Mechanical birds

Here are some birds i have been drawing for a current project at uni.The project title is 'Power', we have been allowed to illustrate this word/theme in any way we want to , so I have chosen to draw these little birdies ( which are usually seen as being fragile/delicate) and give them a sense of power by making them all mechanically machine-like :) These illustrations are based on real types of birds...

Nightingale

Chaffinch

Wheatear

Carrion Crow

I googled images of steampunk and clockwork creations while i was drawing these for inspiration... I think Steampunk imagery is so beautiful :)  I may draw some more of these and go into more detail with the whereabouts of the mechanics ( hinges on the parts that would move etc.) i vaguely did this , giving each bird a little rib cage and hinges on the legs but i think it'd be cool if the mechanics could be more correspondant to the anatomy of the birds.

Old book doodles

A small post, thought i'd upload these doodles i did today on an old book I bought from a charity shop.I deliberatley chose a book with slightly yellow pages, I thought this might create an interesting background. I'm quite proud of how they've turned out... I did 2 of random female characters, and one of Travis Barker, my all time favourite drummer :)

The Decorated Octopus.

I came across a spare piece of wooden board today so I thought i'd use it to make a collage. I've been pretty interested in octopuses recently ( weird? ) so I decided to make an octopus collage, and a little story to go with it. I made the image and story kind of child-like, but not too much as I wanted the story to have a meaning.

The decorated octopus- collage and pen on board. Hard to photograph due to reflection , may update with a better pic sometime :)

And here's the story behind the image...

Every day the octopus would stop and look up at the surface of the water she lived in – she knew people existed on the land, walking with legs instead of swimming with tentacles. She wished she could be more like the humans, wear fancy clothes and jewellery, and read colourful magazines. She envied the way people could decorate themselves , as she thought life under the sea was pretty dull.

One day, as she was going about her usual octopus business, she noticed a shiny heart – shaped necklace floating by her in the water. ‘One of the humans must have accidentally dropped this into the water’ she thought to herself. She reached out for it with her tentacle, and as she held it she caught a glimpse of her own reflection. She was amazed – dazzled by what she saw! She realised that she no longer needed to be jealous of the humans, as she too had been decorated and fancy all along!

You see, the ocean is like a huge mirror to those who can look down upon its surface - but the animals that live in the water may never get to see their own reflection. To this day, the decorated octopus wears the necklace around her tentacle, and shares it with all the other animals in the sea, letting them look into it, and see how beautiful they are, too.

Detail of the collage, still not the best of pictures haha.

 

The meaning behind this story is that you shouldn't judge the way you look in comparison to others, or be jealous because everyone is beautiful and sometimes people just lack the metaphorical heart - shaped reflective object needed to see themselves and love themselves for what and who they are :)

Inspired by Iain Macarthur

This is an owl i drew, inspired by the work of  Iain Macarthur, i think his illustrations are amazing ...

My owl - Black ink pen on white paper.

Here are some examples of  Iain Macarthur's work...

I love the fact that no colour is needed to make these illustrations eye catching,black line on white paper is all they are, but they're still so effective. I would love for my doodles to be as good as these one day! 

Tattooed beauties

These bold black and white illustrations are by Adam Isaac Jackson, I came across his work on this website. I think his work is stunning, it appears to be both simple and complex at the same time. The lack of colour in these pieces really makes them have an impact, and these illustrations of tattooed women seem to be reminiscent of tattoo designs themselves.

Glenn Arthur art

While i'm on the subject of things that are inspiring me, I felt I just had to post about this artist. Glenn Arthur is an American lowbrow artist who creates stunning, dreamy and sometimes eerie portraits using acrylics on wood. I LOVE his work, he seems to get the compositions so well balanced and each painting seems to 'glow' with feminine beauty.The portraits carry their own personality, to me it looks as if the subjects, along with their hummingbird companions, skulls and ribbons have all been frozen in time.

Stunning sketchbooks...

So this isn't my artwork, but i really wish it was! This amazing sketchbook belongs to Russian artist and illustrator Irina Vinnik. These sketches are so amazingly done, they look more like a final piece of artwork rather than sketchbook work . I hope my doodles will look like this one day :)

I also love the fact that this artist photographs her work alongside cups of tea...