Illy Friday {Messenger}

I haven't done an Illy Friday in a while and had the sudden urge for one while Tobes ducked out for twenty minutes. Lead pencil and scanned in patterns and coffee stain from previous works. Hope to spend more time on art in 2012

Prints! Prints! Prints!

Prints for sale via my Just Draw More Bianca fb page - $50 special price for everyone who has supported me this year for a limited time only. Price does not include postage.

All prints 200 x 200 - only 4 left
Printed on A4 archival cotton rag paper
Mounted on stained plywood board

2012 Desk Calendar {pre-order}

Taking pre-orders until Friday November 11 for my 2012 desk calendar right here :)

If you happen to be outside of Australia, and keen - apart from being REALLY CHUFFED, I can give you a better idea of postage once I look further into it, so please email me

I now have a Made It shop!

I have set up a made it shop! I thought I would give it a shot as I have a few prints left in my office and would love to clear them out to make room for some new ones

Visit it at www.madeit.com.au/missbianca

{ IF } Scary

I don't like scary things. So here's a pic of Bambi :)
I am sure if you are browsing Illy Friday this week you might be sick of seeing scary things so this may be a nice, calming break.
Pencil and watercolour, with scans of vintage wallpapers (trying something a little different). Love the way watercolour follows the pencil lines. Fun.

Illy Friday - Contraption

My fiance Toby is great at making handy contraptions like the image above. Pictured is the original 6 prong Weiner Roaster that was made for our neighbours Andrew and Denise for the Canadian Party we had on the weekend. Such a timesaver - roasting 6 weiners instead of 1 at a time :)

Upon review, Toby is a bit upset I have missed out a lot of delicate details such as the angle of the prong and such. But we don't have all day for this.

Illy Friday - Hibernate

I learnt something new today. Ladybirds hibernate in the Winter. Thousands of them go and hang out together until Spring time comes along. Cute hey.

Illy Friday - Mesmerizing

How can you not be mesmerized by the way ballet dancers gracefully float around, so light on their feet. Although these girls look like they are a bit clunky they are dancing better than me.

Europe Postcards {1 year on} Still plugging away

Been plugging away still with this little project on my Facebook page. It is keeping me entertained looking back over journal entries, that is for sure! Heading on a little break in two days! Hooray! I need some sun. This time last year was awesomely stinking hot, I miss that!

Just Draw More Bianca: Illustration Friday - Fearless

Just Draw More Bianca: Illustration Friday - Fearless: Everyone is fearless when they are younger. Good to go back to that mindset that ANYTHING is possible if you put your mind to it. Quick pen ...

So I was a little bit lazy and re-used this illy as the Illy Friday word was disguise. I will be better once I return from holidays!

Europe Postcards {1 year on}

To keep myself a little creative I have been trying a 'one-a-day' project. Nothing to the extent of the crazy and very talented/committed Mr Ben Hood, but only for the 5 and a half weeks of my Euro Trip last year. Am going through my journal entry for the day and doing a quick little postcard based on the events I wrote about.

It's nice to come across the little things I have forgotten about along the way, and also a friend suggested yesterday that I could make a travel quilt at the end. Brilliant idea. Or even cushions. The drinks poster will eventually become a cushion I think. A bit of fun anyway to get through the remainder of winter :)

The series can be found on my facebook page.

{ IF } Imperfect

All of my artwork is full of imperfections. And I like that. Perfect sucks! :)

{ IF } Obsession

Layout is a huge obsession of mine. I have been moving this bird around on the page for the last half hour deciding where it looks best. Satisfied with bottom left. Below is the original image.
Pencil / Ink / Watercolour scans.

[ IF ] Gesture

My other favourite gesture apart from flippin' the bird :) I'm kinda busy, kinda busy. I really am - this little diva was drawn on my notepad - you can see the writing on the other side of the paper through her hand.

Illy Friday - Stay

First thought was that excellent early 90s song - Stay by Shakespears Sister. Mum and Dad had the album in their CD collection, and the girls really captivated me. They were hardcore to an 8 year old like me at the time. In my teenage years, I always thought it would make a great wedding song. I clearly was a bit of a nutter. Still a big fan of the song to this day.
Anyway, I tried to draw them, and struggled a bit so just mucked around a bit with what I did before I screwed the paper up and threw it at the cat. Sometimes I wish I could stay on track more with drawing.

