The Seventy Fourth Doodle

God I LOVE extreme sports. I love illustrating sports and athletes, their movement and shape and form is just enthralling to me. Oooooooff. 

I had been in contact with the wonderful Spencer O'Brien and ended up creating this illustration of her. As always, it began as a doodle (above). I wanted to combine an image of her at her best, destroying some poor mountain on her board, but also an image of her just, well, being her. I also wanted to focus on capturing that crazy passion in the movement of snowboarders- the importance of the arms and legs, the strength of the body. Yum. Love it.

So I built upon the pen and pencil layers with watercolours, creating dramatic shading on the figure of Spencer boarding while keeping the sketch of her face quite soft in contrast. I added dynamtic pen lines and splashes of paint to emphasise that all important movement, and a touch of blue to highlight the feeling of snow and cold.

I confess, I was really chuffed with the final image. I do so love creating sports illustrations, and I believe there will be more where this came from!

Come see what people think of it on my FB page :) www.facebook.com/ruthjoyceart

The Thirty Eighth Olympics Doodle

So I had to go there. The Olympics was just, quite simply, wonderful. I do confess, as a Londoner myself I was quite worried beforehand; worried about travel issues trying to get to work, the city getting horrendously busy, all those sorts of things. But in the end, London did incredibly well. And I was lucky enough to go to see the athletics, and the atmosphere was amazing! Everyone was chatting and having a laugh together, didn't matter where they were from or who they were supporting, who was winning and who wasn't. 

FYI I am yet to see this sort of friendly attitude at football matches in the UK.

You know us Brits though, we love a loser. The races I saw had a few runners who seemed to suffer injury so they fell very far behind, but the crowd cheered them on all the way round. It was just fab.

Yeahhhhhh team GB :-D

So I'm working on a wee tribute to our amazing athletes and our amazing city, the whole of the UK. Aren't we marvellous. Keep your eyes peeled for more soon!

The Twenty-Eighth Doodle

I used to love doing extreme sports art work, and I must confess I have found it again a wee bit.

This image is to be featured with some of my other pieces by the lovely ladies at Yeah Zine and they are using this lady design on some flyers for a BMX filming trip too - boom. Pretty cool yeah!

This was my first 'reassessment' of BMX stuff in my developed style, and I am pleased with her. I wanted her to be gritty and edgy, but still very feminine and fabulous. And you know me - I do love hair!