Here’s a promotional pic for my new book ‘Touched By Magic’ …
(currently available from Amazon.com and from me in a few weeks time). I’m very excited about this one as it has a lot of my favourite recent sketches and drawings inside, if you’d like to purchase a signed copy, let me know, if not, here’s the link from Amazon.com;
I have a new book out. It’s a collection of my Fae sketchings entitled: ‘Touched By Magic’- The Faery sketchbook. It’ll be available from Amazon in a few days and I’ll be receiving stock through at some point, which’ll enable me to offer signed copies for purchase. I’m really quite excited by this book, it contains many old and new drawings and a small line art demo at the back of the book, here’ s the video….
I’ve been banging on about this picture book on and off for a while now. Written by the remarkably talented Sally Odgers and illustrated by yours truly. It’s a handy little (fictional) jaunt into the realm of the Fae folkses and partly a field guide as to what one can/could expect on such a trip. It’s available from Amazon.com, or from my very own website (where signed copies can also be arranged, and much of the interior artwork can be found as prints (go to the ‘shop’ section of the site)…
http://www.pocockillustration.com
Been having a play with the video camera today and, as I’ve been asked often about my inking process I thought I’d put one or two inking demos together. This birdie was was doodled for that purpose, I’ll be putting the video up on youtube in a day or two, but here’s how he looked when I’d finished, I definately tipped my hat in Arthur Rackham’s direction for this (and make absolutely no apologies for it)… Happy weekend everyone!
new demo video from my youtube channel…
…. There’s a large, strange man under that bridge!
Latest doodle…. I’m a huge fan of the author Charles De Lint. I’ve been reading his stuff for over 20 years and find his mix of folklore, magic and all things fantastic and wonderful a breath of fresh air. If you haven’t read any of his books, a great place to start (my absolute fave) is ‘Memory and Dream’, followed very closely by ‘The Little Country’, ‘Trader’ and ‘Mulengro’. He’s also a fabulous musician and has just released his first album entitled ‘Old Blue Truck’, well worth a listen. Pop over to his site and have a browse around, chances are, if you came here to my blog by choice, there’ll be something to interest you over at his, here’s the link:
http://www.sfsite.com/charlesdelint/
Yesterday’s doodle was based on a couple of my favourite CDL characters- the crow girls.
Todays warmup doodling…. Not really much else to post at the moment, very busy with other work and a deadline is quite tight on one of the books I have on the go, have a wonderful weekend everyone!….
Warmup drawing from this morning… Looks like he just sucked on a lemon doesn’t he?….
Recent illustration for a title page. graphite.
I drew this in front of the tv last night. I’m determined to master this brush and sepia thing.
A newish image from my files, I’m really enjoying the monochrome stuff just lately and sepia is the new black. Lots of fun…..
I usually use a few different sized drawing pens to ink my work and aim at getting a ‘brush’ or ‘mapping nib’ look about it. Recently though, I’ve begun to play with mapping nibs and brushes to save time and save having to use three different sized tips (mostly a .005, .1 and .3 sized tip). I’ve also been playing with sepia ink, it gives a more organic look and feel to the organic nature of my drawings… I inked this one last night, very much in the Victorian book illustration vein (in case nobody’s noticed, Mr. Rackham is my hero…)….
I don’t talk about my musical side very often as this is basically my art and illustration blog, but as it’s for the preview of my new book I thought I’d mention that I’ve recorded a new tune to go along with a few interior pages of ‘Journey Into Faerie’ written by Sally Odgers and Illustrated by me… here it is:
I’ve recently had a little tinker with this painting, here’s how he’s looking right now….
Here’s the latest drawing for the ‘Journey Into Faerie’ blog I’m working on with Sally Odgers. We’ve just had the book published and thought we’d get a blog on the go and explore the JIF world a bit more, maybe we’ll put something else together in the future based on the book.
