The Eighty Second Doodle - Ladies & Beasts

 The Ladies & The Beasts Series

The Lady & The Raven

I've had a few questions and comments about my newest series of paintings 'The Ladies & The Beasts', so I thought I'd write up here in my blog to answer a few of those questions! Also, it's a nice way of putting down in words why I paint what I paint.

My work is constantly inspired by strong women, 'cause lets face it - we're super badass. We have marvellous shapes and features and hair, all the things I love to paint. So when I first began painting these ladies with different types of animals and birds, even I wondered where exactly in my head they'd come from.

The women I paint are, firstly, not 'perfect' airbrushed model types. They have bumps. They have lumps. They have tummies. They often have fierce, not typically beautiful features. But that is perfect- because it's what we all are in reality. And we're awesome. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder I reckon, and everyone is beautiful to somebody else out there. And that is totally awesome too.

The Lady & The Fox

So I suppose you could say that my ladies are Renaissance ladies - ever looked at those paintings from the 15th or 16th century by the likes of Botticelli or Titian? They are curvy, they have real shape, there is often an aspect of nature in the composition. I've simply added a few extra modern things- a slice of ruggedness, a streak of alternative attitude, a dose of colourdy hair (colourdy aint no word, but meh!) to make these ladies true, 21st century badass goddesses. They are Amazonians, they are natures' warrior ladies. They are feminine and lovely but they are tough.

The Lady & The Wolf

In regard to the other aspects of my paintings, I've had a few people ask me if the animals are meant to be 'clothing' or 'accessories'; the simple answer to that is no. The animals are in fact a part of the women- their positions are often intwining, protective. Of course, I like to leave people to decide for themselves what they see in my work, but for me the animal or bird represents the soul, the personality of the woman. Sometimes they act as guardians, such as in The Lady & The Owl (see below- I'd bloody love having a wise old owl looking out for me), sometimes they are more shielding as with The Lady & The Fox.

But when it comes down to it, you can see what you like. My paintings can mean whatever you'd like them to in your own little head- they can represent something, or they can just be an image of a lady with an animal. Simple as that. You can relate to the women I paint, you can see an attitude you recognise, you can like the colours.

At the end of the day, I hope people enjoy looking at my work and perhaps see a little thing that means something just to them. So, enjoy.

The Amazonian

The Native American 

The Lady & The Owl

The Lady & The Arctic Wolf

The Lady & The Swan

The Seventy Seventh Doodle

 

Well blow me down, I do love a good ol' big bad wolf!

The fantabulous Alternative Press Spring Fair is coming up this Saturday in London, an event bringing together all sorts of artists, designers & zine creators selling their wonderful wares. I created the wolfish design above as a flyer for the fair, along with several other very groovy illustrators. You can see my poster on the AP website here.

An' heres my design along with another, 2 flyers the ladies at the LCC Library took in to display-

Check out the main AP site here with all the details of the fair!

RAWWWWWWWWWWR!

The Sixty Ninth Doodle

If someone took me aside when I was a gap-toothed little kid and told me the following things I would not believe them-

1) That I would voluntarily dye my hair ginger. And it would rock.

2) That I'd actually look alright in specs.

3) That I would decide, off my own bat, to draw a leopard and it would be totally badass.

 4)That I would own not one, but two pairs of jeggings. For shame.

Now, I draw your attention to point 3. When I was younger I was like 'ohhh what's the point of drawing animals, just take a photo man'. What a tit I was. Animals are like, totally rad. Especially (not to sound like a twat but meh) mine. I do like to keep that true, natural essence of the animal, but to then add my own unique twist on top to create something darkly unique and vibrant. 

Yum. Love it.

The Forty Eighth Doodle

This is a fox. Obviously.

I actually drew this chap a while ago, and only recently remembered him. He was one of the first drawings I did when I was in the process of moving my style and work forward, and I remember drawing him and going 'oh, this is a bit different, I like it'. That chaotic way I draw is obviously just the natural way I do things; messy and a little surreal. That's me all over.

Here's the pain now though - I designed myself a wee fox tattoo, as foxes have been a favourite animal of mine for ages. Then what happens??! I fall head over heels for a boy whose surname is Fox. God damn and blast it. I can't get it now can I, I'll look like a crazy woman! The boy in question obviously finds this all hilarious. 

Perhaps I will just have to keep on doodling them on paper rather than on my skin then. Blimmin' men ey.

The Forty Third Doodle

Well, this is pretty different to what I usually do, wouldn't you say? Well my dear people, you'd be right. 

I recently took on a tit-for-tat project with an animator called Jason Fox (www.jasonfoxcreative.weebly.com), wherein I drew out a tattoo design for him, and he made an animated portfolio for me. It was fab. Watch it here.

We then began talking about doing more together, and he mentioned that he'd be keen to actually animate some of my drawings. We threw around a few ideas and came to the conclusion we wanted to try to do an animated story based on one of Aesop's Fables, the Fox and the Goat. We had very similar ideas about how we wanted it to look - a dark, almost macabre style to it, with old fashioned, human-esque characters, the dominant colours being browns, bronzes, dark greens and blacks. 

So, I began doodling some ideas. Above you can see my first sketches I made to get a feel for how these characters may look, and I must admit, I've had some great feedback to them which I was dead chuffed with! I looked at old illustrations for stories by Dickens and Poe to get this old sort of design and feel, and I think it works well. I'm really excited about this project, I think it's going to be a good 'un!