The Winter Paintings

Tis the season to get... festive? after all!

This week I took a morning out and went out for a bit of a well needed break! To my extreme joy, I got to meet two beautiful reindeer! I'm a big sucker for deers and reindeer just melt my heart with those big eyes and all that fluff. 

I saw them from a distance and got so excited I was like a child running off to see them, like I said, I'm a sucker for reindeer... ignore the fact that I'm 30 in a couple of years... 

The reindeer were however really cute and awesome and I was left feeling inspired again!

I've had so many orders and commissions lately that I haven't really had the chance to sit down and just do something for myself. You may remember the squirrel and the blue tit illustrations I worked on recently and now I've added a reindeer design to the mix. These are mainly fun paintings for me to just chill out with and have a bit of fun although I am planning on turning them in to Christmas cards for myself to use. 

They've been lots of fun to play with this week as a bit of a break.

They're still not quite finished but the blue tits were the beginning, these little guys started off as being robins and then they transformed in to frosty blue tits. I'm happy that I changed them, even if they do have a blue background! They will be a bit more vibrant once they're completed but for now they look fairly awesome and I'm actually happy with them! That doesn't happen very often!

They have been inked and coloured with watercolours, the branches they're sat on are silver birch, a tree that is planted around the area I grew up in so there's a bit of me thrown in there.

Next is my little squirrel. Normally on the rare occasion that I draw squirrels I tend to draw greys as they're a bit simpler (less tufty bits and les vibrant.) but this time I was inspired by a photo I spotted on instagram. I'm still not 100% happy with his background/border design but I'm very happy with him. He's the first squirrel I've drawn that hasn't looked completely evil! In fact he looks rather cute and chubby.

Not surprising with all those acorns!

He was also inked out and coloured with watercolours, and again he's not finished, I think he needs to be a lot more vibrant.

And finally! The last to be added to the collection is my happy little reindeer, she was based on the photos that I took during the week and is a little bit different to the others, I decided to try a different style, this time I'm not inking it and just sticking to the pencil sketch to keep it softer looking. This could go very badly which is why I've scanned the image before I continue so I have a back up plan!

I'm hoping to paint her soon and add a nice midnight/snowy background if things go to plan. fingers crossed!

I'm also referring to her as she, I know some people will think I'm getting confused and because I've drawn antlers she should actually be a he.

In most cases this would be true with other species of deer but reindeer females also have antlers! 

So my reindeer here is female, the reindeer in the reference photo is also female so it's only fitting!

I've now finished most of my work for the week apart from two commissions that need to be sent out tomorrow so another post office trip for me! These are also going abroad unlike the other orders I've had this week.

Please note that I'm no longer able to make pet portrait commissions in time for Christmas for anybody outside of the UK. If you're from the UK you have until the 10th of December to get your orders in for guaranteed delivery by Christmas delivery.

For other orders you have a bit longer as they're not made to order.

You can of course still order pet portraits, I just can't guarantee that they will turn up in time for Christmas.

I now have some Christmas cards to print for an order and get the commissions packed up and ready to go!

Here's to another productive week!

Have a great weekend! I'm planning on actually having a chill out weekend for once, fingers crossed!