Pining for England

About to go traveling for 11 weeks and I must be pining for England already.  When I'm feeling homesick, I think I will spend a few minutes watching this green-and-pleasant gif I made yesterday.

From a photo taken in Dad's garden with my brand new camera:

Drawn in Bristol interview

The folks at Drawn in Bristol have just posted up an interview with me on their blog page. 

I talked about the circus project and some work I've been involved with for Lux and the Shadowmaker at the games hub.  Something else a little different!

You can read all about it here:
http://drawninbristol.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/introducing-katherine-coulton.html

More giff-ing

I'm not sure how I came across it, but I ended up on Youtube yesterday watching a video on digital painting. 

This guy was an absolute boss at town scenes and I realised that I hardly ever draw them.

He would start off using tone to plan out out thumbnail compositions.  I've never tried doing value sketches in Photoshop before but it turned out to be very useful.  I might have to use this method for planning out my roughs. 

It was so much fun using this layered technique, I ended up making another animated gif.  Started off with large simple shapes:

Added some more detail:

 

(That's little Peter in the corner, guiding the balloons)  

Have a look at this guy's channel - although all the work there is enough to make you weep and want to go back to art school for another five years:  Tyler Edlin's Youtube Channel

Dad's tapir story

Hi again,

Sorry I haven't posted in a while - I'm going to make up for it, I promise.

It seems Dad couldn't resist writing a story for my Tapir of long-ago.  And I couldn't resist posting it.  I like it a lot better than the story I'd planned for it. 

Next I will have to get something of my sister's up here but like most teenagers, I think her art is a closely guarded secret.  Anyway, thanks for being the sole dedicated reader of my blog - yes, I'm talking to you Jen!  You can't hide forever!

Tommy was usually an unusually happy Tapir. Except today his friend Sammy the Orang-utan told him something he didn’t understand. 

“We’re in danger of becoming stinked?” said Tommy.

“Not stinked, Ex-tinct.” said Sammy, casually unpeeling a banana.

“You already stink Sammy” teased Tommy. He flicked some muddy water at Sammy playfully. The Orang-utan batted it away with his big hands and peered back at Tommy seriously.

“Do you know what Extinct means Tommy?”

“Nope” said Tommy munching on some leaves and wiggling an ear. Sammy sighed.

“It means after you die there might not be any more Tapirs.”

Tommy thought about this for a moment. It didn’t seem to be a big deal. Mum and Dad will always be here even if he didn’t have any brothers or sisters, and in any case all my friends are other animals like Sammy. But Sammy looked a bit sad and as Sammy was older and wiser than him he thought he’d better try listening a bit harder. 

“Men keep cutting down the forest and soon there will be nowhere for you to go” said Sammy scratching his chest.

“But you live in the forest too, where will Orang-utans go?”

“Oh we’ll be just fine, were cousins of Man they are going to look after us, keep a bit of forest just for us or put us in a nice zoo”

“What’s a zoo?” asked Tommy

“It’s a special place where Men take their cubs to look at animals and you get fed by men called keepers”

“That sounds nice, can I go to a zoo?”

“Hmmm doubt it. Tapirs are not very interesting are they?” said Sammy looking Tommy up and down

“I mean what does a Tapir do?”

“Men-cubs like animals that do stuff or look fierce like Lions, not stand around all day in muddy hollows snuffling about” Sammy said a little unkindly

“But we are quite cuddly aren’t we?” said Tommy feeling a little hurt 

Tommy thought it might be nice being cuddled by a man cub. 

He also thought it might be nice to go to a Zoo and wondered what all the other animals would be like? Would they be kind to him or mean?

Exhibition photos

It's the last week of the Let Me Illustrate III exhibition  - here is a picture of my work on display.  Note the little red dots which make me a happy girl:

(Bottom photo by fellow exhibitor LindsayMcDonagh)

I've had some people ask about buying prints, so anyone interested please get in touch with me and I will be happy to provide.  Thanks to everyone who bought pieces and came to the event.

Exhibition in Feb at Grant Bradley Gallery

Hi everyone - I'm going to be exhibiting work at the Grant Bradley Gallery in Bedminster next week for their third annual Illustration exhibition. 

This is my first proper exhibition at a gallery,  so am a little nervous but looking forward to exhibiting alongside lots of great work from other Bristol illustrators.

Private view is on the evening of the 6th February - all welcome!
Grant Bradley Gallery

Another animation

Happy New Year everyone :)

Just before Christmas, I had a chance to do another one of my animations.  This was a massive drawing to coincide with a speech about the creative industries.  I grappled with Flash with this one so that I could make all the little pictures could appear consecutively.  Maybe you will recognise a few faces..?:

Here's a photo from the event at the Watershed.  Strangely, I got stage-fright seeing my drawing projected on a huge screen!:  

Drawn in Bristol

Great news!  I'm now part of the Drawn in Bristol illustration collective - click here to see my work on their site.

I'm hoping to become involved in some of their exhibitions around the city, so keep an eye out here and on my twitter page for updates.