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...

Mixed media birds

I've been really busy over Christmas but still somehow have found time to do some art :) my mum got me a  book called 'British Birds' for Christmas  - i chose it because it had some really good photographs of birds up close and in flight. I think birds are really fun to draw and i am trying to practise drawing and painting them more realistically. Here are two i have done so far, there may be more to come :)

Mixed media birds : Watercolour paints,Conte crayon,black fineliner,white gel pen and chalks.

Kind of creepy edited photos

These are some photographs of dolls i took for a college project a while ago, i thought i'd put them on here :) I edited these by flipping/copying the photos and i think i ended up with some quite interesting, kind of freaky looking images.

Using the same technique i also edited these picture of Lady Gaga, and i think she's still pretty even with 3 eyes haha.

Angelique Houtkamp

I have always been interested in tattoos and have never had the oppertunity to get one before i moved to uni last september, but now i've got my first one and i love it :)For years i have been collecting tattoo books and magazines and i have come across many artists who do tattoos or tattoo related artwork that really interest me. I plan to write about these on here and also upload some of my own artwork that has been inspired by these artists... so here is my first one :)

Angelique Houtkamp - I'm so in love with her right now... I ordered both of her books from amazon (tattoo darling and tattoo mystique) and i really like her unique style and western-traditional style tattoo designs.

I would recommend these books for anyone who is interested in tattoos, they were reasonably inexpensive but are both full of beautiful, colourful images and interesting articles/interviews- very inspirational.
On looking through the books there were a couple of images in particular that really caught my eye, so i decided to draw my own versions of these in line that i may later add colour to.

The same elements tend to appear in her work but in different arrangements, imagery such as hearts, anchors, rope, flowers, eyes, skulls, swallows, keyholes, arrows, horseshoes, daggers, snakes, women and lightning bolts. I think it's really fun to come up with designs by combining these elements... much experimentation to be done! :)