This here’s Iris Rosewether, she’s an artist. I’ve shown her here in her teen years with one of her friends who seems particularly engrossed in whatever it is young Iris is painting…..
I’ve been asked a few times to colour this, I don’t have the time at the moment to spend too long on it, but I used my warmup time this morning to add some colour and tinker with it…
As you may have already read here (or elsewhere), the lovely Sally Odgers (prolific Tasmanian author) and I have a new book out called ‘Journey Into Faerie’ which we’re both very excited about. We’ve put up a blog for/with all things related to the book and we invite you over to have a look…. I’ve added a new illustration this morning which’ll be exclusive to the JIF blog for a while before I post anywhere else. Feel free to pop over and if you like it, ‘follow’ the blog, we’ll be updating regularly. The ‘follower’ widget’s not working on blogger right now (they’re aware of this issue) so bookmark the site until it’s back up then keep up with us by ‘following’. See you there!
last night’s sketchings.
At last, with the new website comes a shopfront. We have books, original art and prints for sale. Feel free to pop over and have a looksee….
I haven’t managed to do too much drawing for the past few days due to the building of the website, but I did manage to ink this drawing from a week or two ago…
So, at last I have a new website. I’ve spent the last few days on this and not much else, I’ve been wanting something a little more managable for quite a while and took time out of what I was doing to (finally) make sure I represented myself and my art properly. Here’s the link:
Feel free to let me know what you think….
Very cool!!! ‘Dragonworld’- The new Dragon book by Impact Books is available very soon, it includes a couple of Dragony scribblings by me and a whole heap of GREAT art by some very amazing artists! I’m very much looking forward to receiving my copy… Rush out and buy one!
I coloured this old drawing in Corel Painter quickly in front of the telly this evening….
I’ve been working on this drawing for the past couple of days in between commissioned work and in the evenings. I drew it at a size that’s 3-4 times larger than my usual working size and have found that I can work at twice the speed, more large work to come methinks…
we’ve had a couple of days of stormy, rainy, windy weather here in Brisbane, I made this quick sketch last night as it seemed an appropriate thing to draw….
I’ve been putting my sketches up on Facebook for a while and they’ve become quite popular, I’ve been commissioned for a few and sell them quite regularly, feel free to contact me if you’d like to commission a sketch (or a painting, or an entire book of art 
here’s the latest doodle:
Just a little doodling before starting work on commissioned stuff, lots to do…so little time.
Imagine Publishing have just released their second volume of digital art, what a brilliant magazine. I have a tutorial in amongst some other incredible art… well worth a look, on the magazine stands now!
If time allows, I often save my art in stages, I’ve just found this old drawing on one of my hard drives and thought I’d post a quick walkthough as to how I get from A to B with a line drawing, it’s been a little while since I posted anything like this….
Beginning with the initial sketch. I’ve kept things nice and loose here as sometimes it’s a lot of fun to add details with the pens, I’ve been working with drawing pens for years and they’re around 90% of my choice for inking drawings, I usually employ a .005, a .1, .2 and .3 tip. I’m working on hot pressed Arches watercolour paper here.
So, just to get a feel of the pens and get some confidence together, I work my way around the drawing, this also sets the tone for line width etc. Not going crazy with details at this stage.
Moving into detailed areas slowly, keeping lines clean and deliberate.
For me, this is where the fun starts, I’m using a series of directional lines here for darker, more elaborate areas.
I’ve begun to cross-hatch over some of my lines. Within a line drawing, it’s important to vary lines to add visual interest and rythm throughout. Notice how directional lines gesture form…
The finished art. I drew this rather small compared to my usual working size.
I’ve detailed some of my inking techniques in my latest book priced at $14.00 (& postage), available from Amazon.com or directly from me, email: aaronpocock@yahoo.com:
Another drawing of the very beautiful Grace, who has much of the Pre Raphaelite ideal about her (Waterhouse would have loved her), I’ve made a couple of drawings based on her photos and would love to work on a full painting in the near future. More images of Grace can be found here:
http://sidhe-etain.deviantart.com
Made use of my time waiting for the internet to do it’s thing and sketched this… We have stormy, rainy weather and this wireless connection is, in short, crap. Thank goodness for pencils and paper.
