Showing posts with label flower. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flower. Show all posts

illustration of a decorated cat skull

illustration of a decorated cat skull

Illustrators Australia and Redbubble
have collaborated with a gallery show of t-shirt art called Wear Art Thou.

As a member of Illustrators Australia I was invited to join in on the fun. The invitation came in May, but being distracted by work I only remembered the show when there was just 10 days left to think up a design, create the artwork and enter. Ahhh, pressure!

In a lunch break at work I scribbled a quick list of ideas then discarded most for being unsuitable for a t-shirt, or simply being too tacky. The idea remaining was to illustrate a skull.

The thought process went - Skulls are always popular on clothing, but skulls on t-shirts have been done to death (pun!) so it would need a point of difference. How about a cat skull? Cats are always popular on the inter-web, and I am super fond of them too. Might turn out a bit nasty looking, better soften it up with some sort of whimsy. Flowers would be ideal. Our last cat was called Wasabi, I could use flowers and leaves from a wasabi plant, making the image into a tribute for her. Awww, how sweet. So now the skull won't be scary, it will be poignant. Yep, lots of boxes ticked.

In a way it is actually two paintings: the first an airbrush style illustration of a cat skull, the second a naive painting of leaves and flowers appearing to wrap around the skull. The texture in the background is a photograph of the cement floor in my studio space.

This artwork was created to sell on line on a variety of products, so here comes the sales pitch...

Cat skull decorated with wasabi flowers is available to purchase on line via Redbubble 
on t-shirts, throw cushions, tote bags, posters, prints, stickers and gift cards.
Easy to order and delivered to your door



velocirapture

velociraptor holding a bouquet of roses


I drew this for the Illustrators Australia 9x5 exhibition 'rapture', opening this Friday.


Velocirapture was done with 6B pencil and shellac on 9x5 inch plywood. 

She's based on the well known dinosaur 'velociraptor', which would have actually looked a bit like this, with the obvious exceptions of the bunch of flowers and ludicrous expression. 
'What's with all those crazy feathers?' you cry. 'The velociraptors on Jurassic Park didn't have those!'.
Well actually these dinosaurs had bird-like feathers. They would have looked a lot like large birds with sharp teeth and four fast running limbs ending in huge claws. Just imagine Big Bird with pointy teeth. Kinda scary, if you think about it. 

If you can't make it to the exhibition you can see all the other pieces on line here 

happy wanderer

happy wanderer illustration


I was at a loss with what to draw over the weekend, so I had a look in the garden and discovered the happy wanderer is flowering.
Oh, and here are some dugong sketches too.
R :)