Starting on the 3D work...

Sculptures have began.

I have made this bee, which is only a very small part of what I am aiming to achieve, but it is a starting block. He is only small, maybe twice the size of a real bee, and sets the scale for the rest of the sculptures... They're going to be pretty big!

screenprinting...

So, today I was down in the print room printing some t-shirts. I think I need a little more practice to be honest but I'm getting there. With not having lessons in screen printing any more I am a bit out of practice but I love being able to use this process because, although it is messy and temperamental, the outcome can look great!

Here are a few snaps I took during the process...

Surface patterns...

I have started creating my surface patterns... So far I have created my bug and fungi pattern. The actual files have a black background but I was wanting to see how they would look with a coloured background and thought this blue looked striking and complimented the watercolour tones...

Photoshop is my go to programme and although I am not completely confident with it, I am getting much faster at knocking these patterns out. It's just getting the hang of the process and then the rest is fun!

I have been working on some coloured trials to figure out which areas i want to colour and if I want to colour by hand or digitally... Although I love the darker, grubbier hand drawn qualities, the digital block colour behind the dark hand drawn lines creates a nice contrast and would stand out more when framed on the wall... I want to keep colours a little subdued and dusty. 

I am leaning towards digital...

Finished editing my 4 main illustrations...Rabbit

I used Photoshop to clean up my images without losing any of the details and hand drawn qualities.  Really happy with how they work as a set and I think the theme flows well through them all as a collective. They all have the macabre feel and show themes of life and death which was what I wanted to capture.

Next stop - trying out some colour...

Additional elements to bulk out my illustrations before I finish and digitally edit...

Next stop... digitally cleaning up my 4 illustrations ready for screen printing next week...

PROGRESS

I made some progress today with my 4 main illustrations... I decided to ditch the wolf design and instead chose to do a bunny design... Here are my 4 illustrations so far -