CAZ LOCK DRAWS

• WISTERIA •

I did this painting because I wanted to play with my watercolour set more. I also wanted to see if I could do a painting and not spend hours/weeks toiling over it, which is what I usually do. I didn't want to try shading with this as I aimed to focus on mixing colours, especially skin tone. I also wanted to limit my palette so I stuck with a complimentary theme.

I always find witches fun to draw so when I saw a similar pose reference I defaulted to drawing a witch. This is also the time of year when Wisteria bloom and I think they are beautiful and I've thought about drawing them for a little while now. Watercolours, Muji Pen and White Gouache on A5 Watercolour Moleskine.

• XIX - SUN •

I've done two versions of this illustration of a Sun Goddess - digital and traditional. It started as a watercolour painting, the second of the two images. I was happy with my concept but not pleased with several things when I finished the painting. My choice of colour palette doesn't work. I had planned on doing blonde hair but changed my mind at the last minute. I felt a darker colour would provide better contrast however as soon as I put the first few brush strokes of black paint on the paper I knew I had made a mistake. For me, the dark hair leads the eye away from other areas of the painting where the focus should be. The other major thing that doesn't work is the background. I was aiming for a stained-glass window effect except what I've done feels disjointed from the Sun Goddess character.

As seems to be the theme with all of my art so far this year I decided to re-do it and for my second attempt work on the piece digitally. I knew I could do better as my digital techniques are much stronger than watercolours. The top image is the digital version and I'm much happier with it in comparison to the watercolour version. I took the time to refine the hair, adding a lot more detail, and went with the colours I had initially thought about using. The background also took me a lot of time to figure out. There were a few different versions one of which featured Marigolds as I wanted to make it Art Nouveau in style and Alphonse Mucha inspired. In the end, I settled on something much simpler as I wanted the Sun Goddess character to be the focus of the illustration and I was aware everything else detracted from her.

For those of you with a keen eye, this piece is called "XIX - Sun" after the Tarot Card and is the first of a few illustrations I intend to do based on the deck.

Image one - Created in Procreate, tweaked in Photoshop. Image two - Watercolour, Gold Indian Ink and Black Indian Ink on watercolour paper.

• NYMPHAEA •

This is my second painting of 2024 which is a re-do of my first painting of this year. The first painting was very similar and done in my A5 Moleskine watercolour sketchbook. When I finished the painting I loved the idea but I wasn't happy with my execution so I decided to immediately start again on a bigger scale.

I really enjoyed working on this piece it felt terrific to improve on the first idea I had. It also felt great christening my A4 watercolour Moleskine with a painting I enjoyed working on. This is my fourth big painting (big for me anyway) in watercolours since I got a set to experiment with over a year ago and learning a medium so different from my usual digital illustrations is a lot of fun. There's a huge part of the process where it doesn't feel like it's ever going to come together and it's satisfying when it finally does.

Watercolours on Moleskine watercolour paper inked with Cobalt and Silver Windsor & Newton ink and white Acrylic paint.

• LUNA •

This drawing was a lot of fun. I was inspired by a photo of a conductor I had found and just had to draw it. Once I had done the rough sketch in pencil I scanned it and took it into Procreate because I liked it so much.

A good friend of mine suggested the Luna Moth for the spell as I couldn't quite decide and I'm glad I went with the suggestion.

I really wanted to keep the movement and energy from my sketch which is something I normally lose when I draw over my lines neatly. So I followed Loish's way of working by refining my rough sketch and keeping the lines fairly messy.

Another thing I experimented with in this piece is the colour palette. Opting for complimentary and tetradic colours on the colour wheel and limiting myself as much as possible.

I really enjoyed working on this and I'm really pleased with the result.

This started life as a drawing for Inktober a couple of years ago. In a bid to try and get inspired to do art I decided to rework it and this is the result! It was really fun painting the water and the background. It’s also great to see that I’ve had some improvement over the last couple of years too despite drawing in spits and spurts.

It seems really fitting to post this piece during a heatwave! I wish I was there but unfortunately adulting takes precedence at the moment and holidays are a distant future dream.

Drawn in Procreate.

• HIBISCUS •

I painted this series of Hibiscus from photos that I had taken around my parent's garden this summer. I really wanted to do some more practice with my watercolour set and I enjoy drawing flowers. I thought it would be the perfect way to gain more experience with both. It was such a fun challenge to try and replicate the colours by using thin washes of colours. It really made me think about my colour theory and not being able to get oversaturated colours like in the photos allowed me to let go of of notion of the illustration being an exact copy. Instead, I wanted the illustrations to not be perfect which is something I often struggle with when I draw as I'm quite the perfectionist when it comes to my art.

