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.