Happy New Year!

 Christmas Mini Commission

Here we are in January, at the start of a whole new (hopefully excellent) year. I hope all of my visitors had a enjoyable Christmas with lots of food and the odd tipple.

For me the Christmas period was full of highs and lows. The highs were getting lots of lovely art books and a shiny new Spyder (a clever technical thing that improves the colour output on my monitor) sadly this was offset by my last little rescue rodent passing away Christmas nigh.

RIP Peanut My special little boy

He was named peanut due to his tendency to annoy everyone (human or rodent) around him to such an extent that he had to be separated from his brothers for the sake of their sanity. But once he became a only rat he seemed to mellow, he also invented the "yoggie dance" which seemed to involve jumping up and down on his hind legs while doing jazz hands until someone gave him a yoggie... It always worked! He passed away at the grand old age of just over 3 1/2 smashing Reggies record for rodent longevity.

So, what do I have planned for this year? Well I already have a few possible commissions to look forward to and I'm hoping to be a lot busier on that front this year. I am also planning to take part in a lot more craft fairs and produce a lot more limited edition prints. So all in all I'm planning to draw, paint and generally work my little socks off! I also intent to be a lot more fastidious about updating my blog, so I should be posting at least once per week (Or I will have to take myself outside and give myself a good talking to).

Todays picture is of the secret mini commission completed before Christmas. The client wanted a vintage teacup cameo necklace and specified that person it was made for is not a girly girl so no flowers. Instead I used a gold lace motif which was no small feat particularly as my computer decided that it didn't like the first one and chose to crash just as I finished! Modern technology is definitely a double edged sword.

Don't forget that you can now follow me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/TessaLakeillustration

Roller Derby Decal Commission

 

 

After a slow few weeks I’ve been back at my drawing tablet in the last few days to complete a commission that has been lots of fun! The brief required me to create a T-Shirt / Helmet decal for a roller derby girl to fit with the name “Ratty Babe”. The client had a rough idea of what she wanted but having chatted about it a little she was happy to let me go off and do what I thought would work best. Luckily when I came back with the rough sketch for the image above, she was more than happy.

Personally, I just love the “cheese and cross bones” on the socks!

Happy Rat Speed Painting

This is a little happy rat speed painting I did a couple of days ago when I was feeling extraordinarily happy after spending the day with Professor Elementals “Splendid” stuck in my head.

I only wish that I was quite as happy today!

Despite appearances my image uploading problems are persisting. I’ve had to use Google Chrome which I hate with a passion in order to get this image to upload and even now it has not uploaded properly. For some reason all the colours have been bleached which is very irritating. I feel I may be being paranoid but several web pages I have visited recently have tried to “force” me to use Chrome and I’m wondering if Blogger is going the same way given that it's owned by Google. I have to admit that I’m seriously contemplating a move to Wordpress.

WIP 9 – Complete (I think)

I’ve finally finished (for now) my current work in progress and I’m happy with the way it’s turned out.

I finished off the background and added a few extra shadows today. The arches in the background have become columns, but when I first rendered them they looked very flat and boring so as a solution I added some honeysuckle vines.
My first idea was to have something like a curtain of them hanging down behind the girl but on giving that a try I found that it created too many tangents drawing the eye off the top left corner so I removed most of them just leaving the two.

I’ve learned so many Photoshop tricks during this picture and I can’t wait to get started on another but first I have another commission for a colouring sheet for a local church.

WIP 8

Not much of an update for you today I’m afraid, just a little work on the paints and paintbrushes. The reason for the appalling lack of progress is two fold. Firstly I’m being a little pathetic and didn’t get anything done over the weekend because I have a cold. Secondly when I sat down to work tonight I was almost immediately interrupted when a firework shattered my living room window!
Luckily only the outer glass of my double glazing was broken but the whole room seemed to shake with the explosion, it felt like being fired on by a cannon! Peanut the rat slept though the whole thing…

WIP 5

Another couple of hours done on this one and it’s only the small fiddly bits and the background left to do. Today was spent working on jewellery and my little ratty friend who has come out looking very cute even if I do say so myself. I don’t think it will be long now before I’ve finished this one but I’ve got a couple of unproductive evenings coming up (in other words I’m off down the pub!) so I probably won’t get the last bits polished off before the weekend.


Technical difficulties – I’m currently having technical difficulties with my blog. It would seem that I can post to it, but not respond to comments or view it myself! I’m hoping to get this resolved shortly and will reply to all comments as soon as I can.

WIP 4

The update today looks very similar to yesterday but that’s because I was working on the bane of my life… HAIR. One of these days I will master this nefarious foe, however today it was the winner leaving me with many lost hours and writers cramp. Oh well, tomorrow’s another day :)

WIP 3

I’ve got a bit more definition in this one now, the girl is smiling and the whole picture is a lot brighter. Time to attack the hair next I think.

WIP 2

I’m a little further along with this WIP now. Both eyes are pretty much done although I think I’ll still have a bit of a tinker. The shape of the hair has been filled in also the table and jewellery has been blocked in. I’ve spent some more time on her face although I’m going to play around with her expression a little as right now she looks bored and I want her to look a little happier. Lots more to do but the shape is starting to come together.