More butterflies! {Work in Progress}

Started work on a print for a dear friend's little girls bedroom. Working out composition before I begin colouring properly. Butterflies are great - they seem to just look good no matter what you do with them. The final product will be mounted on ply board. Will post a pic once done.

Turns out this week it could 'kind of' tie in with the IF topic - Midsummers Night. Heading off tomorrow to QLD for the marathon this weekend, so TOTALLY strapped for time :)

Illy Friday - Launch

While flicking through the newspaper reading headings and looking at pictures as I do, I saw a rocket launching and thought I may as well just have a crack at drawing one.

Illy Friday - Swept

"She was totally swept away by his rugged manly looks and his ability to recite all the one liners from Anchorman as any girl would be"

Kinda looks Rainbow Brite style to me for some reason. Maybe the eyelashes. Lots of pen work going on. Done while watching Collingwood thrash Melbourne :)

Illy Friday - Shadows

A quick sketch of my shadow puppet bird with a strange head. Not my best piece... frustrating. Hopefully though it means all my creativity is left today for the website design I need to do...

Illy Friday - Asleep

We always catch these guys asleep together. They love each other, we know.

Illustration Friday - Soaked

It is that time of year again where whenever you go for a run you are bound to get soaked feet, as it is either raining, or has just rained and the grass is wet, or it's dark and you go straight through a puddle. 6 weeks to go until the marathon now - just have to suck it up a bit now.

Illustration Friday - Safari

Just wanted to draw another bird. I get the topics sent to me late at night - like 11pm in Australia - and I got in my head it was jungle not safari. Oh well. I am sure you would see a toucan if you went on a safari somewhere! Not totally impressed with the colouring but it is just a personal project and tonight I am easy pleased.

Birdies - All coloured

All coloured in now. The sketch of the birds was based on an image found in a 'Birds Australia report' and I am just assuming the birds were brown. Think I am settled with this - will have another look tomorrow to see if I am still happy.

Illustration Friday - Beginner

I am a bit of a beginner on drawing birds (very loose reference to the topic!). These chubby little fellas I am drawing for a client. Have penciled and inked the birdies and have some watercolour blobs ready to pop together tomorrow once it all dries. Can't wait actually - nice to try something new.

Will post the finished product once done.

Illustration Friday - Lesson

Time for another Italian lesson soon. My language is getting pretty sketchy now.

Scans of pages from my book I wrote in during lessons, all put together rather hastily in good ol/ photoshop. Time to get watercolours back out again, getting lazy colouring on computer!!

Illustration Friday - Bicycle

I want to ride my bicycle. I want to ride my bike.

This is my bicycle. A really bad drawing of it.

Ironically I brought it from a guy who had no time to ride it due to training for marathons - I thought it would be good when training for a marathon, but there is no time!! It's all running!!

Will have some more time for you post-marathon bikey!

Illustration Friday - Journey

A street scene in Palata, Italy from my sketchbook. All these old Italian men sitting across the street at a cafe, was too good of an opportunity to not snap a photo. We were on our way to gatecrash an Italian wedding whilst in our daggy travel clothes. Funny.

I take the photos first, then sketch. Thought it was fitting to scan it exactly from my sketchbook for the topic this week. I could spend the rest of my life drawing street scenes from travelling. So interesting.

Hand drawn in lead pencil, colour added in good ol' photoshop.

My overseas beverage diary and Illy Friday (Bottled)

CLICK IMAGE TO VIEW LARGER
YOU KINDA NEED TO, TO SEE ZE DETAILS

FINALLY got to putting this baby together as a poster. Not entirely sure on the colours yet though, but I really, really, really want to print it on fabric and make a cushion as well. Great keepsake of last years overseas trip.

Why Illy Friday too - well the word is Bottled and some of my drinks were bottled!

Some hand drawn goodness for you

I have been pretty snowed under this week, and feel the tinge of guilt for not getting an Illy Friday out, but here is a pic a put together a few weeks ago with ink and watercolour. I did in wonky on purpose, so it looks hand drawn. Uh... yeah. I liked the look of it in grey as I was scanning it too. Blue Lake Paper is fantastic for watercolour. Is making me excited for my new letterpressed business cards arriving next week which will be getting a douse of watercolour from me. Hooray!

Illustration Friday - Cultivate

My favourite part of gardening is possibly the herb garden. All the awesome smells. Above is a selection of what Toby and I have recently cultivated!

Lead pencil drawing - digitally coloured. Went with earthy tones, then decided a bit of pink livens things up a bit. It's my trademark!

Click on the image to view larger. This small version does not so much justice...

