and little watercolour on mountboard got another airing! I wasn't sure how to set about the background and tried various options (fortunately easily removed from the primed surface) before deciding on a dark green which I toned down later with a dusting of very dry white gouache. I quite like the effect of this white paint which catches the raised folds of the textured tissue paper surface. You can get a better idea of this if you enlarge the photo.

Mangosteen trio ©Caroline Soer 2010

Tulips from my sketchbook.

Another project is a painting of these tulips using the same technique. I'll try to remember to take photos of the work in progress to share later. May be a while though, as I'm part way through making a little handmade book featuring some of the birds to be found here in Malaysia...

©Caroline Soer 2010

In fact I have several ideas for little books. Oh, and then there's my website..... must get on with that too! And the Sketchbook Project...... only done a few pages for that so far - need to get my skates on! And Christmas is coming.... so I've given my blog a wintery look this morning. With temperatures in the 30's here in KL its helping me get in a festive mood!