a tea party with alice

here's my most recently completed commission, a sidebar portrait for the lovely alice over at teapartywithalice.com. i've included some snaps of my illustrative process (i mainly post these on my instagram) as it's something i've never really done before, and i must say that i really have had so much fun playing around with gouache and i think it's finally become a staple part of my portrait style. 

i'm still open for commissions, so if you would like one for yourself (or maybe even as a gift to another!), please feel free to drop me an email at robynmakesthings@gmail.com to discuss my working methods and pricing :)

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dance, magic, dance!

 

just popping by to post another gouache portrait i've completed recently! this time of david bowie as the goblin king from the film labyrinth, which i watched while at uni and felt instantly inspired to one day recreate the characters from it. i do plan to more simply illustrate characters such as ludo (who is just adorable!) and create a whole set of them, but i thought i'd start out here as i'd been meaning to redo a bowie portrait at some point anyway after growing more and more displeased by my original aladdin sane illustration!

i was pretty pleased with this illustration on paper, however i don't feel as though the scan does it any justice *sigh*, such a nightmare when that happens! obviously i've room for a lot of improvement when it comes to portraits, however i do believe i'm slowly getting better at creating depth which is a lot easier to accomplish with gouache paints (my soft spot for them is rapidly growing.) i suppose i've just got to keep practising and practising!

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playin' with gouache

after seeing so many good things done with and said about gouache paints, i decided to hop onto the bandwagon and purchase myself a set of them. after my first play with them, i wasn't overly impressed - they just seemed to produce the same effect as watercolours but with so much more effort needed to work with them - but i persisted and played some more and i think i may now have developed some sort of understanding that may help me to work with them in future. i doubt i'll ever work solely with gouache, but i like how opaque the colours are so they could come in handy to use alongside my watercolours and pencils!

while experimenting i decided to work with marina again because she's very, very lovely looking and i always find it rewarding to draw attractive people. hair aside, i think i'm pretty happy with this piece.

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