I plan to do some more of these in the future as I found it a really fun exercise.

• ROSE WITCH •

As I enjoyed using watercolours so much the first time I decided to work on another painting.

There was no real reason for what I painted apart from I wanted to work on something fun. So this witch lady was the result of my sketches.

• NOVA •

I finished working on this piece at the start of December (2022).

Nova Raye is a character I created that really enjoy drawing. When I drew this I was thinking about what if this was a piece of art for a computer game and what kind of setting she would be in. I settled on having her sit on a tree trunk because I like the idea of her story being a comment on the destruction of nature, and the way it's taken for granted.

I've loved giving her a baby Dragon as a sidekick/familiar for a while. Originally it was a more western style dragon but I couldn't resist the appeal of using a Dragon from Japan as they tend to symbolise wisdom, success and strength, all attributes I'd like Nova to learn on her journey. I have more ideas about her story that one day I hope to turn into a comic. In the meantime, though I'll enjoy drawing her.

Drawn in Procreate on an iPad Pro.

• FORTUNE TELLER •

This piece was almost like a reset for me. I'd been uninspired for a while as I had been really busy with my work. As I always sat in front of my computer I decided to paint instead. Although I wasn't confident enough to concept the idea in traditional mediums, so I still did that stage of the process on my iPad. As I intended this piece to be sold in my friend's shop I chose a theme which reflected what she sells, so settled on a fortune teller. After I painted the canvas I decided to digitally colour the initial drawing I had done so I also have the option to sell prints of it.

• PEONIES •

Before Christmas, I treated myself to a set of watercolours. I always love watching videos of other artists using them and decided to explore the medium myself.

This is the first watercolour painting I've done in maybe 10 years or longer... It was a really fun piece to work on. Admittedly I picked an easy subject matter as I wanted to focus on using the paints. I had a lot of fun working on this one and I'm going to explore the medium some more. As much as I love painting digitally I found myself really struggling to complete pieces in 2021 and 2022 and I'm wondering if that's to do with feeling stagnant and comfortable in the medium.

I'm looking forwards to doing a lot more experimenting with my art in 2023.

Medium; Watercolours, Indian Pen and Ink, and Sakura Jelly Roll.

• LAPIS •

I drew this piece as another experiment to break away from my usual style, wanting to experiment with something more realistic. Using a reference I found on Pinterest as a reference I drew this.

I annoyingly didn't save the pin so I can give due credit to the original photographer or model, but if you recognise it please let me know so I can give proper credit!

I played around a lot with colour and texture before getting to this stage. The plants were a really fun addition to draw, although I can't remember why I decided to add them.

Drawn in Procreate.

• UPPER SIX DAKI •

I drew this piece of fan art of Daki from Demon Slayer earlier this year after watching the second season. Mainly because I really enjoyed her character design. The obi that she uses as a weapon is a great idea, and the colours of her outfit are in total contrast to her depraved and evil personality.

I wanted to use this piece to experiment with a sense of movement and depth and the Obi lent itself perfectly to that aim. I really enjoyed working on this one.

• PANGOLIN CANDLE HOLDER •

I made this Pangolin candle holder back in 2022/2021. It was my first experiment with air-dry pottery using a Sculpd pottery kit I had been given as a present.

It was really fun to design, make and paint. Each of the scales were painted on and took me forever to finish! I chose the Pangolin because I think they are really cute animals but also because they are so close to being on the verge of extinction. I thought a candle holder that represented such a unique and rare animal would stand out.

At the time Sclupd had started running a series of monthly competitions with theme's and my Pangolin happened to fit the theme when I finished it so I submitted and won first place (which I was not expecting at all). So thanks Sculpd for picking my piece as a winner and giving me the confidence to experiment more with clay.

• NOVA •

This was a really experimental piece for me. I wanted to try drawing something in a more realistic style and using a slightly different painting technique. I chose to draw my character Nova because she's just so fun to draw.

• MUSHROOM MAGE •

This was a submission for the Character Design Challenge group on Facebook from 2021. The theme for the month's challenge was "mushroom warrior". I had a lot of fun researching and picking different types of mushrooms to incorporate into the design.

• INKTOBER 2021 - NOVA •

These were my favourite of the Inktober prompts that I did that featured one of my characters Nova Ray. The prompts for these were; Open, Pick, Collide, Risk and Crisp.

• INKTOBER 2021 •

A selection of my favourite drawings from Inktober 2021. I followed the official prompt list for most of the month. These drawings are for the prompts; Raven, Suit, Vessel, Loop, Fuzzy, Moon, Sprout, Roof, and Patch.

I decided to do the challenge digitally rather than traditionally that year.