My RedBubble Folio Cull

I am currently going through the surprisingly emotionally painful process of going through my art and t-shirt designs on RedBubble and deleting the least viewed / least favourited / least purchased designs. Hopefully the end result will be a higher quality folio.

I warned my redbubble contacts that I would be doing an art cull, asking them to favourite any of my designs they particularly like to stop me from deleting those particular designs. You don’t have to be an artist to have a redbubble account, by the way – if you like to look at good art, I encourage you to consider signing up for an account so you can see what different artists and designers are up to!

Mum’s New Art Blog :)

http://annepickersgillsart.wordpress.com/

Last week I was helping my mother set up a new blog / website about her Lord of the Rings and Robin Hood themed art. It will be well worth adding the RSS feed to your feed reader so you can be alerted to when the blog becomes public (which is not the case as I write this).

The RSS feed is feed://annepickersgillsart.wordpress.com/feed/.

Her current site (as I write) is http://pic6.piczo.com/AnnesFrodoArtEtcetera/?g=1. I think her work is pretty amazing, and I’m sure you will too.

She’s also been known to sell her art at http://myworld.ebay.com.au/frodosmum61/.

396. Christmas Cat

Watercolour pencil and colour pencil on paper, 2009.

I wanted to create a Christmas card friendly design. It was good fun drawing this cat by a fireplace. Even though it’s summer during our Christmas, those of us in the southern end of the continent do get a decent amount of freezing cold days.

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This drawing can also be found at my redbubble.com Bubblesite.

373. Grrrl

 

Watercolour pencil, watercolour pencil and colour pencil on paper, July 2009.

This is a bit of a flashback piece for me – more akin to the type of stuff I was drawing in the late 1990s / early 2000s! A little inner Goth that keeps trying to crawl out… Admittedly, this one is relatively colourful when compared to some of my teenage years drawings.

I’ve made this painting available as an art print and greeting card, see http://flokot.redbubble.com/sets/79778/works/3471712-2-girl for more information.

367. Horse and Cupcakes

Pen, watercolour pastel and watercolour pencil on paper, Septemeber 2008.

This drawing was inspired by the desert-style horse. I guess I got its general body shape from Akhal-Teke style horses. The cupcakes are inspired by… umm… cupcakes.

357. Neighbourhood

Watercolour pastel on paper, 2007-ish.

I like looking out the back door at night, when the only sign of life is the glow of lights in nearby streets.

347. Grrrl

Watercolour pastel on paper, December 2008.

318. Colourful Horse

Watercolour pencil, ink liner and coloured pencil on paper, A7 (yes, that’s right, A7!) watercolour paper, 2008.

309. Christmas Drive

Watercolour pencil on paper, 2008 re-edit of painting from either December 2006 or 2007 (I can’t remember).

It was inspired by driving to our rural family’s Christmas.

306. Angels and Shepherds

Watercolour pencil on paper, 2007, re-edited 2008.

Seeking to illustrate the Christmas story…

302. Arabian Yearling Colt

2007, oil pastel on canvas. Re-edit November 2008.

This sketch is inspired by one of the pure Arabian yearlings that once stayed with us for a gloriously horsey 6 months back in 2000-2001. The colt, a straight Egyptian Arabian, was wonderfully mischievious and a beautiful chestnut colouring. He also liked to bite but thankfully, I managed to avoid being bitten.

Can be viewed in larger format at: http://flokot.redbubble.com/sets/30717/works/1972004-3-arabian-yearling

224. Painting Whales

Humpback Whale, acrylic on canvas, January-April 2008, 8×8″ (approx 203×203 mm).

This is a rare case of me working on a piece for more than one session. Being notoriously impatient, I tend to prefer to get a drawing completed within a day of starting. This was a deliberate effort for me to try and develop more patience. This painting was developed over the space of a few months, one layer at a time. I’m not sure how successful it is – I am an amateur painter!

It was inspired by a photograph of a humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae, and started around the time that the Australian news was dealing with the issue of whales being killed in our territory, against our laws. In Australia, whales are generally considered a vital part of the oceanic ecosystem, so it cause quite a stir when all these animals were being locally slaughtered earlier this year. Strangely enough, at the same time I have been reading the classic piece of literature, Moby Dick. I have found it a fascinating snapshot into human perspectives regarding whales – not to mention all the other deep themes explored in the text. The chapter devoted to arguing that whales are fish, not mammals, was particularly interesting. I wondered if perhaps describing whales as fish alleviates the burden of massacres when these intelligent, family-living, social creatures are cut to pieces.

More information –

– you might find the Animal Liberation Victoria website an interesting source of information regarding the 2008 slaughter of whales in Australian waters. Try http://alv.org.au/storyarchive/0607seashepherd/seashepherd.php or search for “whaling” at http://alv.org.au/.

– The Australian Government has online information regarding Australian legal policy directed towards cetacean conservation. Go to http://www.environment.gov.au/coasts/species/cetaceans/index.html.

(Links accessed 27 April 2008 10.46 am Australian Eastern Standard Time)

223. Stencil Horses

Acrylic on canvas board, 9×12″ (22.9×30.5 cm), April 2008.

This was a simple painting – I drew and cut out the stencil, painted in the background, then stencilled in the horses. My children were enjoying watching the process, though they expressed confusion and concern that the pink horse was running in a different direction to the rest of the herd. Thus is their introduction to learning to accept that not everyone wants to conform to the status quo.

206. Red Pegasus

Watercolour pencil and coloured pencil on paper, 2008.

This sketch was an attempt to try things from a different perspective. I draw horses a lot, and horse-derived mythical beasts a lot, too. This one was drawn late one Saturday night when the kids were distracted with a video and my husband was listening to music on the computer. So, away I sketched. And, why not?!

203. Girl

Watercolour pencil and pencil on art paper.

Inspired by a model in a hairdressing magazine! It may have lost a little in the translation from painting to photo, but I was pretty happy with it. The style is obviously cartoony. I don’t think I could draw life-like people… unlike my mother, who is a spectacular artist (check out her paintings at http://pic6.piczo.com/AnnesFrodoArtEtcetera/?g=1).

199. Colourful Unicorn

This is one of the water soluble pencil paintings I did over the hot New Years season. I can’t explain it. I just draw unicorns, a lot. They are probably my default drawing! One of my dear friends has humorously suggested that perhaps there are tiny, invisible horses on my paper, and I’m just tracing them when I draw.

198. Christmas Inspired – Journey To Bethlehem

 

This was one of a few Christmas-inspired paintings I did late 2007. This illustration represents the journey to Bethlehem undertaken my Joseph and his wife Mary. It was drawn using water soluble pencils and crayons, then painting over them with water and a paintbrush.

196. Red Horse

This was drawn in water colour pencils, then painted. It was drawn on one of those awfully hot summer days that we had around New Year’s Day this year. I had been reading Arabian Horse magazines, and while I don’t think this horse necessarily looks Arabian, I was certainly inspired by the amazing purebreds in the magazines.