Mariana Black Illustration

Pandas at Play

 

 

I started a creative journal, just to jot down ideas and thoughts and anything else that might meander through my mind while I sort through my life and art (a lot of re-organising going on here in the background, long overdue!) and scribble down processes and connections and inspiration ... well, you get the picture.

Somehow the little panda managed to quietly slide his way into the pages, and he seems quite content to remain ... which is fine as he and I are going to be sharing quite a lot of humour, laughter and joy in the foreseeable future. He's right where he belongs. Let's hope you like him too. Here's a very roughly sketched peek at him dancing for joy:

 

 

We both wish you a very pleasant day. Don't forget to take your sense of humour with you wherever you go. Cheers.

 

Golden Monkey Sketches

 

 

Committing myself to learning, exploring, going with the flow, and enjoying the journey. Immersing myself back into the creative process and loving it. I'm now sketching out certain animals for one of the projects I'm working on, and at the moment its the golden monkey with its amazing turqouise coloured face. I'll be monkeying around for a few days now ... ouch, sorry about that. Below is the pencil sketch, before I used marker pens (on the monkey on the left) and watercolours to brighten them all up.

 

 

I'm thoroughly enjoying the therapeutic pleasures of paint, now that life seems to be back on the right track and creativity has returned ... This was done in my Stillman & Birn zeta sketchbook using Faber-Castell Pitt pens and Winsor and Newton watercolours. Cheers.

 

Panda Love & Picturebook Links

 

 

I've fallen quite unashamedly in love with my panda. He's just so full of joy that it's contagious and when I draw him (which I am doing so often that it's surprising I'm not sick of it) it fills me with pleasure. Therapeutic just doesn't begin to describe it ... At the moment I'm trying to define his lines, unsure still of what the end result will be, but extremely happy with the process of exploration. Above is one of my experiments but it might be too clean, I'm not yet sure. Here's the original sketch:

 

 

I quite like the rough edges and marks, and would really love to incorporate them somehow into the final ... we'll see how it goes shall we? I have a feeling that this little panda will let me know exactly what he wants and needs eventually, and that I won't have much choice but to happily go along with his wishes.

I'm also exploring the construction of a picture book -- layout, dummies, etc, so I thought I'd share a few links with you that I found useful:

•  Picture Book Dummy, Picture Book Construction: Know Your Layout: https://taralazar.com/2009/02/22/picture-book-construction-know-your-layout/

• Basic Book Construction: http://editorialanonymous.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/basic-book-construction.html

• How to Design Your Picture Book Layout: http://www.alexenglish.co.uk/blog/picture-book-layouts/

• Picture Book Pages & Tips: http://www.wordsandpics.org/2015/11/ask-picture-book-editor.html#more

• Picture Book Layout Templates: http://www.scottefranson.com/publishing-2/picturebook-layout-forms

• An Illustrator’s Guide to Creating a Picture Book: http://www.meghan-mccarthy.com/illustratorsguide.html

• Dummies for Smarties: http://www.yellapalooza.com/tutorials/dummies.html

I'll be doing tons more research and will keep sharing and posting what I find. If you're exploring doing picture books for children you'll find them useful in some way I hope. I'll also add links on the side of my blog as I go along, so keep an eye out for those as well. Cheers.

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Pomegranates Pop Pattern (via www.floatinglemons.com)

 

Very last-minute pattern to submit to my online Make It In Design Summer School! I took a tracing of one of the pomegranates in my sketchbook, scanned it in, cleaned it up, and used a few colours from their palette to quickly create this today, managing to submit it just before the deadline. Phew. It was fun doing patternwork again though ... I know it quite well, and yet it was as though I were rediscovering something new. Fun. Here's the tracing as an in-progress shot:

 

Cheers.

via www.floatinglemons.com

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Pomegranates - The Joy of Colour

 

 

After a year of exploring art and life in blacks and whites and all those grey shades in between, it's a true pleasure to be painting and drawing in colour again. I've been immersing myself in the joy of deep, brilliant, rich tints and hues that are bringing me back to a more balanced, brighter perspective on the world and everything around me. It helps that it's summer (well, a UK season that is as unpredictable as the rest of the year) and I'm surrounded by the amazing array of colours out in the countryside ... hugely inspirational.

I've loved my pandas and ravens and am still working on them, but it's good to be able to free myself from that narrow focus and pick up all those blues, greens, oranges, and oh those wonderful reds and just play. I've been experimenting with different tools and mediums as well. Here are a few close-ups:

 

 

Used colour pencils for this one and I'd forgotten how therapeutic it is to build up layers of colour, allowing my pencil the freedom to go where it wishes to and viewing the end product with some surprise, as though I hadn't had a hand in it. Sometimes not knowing what the end result will be, is a pleasure in itself.

 

 

I don't normally use acrylics but will be doing more with it from now on as I love the thick texture and the way the colours glow ... the black and white background was painted to contrast against those gorgeous reds.

 

 

The top left fruit was drawn in oil pastels, top right in brushed ink and watercolour, bottom left with pen and watercolour and bottom right in marker pens, a far more graphic representation.

 

 

Top fruit was drawn in pencil and the bottom one in acrylic and charcoal.

 

 

And, finally, the top left pomegranate was painted with watercolours. The rest you already know. Which one of them is your favourite?

Can you tell that I had a joyous time experimenting with these? I'm now researching the fruit, it's history, origins, mythology, etc and will be painting more of them for this project I'm working on. I'll also be working on the black-and-white pandas and ravens, so that should make for a more balanced view on life from here on. That creative 'pause' seems to have retired for the moment and I'm surrounded, at my desk, by brushes, pens, pencils, paints ... all quite smugly pleased with ourselves. We are having fun again. Cheers.

PS: For more pomegranate art and my creative 'pause', click here.

 

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