Something Simple

Simple and sweet in red and magenta, that is all there is to it, really.

My Enchanted Doll Obsession

Enchanted Doll, by Marina Bychkova, have you heard of this? Have you seen these amazing dolls? Go on and take a look. For the last few months I've submerged myself in this world, getting to know the wonderful people on the Enchanted Forum, and feasting my eyes on those beautiful porcelain (and now also resin) ball-jointed creations. I want one so badly that it hurts, but it's such a wonderful obsession.

For her birthday this year, Marina held a contest— we sent in Enchanted Doll inspired handmade gifts, and she chose a winner to receive a free nude Enchanted Doll. Naturally, with such a fantastic prize being offered, tons of people participated with truly lovely submissions. Here's my entry:



Hooray!
An excuse to use silver gouache, and to paint elaborate hair, hands, orchids, and pretty doll-ladies!

Looking at it now, there are so many things I wish I had done differently— like I wish I had come up with a more interesting background, and that I hadn't painted in that strange looking dove. Hindsight! I do still like the way things turned out, and I am very glad I participated, even though I did not win. I like how her face turned out, and her hair, and I want to paint a million more orchids now! I love them!

And as long as we are talking about Enchanted Doll fan art, a few weeks back we had a little gift swap among a few members on the Enchanted forum, and I did a painting for that as well:



This painting now belongs to my forum friend Jayne, all the way over in the lovely land of Australia. It's her dream Enchanted Doll, Roisin. This painting was completed before the ED B-day contest painting, and the face is very different— I didn't know how to properly translate an Enchanted Doll's face into my own style, but I like the way she turned out all the same, I think she is sweet.

Anywho, I hope I haven't weirded any of you fine people out by admitting to this obsession! It's just such a strange and wonderful thing, finding something interesting to love and communicating with people all over the world with that same interest. It's a great feeling, I highly recommend it.

That's all for now!

Ink

Slowly playing catch up with all the little things that need posting, like these b&w inky bits I did a lil bit ago.

I was in a foul mood when I did this. Now it makes me laugh -


Some freehand inking -


K! See you later.

The Messbook

Sketchbooks! I love them. I have a lot of them, and I use them for a lot of different things. I assume some people wonder why all my sketchbook work is so neat and tidy, and if I ever doodle or actually sketch or anything like that. Of course I do!

I have a few different kinds of sketchbooks, and the ones I'm especially fond of and work in regularly are the ones I call my messbooks and neatbooks.

The kind of sketchbook pages that I've shown thus far have been from my neatbooks, where the goal is to get each page to a finished state, to practice working in different media, and to be spontaneous and well thought out at the same time, in varying degrees. It's an exercise/experiment/workout/practice sketchbook, and everything is pretty tidy. Hence the name, neatbook.

Now, what most people would call a sketchbook, I call a messbook, because I go wild and make a mess. In it, I plan out illustrations and compositions, draw ideas and plans for toys and puppets, write, draw from observation, and of course, doodle endlessly. If I like something in there enough, it becomes the starting point for a new neatbook page, a painting, a plush toy, etc.

So, here is a little sampling from my messbook sketchbooks, just to give you an idea of what I mean.






















So! There you have it. I've made a new collection on flickr called Sketchbooks, and in it are the sets for my Messbook and Neatbooks No.1 & No.2. Well, from here on out, I'll be posting sketchbook images both neat and messy!