In my sketchbook - life drawing

It's been probably about a year since I last went to a life drawing class! I received a wonderful book for Christmas from my parents titled Mastering The Art of Drawing & Painting the Human Figure by Sarah Hoggett and Vincent Milne.

I thought I'd take some of the tricks I learned from the book and put them in practice at a local life drawing class at Blim. Here's a few of the better sketches from the session.

The model had a beautiful figure and I really like the strength of the poses she made, but I had the most trouble drawing the hands and head...I will definitely need to go back and practice some more!
Eventually, I'm planning on creating a painting, or a series of paintings with the nude figure stylized, on a light coloured background - here is my first go at it on a 10x10 canvas board. Not quite there yet!

Accepted: the Cheaper Show No 9!

I'm very proud to announce that I have been accepted to be one of 200 artists to participate in The Cheaper Show No.9. They had 950 submissions so I am really excited that I made the cut!

Happening on June 26th, the Cheaper Show is one giant art exhibition featuring 200 artists with 400 pieces of artwork, at $200 each. I think its an amazing concept that allows emerging and established artists to showcase their work side by side, and introduces art to a public that might not know much about buying art, at an affordable price.

According to their website, last year they had an incredible 5,000 people attending the massive warehouse in Gastown, Vancouver - I'm thrilled for the possible exposure and opportunities, and I can't wait to see all the other talent. Save the date and join me!

I'm so happy and grateful to be a part of something so fun and so big :) thecheapershow.com

Recently published illustrations

I've come to realise that I have not shared some of my successes of recent times: a number of my illustrations have been published!

Here is a sketch I did for a Summer Haircare article in the Summer Issue of alive Australia, followed by the final illustration done in Illustrator.

I also had the opportunity to illustrate some exercises, which was a bit tricky, but fun!



And lastly, I was thrilled to do 8 original illustrations for the Autumn Issue of alive Australia for a fantastic article about bush foods. I love drawing flowers and plants so this one was an absolute joy to create and they looked wonderful once printed!

I'm in the studio today working on some Vancouver inspired illustrations - I'll reveal them soon!

Maja

Illustration Friday - Dip

"Wiggly worm saw a dip in the road..."
I did a quick sketch in my notebook for this week's Illustration Friday topic - dip.