The Frog Prince

My latest piece is entitled 'The Frog Prince' and consists of watercolour paint/watercolour pencil/artist colouring pencil. The final size of the original is A2.

Here are some progression images showing a rough idea of the process. Please forgive the somewhat poor photography, I tend to take progression shots whilst in the middle of still working on it but then again maybe that adds to the realism.

[© Laura Ashford, 'The Frog Prince - Progression']

Stage one:

This progression shot is basically just after the initial washes have been put on [hence the paper bunching] and ever so slight detail has been placed in. When a face is in my work I tend to start there and work outwards, I feel it gives my work more life which probably sounds quite naff but I do feel that if you are working with characters you are responsible for bringing them to life so to speak. 

Stage two:

I know what sort of artist I am in the sense of if I stay to long doing one thing I'll overwork that area and ruin the work before it has even really begun. So I then decided to move on. I started shading in the frog prince just casually because I knew the hardest area of this piece was going to be the hair... I wanted to up my game hair wise. I researched other artists and how they drew hair, I also look at a lot of hair [which doesn't sound odd at all!!] and then decided to take the plunge. 

• N.B I worked the hair in phases starting from the top and working down. I did this because hair flows downwards from its source and I wanted to allow for natural flow to occur when adding in the initial colour wash of the hair. Basic shading was also added in at this stage, bulk hair partitions etc.

Stage three:

With the hair bulked in I then went onto the headdress, the tiara. I went over the hair again to bring out more of the bulk partitions.

Stage four:

This is the finished version. I added in more detail layer upon layer until finally going into the dark areas with black... I try and limit my use of black as I didn't want bulky shading and thick, heavy lines. 

• N.B The hair was worked in over several layers. I ended up working strand by strand at the end, using the initial bulk outlines as a guide and allowing the natural flow to work over them if need be. Shading was done in bulk where required and then filtered out into the strands. 

I also took the time to redo the frogs face here as I wanted him to be a slightly more fun character without loosing too much of the realism [yes... because there is realism in an enchanted frog!]. The borders were added in as I love Art Nouveau and I wanted a subtle nod to that period of Art without overdoing it. 

In short I feel that I am improving with my work and considering the time scale I would say I am doing quite well. I have grown more accustomed to A2 and feel confident using the space, who knows I might start going up to A1 or A0... maybe... probably not just yet though! Seeing as I hated drawing faces prior to this whole exercise I feel they are turning out quite well. 

The finished piece:

[© Laura Ashford, 'The Frog Prince']

Prints available: Etsy Store

and now... as ever... I am off for a cup of tea! :D 

Hello creative world

So I haven't updated in a while and that is because I have been super busy with everything. I have amassed quite a collection of preliminary sketches... some will come to fruition and some will probably just stay as rough concepts. I recently finished a piece entitled 'Bubble Bath' which has a cheeky little chap playing with some bubbles which include a duck floating away in one.

[© Laura Ashford, 'Bubble Bath']

There were so many sketches for the childs head. I am a fan of lowbrow/pop surrealism and I wanted to incorporate the basic ethos of exaggerated body proportions whilst keeping the image clean and not so grisly. This fundamental basis led me to Haitao Su and his book 'Alive Character Design.' There is a segment in there about 'Q Characters' which basically have a small body to head ratio. The book overall is quite a good point of reference and was well worth the purchase. Finally having completed a rough draft of first the head and then the body on A5 I then scaled the drawing up free hand to A2.

And then... I got bored? Fed up? Something happened and I didn't want to finish it because I didn't want to rush and ruin it. So I went on to do 'Hey Diddle Diddle' and some photographic work. I even sketched out a rough draft for [what will be next] 'Pat a Cake Pat a Cake.'

So a while passed and then one day I decided to finally finish it and the above is it completed. The bubbles were the most challenging and I think I did quite a good job seeing as I have never studied or drawn bubbles before this work. It allowed for some new skills to be learnt, new techniques to be engineered... there is something to be self taught drawing wise after all! 

A couple of 'behind the scenes' snap shots:

[© Laura Ashford, 'Bubble Bath - behind the scenes 1']

[© Laura Ashford, 'Bubble Bath - behind the scenes 2']

I have spoken to a few more established illustrators of late and have garnered some rather interesting and insightful viewpoints. The most valuable I think was from David Griessel: 

"I'm not sure how you stop comparing yourself to other artists, since I myself compare myself constantly with others. This is not a bad thing, since you can learn a lot from other artistes and it also gives you motivation to observe what others are doing. Just don’t get obsessed by it."

Also the past couple of weeks I have managed to change my Facebook page from photography to Laura Ashford Art and even though in the scheme of life this is a very minor detail I feel like a weight has been lifted. I feel a creative world has been opened to me instead of a small field. All the hard work, the sweat, tears, spilled paint, broken pens and pencils... it is all finally paying off. Major lessons have been learnt, don't quit... no matter how low things get, no matter the odds, keep going and don't quit. The moment you quit, the very second you stop is the the same second you have lost, respect gone, game over.

I think I'll celebrate with a nice cup of rosy lee.