I’ve just found this old painting on one of my hard drives- thought I’d post it here…..
Been really busy of late, I have a couple of deadlines I need to reach by the end of the month, one picture book and a cover to finish off so I haven’t been sketching as much as I’d like, I’ll get back into it soon, I’d go nuts otherwise. Below is a sketch for a recent magazing illustration, I posted a digitally coloured version a few posts ago but this one hasn’t seen the light of day yet.
It’s late and I’m about to go to bed, very tired (yawn)… I’ve been tinkering away at this to wind down after a very long day, it’s still very much a work-in-progress, anyway, here it is as it stands….
I’ve been pretty hard at it lately with illustration commissions, haven’t had a whole lot of time to just sit and while away the hours doing my own thing, I managed to find a couple of hours of peace and quiet last night and splashed a little watercolour over this small sketch I drew recently.
Dusting of a couple of Pirate illustrations that haven’t seen the light of day for one reason or another, I thought it’d be nice to give them an airing….
Here’s today’s warmup drawing, the model is the very lovely Grace Nuth:
http://sidhe-etain.deviantart.com/
Today’s doodling. I’m awful at drawing horses, I’m in need of some practice…
I drew Puddleglum a number of years ago and thought I’d have another go, he’s such a melancholy old bugger and his features make for fun drawing….
Today’s warmup drawing, I added the inks as an afterthought as I liked the sketch so much….
Here’s the original quick pencil sketch…
You can hear the gentle music if you still yourself and listen carefully.
Just a quickie doodle today, been on the phone for hours this morning trying to sort out technical issues with the new internet connection. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAWN.
I’ve been feeling the urge to get out the watercolours for the past few weeks, unfortunatley, due to the commisions I have on the go, this hasn’t been possible. As it was Sunday yesterday, I thought I’d do a little something for myself…. Here’s the finished image…
… And here’s the line art before I added the paint…
I’ve been finding myself doing a lot of lot searching of late, been diving into myself and taking stock of where I’ve been, where I’m at and where I’ve yet to go.. People may say ‘Live for today’ but plans still have to be made, life is also about realising one’s dreams and goals…
I’m officially an old fart now, 41 on Wednesday, I haven’t a clue how that happened, I went to bed one night when I was 18 and woke up with hair sprouting from my nose and my ears… my six-pack has become a whole barrel and I now find myself groaning when I bend down to pick things up from the floor (laughs), but it’s not all bad, children in queues call me a ‘man’ and my kids actually do as they’re told sometimes, so maybe this growing up mallarkey ain’t so bad after all. Good job I can still draw pretty little pictures like I did when I was a child though…
Todays doodle… Just playing around with another version of a drawing I completed recently… (graphite sketch with textures overlaid in photoshop).
Still having fun doodling these two characters… Here’s today’s sketch. And here’s a link to Charles De Lint’s website:
I’ve been reading a LOT of Charles De Lint’s books lately. I’ve been a big fan for the past seventeen years or so, and am rereading some of the old stuff and a fair bit of his new stuff, even managed to bag a signed copy of one of his books for Christmas last year (you fanboy Aaron…). The remarkable thing about CDL’s work is his ability to just lay all that magic out there, it’s tangible and lingers for the duration of the book (and a long time afterwards too…), his characters are hauntingly believable (even to the point of feeling like old friends) and the tales are unique… weaving old folklore into modern settings… incredible.
favourites of mine are: The Onion Girl, Memory and Dream (my absolute fave…), Someplace To Be Flying, Mulengro and Trader, but I’ve yet to come cross a book of his I didn’t like. If you haven’t read any of his work, check him out….. Today’s doodle is a quickie based on a couple of his characters.
This one’s quite an old one, I just had a little play and reworked it a little….