Save the Dates - all done now!

Here is the final product of the work in progress I posted a couple of weeks ago. Nice, simple postcards. Quite happy with the cute style of it - all done on the computer this time with the mouse too. Too lazy to use the wacom!

Illustration Friday - Stir

Things I stir with. Maybe I whisk with a whisk, not stir, but I wanted to draw one. It is kinda stirring.

This all started with a coloured pencil background I drew, with intentions of using it as it was, but it was quite terrible once I scanned it so I popped a few photoshop filters over top. The utensils were drawn with black pen around my notes I have in front of my keyboard.

Wanted to try some different colours as I have a habit of leaning towards pink.

Illustration Friday - Warning

Man, I just cannot draw boys! I started this as doing a pic of Green Day (one of my most favourite bands EVER) because of their song - Warning. Which is not my favourite song of theirs - Basket Case is by the way..), but was the first thing stuck in my head while I thought about this weeks Illy Friday topic.

So I started to draw, badly, real bad, then scribble. Then I nearly screwed it up but remembered as a Graphic Designer I can make any absolutely shithouse image look cool by adding some colour and stuff. So I did.

It still looks more like Elvis than Billie Joe, but whatever. I will never get this past 30 minutes of my life back....

Work in Progress

Started this pic tonight for a dear friends Wedding Save the Dates.. Doing it all in Illustrator - thinking of even doing the type in a hand drawn style too. Have a little bit more work to do on it, but was nice to play in this different style. And to at least make a start... always feels good to make a start!

Illustration Friday - Swarm

First thought when I hear the word swarm is bees. These bees and scribble were drawn on my scrap paper while working away on a couple of jobs today. Went for a totally different colour palette from usual to have a bit of a play. Nice honey colours :) Seem to have a bit of a thing going on lately with insects too.

Illy Friday - Layer - NO UNDO BUTTON!

This blank canvas and easel has been sitting in my office for a couple of weeks now so I was pretty stoked when I realised I could use it for Illy Friday. I took some progress shots during the week as I worked on it (on my phone so pretty bad quality).

I am a fan of David Bromley and had an image of this butterflies painting in my head that I wanted to replicate in a similar style. His has a lot more detail and looks fantastic. I need instant results so work pretty quickly and in a simple style.



First of all I painted the background, then thought it would be cool to try and paint over lace to get a pattern. Didn't quite go as planned. I nicknamed the painting 'Shits on a Sunset' at this stage. The brown fleck photo!

Was a bit stuck on a job this afternoon so headed outside to finish this baby off. Was nice to be outside in the fresh air! I want to try more with acrylic paints as it is a nice break from the computer and the safety net of the undo button. Even little things like I usually do like change colours on a pic, I couldn't with this, and that was nice actually!

Illustration Friday - Sweater

Wow. It is late. 12.15am to be exact. I quickly sketched this up and scanned in once I had finally finished my last job for the day. Has been another big week work-wise. Anyway!
When I think of sweater, of course I think of one of Australia's coolest ever band Eskimo Joe and one of their first ever songs - sweater. That is where the text came from. The image, I don't know. I just rolled with it. I have only had one coffee today and that was like 14 hours ago. Bed Time!

The Creative Panic - by The Talented Mr Hood

Rodney is a funny man - from The Creative Panic

You must go and check out my dear friend, the Talented Mr Ben Hood over at The Creative Panic. He is busy doing an illustration a day project. I must say, this man had some mad skillz on the ol' Wacom for sure - I get excited to see the new daily image pop up with the quirky little stories. Good work Benno for having the dedication for one per day!

Illustration Friday - Reverse

This topic I struggled with. Kept thinking of drawing a person in a cage as a pet with a massive bird as an owner or a car doing reverse donuts!
In the shower last night while I thought about how sore my muscles were, I got thinking again about massage and yoga which lead to a drawing of the reverse warrior pose. Hoorah. Simple!
Drawn while watching some documentary on Michelin star restaurants in pencil then inked, background painted in acrylics and all scanned in and put together this morning before I get stuck into some work. Coding websites and shiz.

Illustration Friday - Surrender

This is pretty much exactly how I would feel when my team decided to put me in goals back in my short-lived soccer days. Seriously, why me. I was scared of the ball. And the ladies that played soccer. Joking joking. Please don't hurt me...
Anyway...
Lead pencil drawing while sitting at the computer working and poking people on Facebook. Coloured in Photoshop. Quick, quick job. Didn't colour the hair in, but I think that would have overdone it.