Having spent several years going through the various names of my nieces and nephews spelt in different animals, I was stuck for a new animal sufficiently different, and also bendy, so my sister suggested this. Here is ‘Ben’… in cricketers! And also a recent commission – ‘Freddie’ in zoo animals. You can see more spelling animals here. They are all one-off artworks, and if you’d like something spelt for you, I am taking commissions, just email me or have a look at the examples in my Etsy shop.
A lot of the new work has moved over to my ‘swimming art’ site, http://www.waterdrawn.com, and it’s hard to keep two websites adequately fed, but here are some new Spellings that I’ve not shown before. I’ve been updating the offerings on my Etsy shop where you can now order your name spelt in mermaids, unicorns, and pigs (though preferably not all at once…) as well as all the usual cats, dogs, witches etc… See the full range in the Spelling Animals section of my Etsy shop
My first commission of the year! This is Wendy Figures and her daughter Ella, having been swimming in Coniston. I had good photos of both their faces to work from, but the photo of them at Coniston was a very flat grey day, so I used that aspect too, and created a soft sepia background with very little colour. Often Cumbria is like that and it’s still lovely. Digital drawing.
Another t-shirt design that I was asked to do a couple of months ago. I quite like greyhounds as a subject: they are not cats, but they are bendy and skinny, which makes them still quite good for Spelling Animals. These ones did not have to spell of course, I was just asked to re-create the logo in characterful and colourful greyhounds in the manner of the Spelling Animals. My version was faithful to the original logo, also having only 15 legs …that said, having worked out whose leg is missing I can see why, for the sake of artistic…
Here’s another swimming picture commission I finished recently… also one I enjoyed immensely so had to post this one in turn even though it’s beginning to look like I only do swimming pictures nowadays, which isn’t strictly true, it just looks that way… Paul Fowler of 100% Swimming runs a marathon event called the 24 hour swim, where brave individuals or relay teams undertake to swim one mile on the hour every hour for 24 hours. I have to say that the idea starts to seem appealing, having drawn the picture to celebrate this year’s event… though a solo swim…
This was a commissioned digital drawing I did for Andy, commemorating a memorable swim. It gathered together the correct elements – hat colour, the buoy in the background, etc. to create a memento of a swim he did this year, The Big Brutal Swim, Llyn Padarn, Llanberis, North Wales. The photograph is in fact of the previous year, but the same place. The camera is so particular about such details, but with the persuasiveness of the pencil (or digital stylus) I re-created the scene for this year’s swim. The photographs: (I am sorry I don’t know who took these. If…
…is apparently really quite naughty! This is a commission I was asked to do a couple of weeks ago. Pleased to report that his owner said I got him spot on.
Think of three unrelated things: a noun, an adjective, and a verb… Octopus Steampunk Relax Can I please paint the word ‘Relax’ in steampunk octopi? Ok, no problem. The result is arguably a little more ‘Victorian Farce’ than proper ‘Steampunk’, but I thought a lot of tiny steampunk details would probably get lost, or worse, make the word unreadable. Squint in a drunken way, preferably from your lovely warm bath, glass of wine in hand, and they clearly say ‘Relax’…
A couple of the Spelling Animals (and things) have been quite lengthy recently. Not only was there the Carbodeon pistons picture, I also recently did this one. Now framed and displayed. Pleased to hear it was met with approval.
That’s another species trained up and added to the lexicon of Spelling Animals: Spelling chickens. You wouldn’t think it was possible, but I think they came out quite nicely. They will be available on commission soon, but for now I’m taking a break for a week. Any enquires: please email me! (see menu at the top).
Art by Nancy Farmer 