New Card Designs

When I'm painting traditionally I try not to have too many surprises.  Everything is carefully executed. I'm working on being a little more relaxed with my brushstrokes.  But painting in water-colour for illustration, I just start out with a much more playful approach.  Actually letting back runs and surprises happen.  Just letting water-colour be "water" colour.  And for that reason I just love creating for the illustration market.  An agent would be awesome.  Marketing is an art unto itself.

The Start of Something New

Every year, early in the new year for the past three years, I've been taking a 6 week workshop in enamelling on copper.  Having worked with copper when creating jewellery, I had collected many of the necessary components needed to also work with enamels.  A second hand kiln I bought came with a box of enamel powders which, at the time, seemed completely foreign to me.  But now I've been bitten by the bug, and have just ordered more new colours and have a sketchbook of ideas.  I love how one medium can morph into a new one.  For example, using my jewellery saw to cut into the copper shapes created a more exciting copper blank to embellish.  I have to now concentrate on planning my firings to avoid losing the layers of colour to over firing.
It is just challenging enough to be rewarding.