WHEEL - Illustration Friday

Here's my offering for this weeks Illustration Friday topic WHEEL. I couldn't resist drawing this steampunk style mecdhanical birdie with cogs and WHEELS making him a bit of a bionic bird! Hope you like him!

Have a great week! xx Jen

lino print - fur fin & feather

Having spent an obscene amount of time surfing Pinterest (severe time waster alert!) I have become increasingly enchanted by the wonderful lino prints being produced by some very clever peeps.

Well being unable to resist having a go I purchased some sheets of lino the other day and dug out some old cutting tools that I'd had from college days....  it's funny sometimes I seem to have tools for things I don't even remember doing...... unfortunately this stems from the collector-holic nature of this beast.... I just love tools and gadgets of all kinds. Anyway I digress, I sketched out the design below. I thought it best to start simply and transferred this onto the lino. After much mess and cutting I ended up with the lino cut I've called Fur, Fin & Feather.

 

 I feel quite proud that I took note of all the warnings to cut away from myself and didn't spill a drop of blood once! A miracle! Below is one of the first proofs I pulled from the lino.... as the keen eyed among you might notice the lino cut is different from the print as I've done a bit of tidying up. I'm quite keen to add some background colour to the final prints so I might have a go a making a collograph plate to get some extra texture in there too. 

We shall see! Hopefully if the collograph idea comes together I'll update this with some images of the final prints. If they are nice I might stick them in my Etsy shop!
Ta ta for now. x x Jen

Illustration Friday - Myth

Here's a little sketch I knocked up for this weeks Illustration Friday topic MYTH.Just a couple of characters from Greek Mythology.We have Medusa the snake haired Gorgon, Polyphemus the cyclops, blinded by the hero Odysseus and finally the Minotaur, half man, half bull kept by King Minos of Crete in his Labyrinth once again a hero, Theseus saves the day and kills the Minotaur saving the Princess Ariadne from certain death.
It was quite difficult to make a choice of which characters to draw for this weeks topic. I love mythology and there is soooo much to choose from. I love the Green Man, Herne and Pan and then there's all the lovely mythological animals such as dragons and unicorns, centaurs and griffins. I have touched on many mythological characters before so if you're interested take a look at my Flickr photostream where you can see many of the above.

Have a great week my friends. x x JEN

Ocean - Illustration Friday

Here's a lovely creature whose home is in the Ocean.

Here's my illustration for the Illustration Friday topic this week of OCEAN. This modest mermaid sits on her favourite rock in the middle of a stormy sea. 

Have a great week folks.

Love Jen x x