Four Seasons and My Hair

This is the first proper weekend where I don't have to work. The weather is nice and warm outside for once. And what do I do? I draw.

My hair has a life of its own. And it does whatever the hell it wants whenever the hell it wants. I swear, my hair decided to stop growing since I last butchered it (my hair is SO weird that no hairdresser can cut it and make it look alright). But then during summer, it just wouldn't stop growing!

So this one is autobiographical. A tribute to my hair - The hair I could've done without. Yayness.

High Tea

This illustration was done for my brother in law, Will. He's been having a tough time, and this was just something little to cheer him up with.
And yes, there's a joke there. I like to play subtle.

Daft Wullie Sketch

I love Terry Pratchett's Wee Free Men. I love those characters so much that I can't even pick favourites.

Here's a sketch I did of what Daft Wullie would look like in my world. Hopefully I'll get around to doing a painting of all of them one day.

New website!

Our new website Chuckle tree is finally up and running! Yay! 

Please go visit. I put a lot of effort into it.

This was a lot of work since I had all the artwork and about 7 pages to design on my own. BUT I did it and it was fun (when things worked). I think I can comfortably say that coding is not my cup of tea. I had a few nightmares in codes during the process of getting this done. I know there are a few things I need to fine-tune but that can happen later - when I can manage looking at those codes again (without crying).

There were old images such as this, and this that have been scraped because while I was happy with the individual paintings, they didn't look right when put together.

New look for the blog

While working on our website I also had time to think of a new look for the blog.
No, that's not really true. It came after the website, but it was bugging me that my sidebar buttons used to look more like an afterthought.

So it was time for a make-over-! So super! etc etc.
Here are the old designs. They were funny, but they just didn't fit well together. So long, oldies.

Pigeon Toes

"What about 'em?" he says. Because he is wearing shoes and you can't see his toes! Har har! This painting took a lot longer than I had initially anticipated. (I thought it'd take less than an hour like the other ones!)

Watercolour painting - 15x9.5cm (6x3.7 inches) on paper.

Inspired by my favourite Sesame Street song. Enjoy it being stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

Cat Socks

All (except black) cats look like they have socks on. We have a little pathway around the garden to the front door that I can see out the window and we get a big group of cats walking down that pathway many times a day.

I can't resist but make noise to get their attention and say hi - before they run for their lives. Awww...
Watercolour on paper - 9.5cm x 13.5cm (3.7x5.5 inches)

Berry Monster

Illustration Friday: "Yield"

Mmm I love berries. We have a few berry bushes growing around our place here in Dunedin and Dan picks them for me whenever he sees them. But if there were no fences and bob wires, there would be no berries left for birds.

That's me in the painting eating all the berries as I go. Another tiny one: 13.5x9.5cm (5.5x3.7 inches)

Dunedin Weather

It's been almost a month since we got back from our wonderful holiday back to... Dunedin and its welcoming weather. Dunedin has the most unpredictable weather, and it's been cold and rainy like you wouldn't believe. As a tribute to that, I thought I'd smear some wet paint on a piece of paper.

Another small painting. 9.5x16cm (about 3.5x6.5 inches).

Birthday Fish for Dad

My mum had recently emailed me a subtle reminder about my dad's birthday in 2.5 weeks. 

"A card is a must. Delayed cards will simply be unacceptable".

I used to give them handmade cards (to save money) but that all stopped when I found better things to do.

I thought it would be a nice reminiscence down the memory lane for all of us if I sent him a handmade card again this year. So here it is.

A happy snapper mounted on the wall, celebrating my dad's birthday (my dad is a kayak enthusiast / scuba instructor, hence the fish) I hope he likes it.

It's a pretty small painting. Probably the smallest I've done so far. I have midget hands, so the card doesn't look too small in the photo, but it's 12x9cm (5x3.5 inches).