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OK, well, its finished. But its not at all what I was going for. I started out to do a really detailed, 100% watercolor (which I'm rusty at) piece, and used Arches cold pressed paper. WRONG. Oh, its beautiful paper, but I should have used hot press. Cold press is bumpy and scratchy, and I fought with it all the way through this piece. At one point last night I aaaaaalmost took a big brush full of black paint and swiped it across the whole thing. But I packed it up and watched some TV instead, and looked at it fresh today.

I actually learned a lot on this one, which is good. I've been doing colored pencil work for so long now that I've forgotten how to paint a little bit, and have also changed how I want my paintings to look.

The checkered tablecloth came out exactly right. But do you know how long that took? Just the tablecloth? After I painted in all the squares, I went back and softened all the edges of every square so there wouldn't be a hard line. And it looks awesome! Then I did the grass. Every bloody blade of it. Then, I did it again (another layer). Then, did some shadows. Then, did a wash of yellowy-er green over the whole entire thing. Not bad.

Then I started on the flowers. When they were kind of finished I still had the sheep and all their stuff to do. The paper was driving me completely insane. I was kind of doing dry brush, but on bumpy paper - yeah, no. You'd think I'd have enough sense to just stop, but nooooo.

I ended up adding some colored pencil over the top in a few places just to get 'er done (and had to resist the temptation to go over the whole entire thing with pencil, and essentially re-render the whole thing.

So there you have it, my whole whiney story. But like I said, I learned a lot, and next time I tackle something like this (and have the right paper), hopefully it'll turn out better.

Its Spring, and totally perfect beautiful weather. The kitties are all lounging about all day outside, the birdies are singing, plants are blooming (the jasmine just started today), and other than this illustration, everything is pretty good.

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Slightly out of control #watercolor, but with some cropping not too bad. #makeartthatsells #ilovepaint #lisafirke

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I've painted many creatures that are black and white...cows, skunks, penguins and a giant Manta Ray!

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Last weekend my charming assistant/husband helped me film this time-lapse video of yours truly painting a watercolor landscape. He also edited and produced it for me. Thanks, Jonathan! This is my first attempt at filming and isn’t my best landscape ever (the composition could be better) but it shows my painting technique and it’s (hopefully) interesting to watch it all come together. And without further ado, a painting from start to finish:

For the curious, pigments include:

Payne’s Gray, French Ultramarine, Prussian Blue, Sap Green, Quinacridone Gold, Yellow Ochre, Pyrrole Red Light, and a touch of Quinacridone Magenta, probably some other stuff.

Brushes:

Synthetic 1″ flat, Winsor & Newton sable flats in 1/2″ and 3/4,” Raphael Sable round #4, Winsor & Newton rigger

Paper:

Hahnemuhle “Turner” watercolor block, 24×32 cm

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Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Illustrator and Writer

March 1 is the exciting day! In The Wind is released. Here is my third and final speedpainting recording that I did from the book.

You can see the other two paintings on these posts.

Cover Speedpaint

Interior Speedpaint 1

And you can buy the book by following this link. 

The post In the Wind Interior Speedpaint 2 appeared first on Manelle Oliphant Illustration.

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Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Illustrator and Writer

Hello All,

My new book In the Wind is coming out March 1, 2016. It’s illustrated by me and written by Elizabeth Spurr.

When I was working on the books a few months ago I recorded myself painting some of the images. Here is the cover image recording.

 

I hope you enjoy it. You can also pick up the book on Amazon at this link. Or if you’d like to support your local book stores, which is a good thing to do, head over to one of them and have them pre-order it for you.

The post In The Wind Cover Speed Painting appeared first on Manelle Oliphant Illustration.

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Here are a couple of princess images I created.  One was for a Halloween book and features my daughter with her friends and cousin. The other is a spread from A Little Princess which I stepped in to illustrate for another illustrator when she could not meet the deadline...I'm glad I took the job!

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While looking for some themed art I came across this image I created some years ago for a book featuring Koko the lowland gorilla.  This was part of the intro to her story.

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After seeing some fan art in a comic book, I decide to do some of my own of the Kevin Cross' character Monkey Mod.

via Studio Bowes Art Blog at http://ift.tt/1OxCYr0

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By Chloe

Laura Manfre is a self-taught illustrator from France. Her work has a beautiful traditional quality to it but still remains relevant and appealing. It’s difficult not to feel hungry when looking at Laura Manfre’s work due to one of her main subjects being indulgent treats and tasty snacks. She is equally talented though at depicting other subjects such as animals and people.

If you’d like to see more of Laura’s work, please visit her portfolio.

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Wherever you are, whatever you celebrate, I hope you have a season full of friendly faces and happy memories. See you in 2016!

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This year’s card. A bit late to sell, but not too late to send. #lisafirke #watercolor #peaceonearth

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Do you ever find yourself struggling to remove the white paper-textured background from around your images? I used to, until I learned this incredibly simple method using the “Channels” function in Photoshop. Here’s what you need to do, step by step.

1. Open up your image in Photoshop. Today I’ll be using this bicyclist illustration. Click the “Channels” icon (circled in red below.) You should see four rows: RGB, red, green, and blue. (Unless your image is CMYK, in which case you’ll have a channel for cyan, magenta, yellow and black instead.)

2. Depending on the dominant colors in your image, one channel will likely be darker than the others. I like to start with that one, but really any of them would probably work. In my case, the darkest channel is the the “Blue” channel. When I click on it, I see a grayscale version of my image. I’m going to copy this channel by dragging it down to the “copy” icon in the channels box. (See red arrow.)

3. Now there should be a fifth row in the channels box called “Blue copy.” You can re-name it if you like. While this channel is active, go to Image -> Adjustments -> Levels. Use the sliders to adjust the levels so that everything you want to be deleted (the background) is white, and the image is black. Anything that appears gray will be semi-transparent.

4. Once you’ve adjusted the levels on your channel, use the brush tool to clean it up, making sure the interior of the image is completely black if you don’t want the background showing through. (I didn’t want my cyclist’s mustache to be transparent!) When you’re done, click on the “RGB” composite channel so that your image appears as normal.

5. Exit the “Channels” view by clicking back on the “Layers” icon. Now it’s time to make the mask. To do this, go to Select ->Load Selection.

6. You will see a pop-up box something like this. Choose your “Blue Copy” channel, and click the checkbox for “invert.” (If you forget to do this, you can always just go to “Select -> Inverse”)

7. Now your background should be selected. To make it transparent, make a mask by clicking on the “Add a Mask” icon in your Layers box.

8. That’s all there is to it! It’s super easy. From here you can add any background you want, or just leave it transparent. Here I’ve added a blue background so that you can see how my mask turned out:

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