New Postcards

Step-by-step

 

Step-by-step of painting “If it kills me”
1.  Draw a picture! HB to sketch and H for final lines. Sometimes i plan things but this time i didn’t. Coffee is very important with this stage.
2. Flesh tone wash.
3. Fleshing out the flesh tone (haha, i sure am funny!) buliding up shadows with more opaque washes of the same colour.
4. Adding some pink! just a wash on cheeks and lips and anywhere else that takes my fancy.
5. Starting on the hair - just a bulk brown wash with a bit of texture.
6. Little hair tendrils, eyebrows and eyelashes. Basically any important little details that are the same colour as the hair.
7. Greens! also i have added more tone to her skin with various other colours. Bit of brown wash and some darker flesh.
8. Almost done! pinks are evened out, freckles are added, more eyelashes and little details.

I hope this is helpful to someone / anyone. A few people have been asking, but i think my painting process is pretty basic. Draw a picture and put some paint on it.
If anyone has any specific questions feel free to ask! I like to try even if i can’t answer very well.
x

Ghosts

I am in a nice show that is currently running at the Pony Club Gallery in Portland. It runs until the 28th of April so you can go and look at the two paintings i made especially for it, in person.



What will I do, when i don't have you?



Try to forget / 25 miles.

Studio again

I managed to get my old studio back recently.. it is such a relief to have a dedicated art making space again. Drawing on the couch in front of the TV is not a productive working environment.

I haven't entirely set it up yet, but it is workable and nice.



I am working on a couple of nice things right now. Some paintings for a group show in Portland, and some fabric designs for a very nice girl.

I also have some new giclee prints up in my store, they are some of my very favourite paintings. Including this one, which i just finished a little while ago.

Science fiction and New Years stuff

Bayta, a photo by Eating ghosts on Flickr.

I finished this the other day, just before leaving for Christmas with my family.

I have lots of new things happening this coming year.. everything is in very early stages but it's all very exciting. New Tshirts, fabric designs, laser-cut brooches, collaborations.... it is looking like it will be a vast improvement on 2011, although that won't take much.

I have a tumblr account now, http://www.devonannasmith.tumblr.com which i have only just started using, but there are a few things on there..

I also just got a spacephone, so i have an instagram account, which i am probably going a bit overboard with. The best things i put on tumblr, too, but if you want constant updates about what coffee i am drinking it is also devonannasmith.

Zine Party

This is coming up on the 19th of November!




I will have a table there. It should be very fun, there are lots of amazing zine-makers in Wellington. I'll have Imaginary Lovers issue one, and the brand new Issue two for sale. Also a tiny little mini zine about books i like.

Sketchbooks

I've been off work with some sort of awful sickness the past three days. Sitting in bed watching cartoons has even become boring.

I tried to do some drawing this morning but couldn't decide which sketchbook to do it in. I thought it was time i actually counted how many sketchbooks I'm currently drawing in.



Too many. Way too many. The problem is i always have this dream ideal of how a sketchbook will turn out but then i draw something ugly in it and move on to something new. Or I assign too specific a role to a book, like my life drawing book (the big one at the bottom). I haven't been to life drawing in six months!

This doesn't include any of the mostly finished books I have put away. I remember when i visited my parents a while back and decided to clean out the bookshelves i'd left full there, i must have thrown away 20 or more books of drawings.

Anyway, top to bottom:

1) Little moleskine, previously my work sketchbook, which has been usurped by...

2) Softcover book with multi-coloured pages. Stays in my back pocket. Drawing and writing and lists of the first 150 pokemon (this is the game i play with myself at work when i am bored)

3) A6 Hardcover book with really nice 200gsm off-white paper. Was for "what i wore today" drawings but it only has three in it so far.

4) A5 book with bright white cartridge paper, for comics and zine drawings.

5) Older square sketchbook i took away with me last year. It has some kind of depressing things in it so i guess it is mostly retired.

6) This book was supposed to be for exhibition & painting planning. It is what i draw in at cafes.

7) This one is for illustration jobs / plans. Although it has kind of become just an every day drawing book.

8) As previously mentioned, life drawing book.


(these are all resting on a cushion from Evie Kemp )

EDIT: This was written really poorly because i had a fever.