Model- the wonderfully talented:
I’ve been a reading a lot of Charles De Lint’s books lately, guess it’s coming out in my doodles…
model, the wonderful:
I’ve been working on this one on and off for two years or more… here’s how it looks right now. I originally started it in oils but (due to time constraints) have been working on it digitally- I hope to finish it before the world ends….
model- the wonderful:
elandria.deviantart.com
I started this one a month or so ago, and due to the illustration work I’m currently involved with, I haven’t completed it, but I did do a session earlier this week, here’s how the painting’s looking so far… (See earlier posts for the previous version.)
figure model, the beautiful:
sitara-leotastock.deviantart.com
More tree maidens, warmup drawings from this morning….
I like drawing beautiful things.. pretty ladies, landscapes, wildlife… but sometimes it’s just a lot of fun to doodle ‘ugly’, this face appeared in my sketchbook last night and I just rolled with it…
… A naughty man lives there.
I’ve just finished watching the incredible movie- ‘The Secret of Roan Inish’ (highly recommended). I just had to draw a Selkie and some of her friends… Feels like I’ve been hit with a turbo charged boost of inspiration today, but it does make me miss my old homeland (the UK) rather a lot. I was fortunate enough to live in a few coastal towns in Wales and Cornwall and the imagery of the movie brought back many fond memories….
Also, I’m very excited to announce that I’ll have a new book available shortly entitled ‘The Journey Into Faerie’, written by the remarkable Sally Odgers and Illustrated by me. We’re self-publishing this one and it’ll be out shortly, just awaiting the arrival of the proofs, I’ll put up another post when the book’s ready…. here’s a cover teaser:
Today’s doodle. Have so much work on the go, I’m afraid I’ll probably only be sketching these quickies for a spell….
in the meantime though… here’s a work-in-progress I’ve had on the go for a while, I’d like to get back onto this at some point….
I’m in the process of putting my new art compilation book together, having gone through the sketches to shortlist, I’ve noticed a distinct lack of male characters in my drawings… It’s true, I draw a lot of lassies. I’m setting about balancing this out as of now, there’ll be more blokey drawings up as the days go by.
I bought a new sketchbook this morning, the paper is an off-white colour, is rougher than the paper I’m used to drawing on…and I love it. This is the first entry, had to be a tree of course!
and on a different note… A project I’ve been working on for teh past 4 months or so has just been completed and approved… I’m very excited! More on that later.
This one’s a drawing I did a little while ago, I added the inks last night in front of the telly. I’ve take to printing off sketches very faintly onto watercolour paper, then I ink over the top of the printed matter (which barely shows through underneath). Hot pressed watercolour paper is great for laying down a pen line, and on top of that, with the sketch still sitting untouched, (and the piece I’ve just inked), I’ve got two pieces of art… My sketches are quite popular on Facebook and Ioften sell them, so it’s great to have both.
Recent watercolour painting. I haven’t finished this as I’ve reached a bit of a ‘stand-off’ with it. I’ve been playing a little in photoshop to see if I can rectify some of the lighting issues etc… This is what I have so far….
model:
I’ve been doing so much colour stuff lately (professionally) that I have to balance with line art in my spare time. This one (below), I inked in front of the telly the other night, instead of using large blocks of colour, scribbling all those scratchy little lines pleases me greatly. I doodled the faun this morning before I set to work on my commissioned stuff.
I did a demo, meet and greet at the local bookshop yesterday. It was wonderful to see people who had an interest in my art. Signing prints and greetings cards and copies of my art book is a cool part part of doing what I do.
This is what I managed to produce in that time, I’ll finish this off when I’m less busy and will post it when it’s done… (medium- acrylic)
model:
http://sitara-leotastock.deviantart.com
Here’s the cover to the book I was promoting, available from Amazon.com:
link to model on front cover:
This morning’s doodle. Having a lot of fun with these warmup drawings. Have a great weekend everyone.
