Drawing of the week: Rooster

January 31, 2017January 30, 2017 ~ ellajohnston12

We recently welcomed the new luna (or is it lunar?) year of the rooster so it’s only fitting it’s this week’s drawing of the week.

As much as I like a brown or black bird illustration, the bird I’ve drawn here is a Brown Leghorn rooster, which I have chosen purely for his plumage. When I got out my watercolour paints to illustrate this fella I knew warm orange, purple and emerald hues would be the order of the day. I really wanted to go to town on the colours for this guy as I think the rooster (also known as a cockerel or cock) is such a glorious creature – I really admire them as they pace around the chicken pen.

As well as being the symbol for my football team, the cockerel is also a scared animal in some cultures, with the rooster being associated with the sun goddess Amaterasu, in fact Zoroastrianism held the rooster as a “symbol of light” and associated the cock with “good against evil” due to its heraldic actions. So all praise for the mighty rooster!

Sharing the love with Not On The High Street #LoveIsReal

January 25, 2017January 25, 2017 ~ ellajohnston12

Today I’ve had fun doing my version of the Not On The High Street “Love is” tag. The company has sent it to its partners so they can spread the love in the run up to Valentine’s Day.

I think love is an important message to communicate at any time, no more so than in these turbulent, uncertain times. For me kindness and compassion goes hand and hand with love. Kindness to your partner, to your friends, to strangers, to yourself and to the planet we all share; the latter is why my sign is nature-themed flamingo illustration. I created the illustration with pencil and my spare pink and white poscas.

You can see more LoveIsReal tags here

Drawing of the week: Peacock butterfly

January 24, 2017January 23, 2017 ~ ellajohnston12

My drawing for this week is a Peacock butterfly.

Created with watercolour and ink, this colourful illustration was made for my illustrated butterfly guide print that will be coming soon.

The Peacock butterfly is one of the most easily identifiable butterflies in the UK. The eyespot markings act as a deterrent to potential predators. The underside of the wings are almost black which gives it wonderful camouflage when its wings are folded upright. They also have a loud grating noise produced by the rasping of their forewings, which acts as a secondary deterrent for creatures that want to eat them.

Easy craft: wipe-clean nesting trays

December 21, 2016December 20, 2016 ~ ellajohnston12

These wipe-clean nesting trays are just the thing for carrying little treats and drinks and they are easy to make too.

All I did was get a plain set of wooden nesting trays and gave them a lick of chalk paint (Deco Art Americana Decor Chalky finish paint to be exact) in two shades of grey.

I then measured the inside of the trays and cut my laurel leaf and autumn leaves design paper to size. I covered the paper with sticky-back plastic to make it wipe-clean.

I brushed PVA glue on the inside and placed the shiny patterned paper in it to adhere to the bottom of the tray. See, an easy paper make.
I’ve been using these trays for all sorts of things and they haven’t been damaged by ring marks and spillages. They’re so handy I may make a whole load of them as gifts.

Drawing of the week: Orange tip butterfly

December 20, 2016 ~ ellajohnston12

This week’s drawing of the week is a Orange tip butterfly.

After all that Christmas stuff I’m now working on illustrations for next year and I’m going to make an illustrated guide to butterflies. This is the first of many butterfly drawings.

The latin name for these creatures is Anthocharis cardamines and you can find them in damp pastures and meadows, damp woodland edges and glades, riverbanks, ditches, dykes, fens, railway cuttings and country lanes.

Christmas gift wrap ideas part 4: Christmas tree tags

December 15, 2016December 12, 2016 ~ ellajohnston12

My final Christmas gifting idea can also double up as decorations! I just decorated these mdf Christmas trees with posca pens I had left over from my autumn shows.
I’m very fond of sticking to a simple set of colours, so as well as using black and white designs I’ve also done some black, silver and gold trees. It’s about as bling as I get. Both of these would go with black wrap or metallic gold and silver papers.
As you can see I’ve used my laurel stem design (how to here), and simple star, snowflake, heart and tinsel motifs.
Another of my go-to motifs is my simple flower design. Like my other Scandi-style shapes it’s really easy to recreate as you’ll see by my how-to below.
Simple flower how to step 1: Make a three curved marks one at the top and two at the bottom. Simple flower how to step 2: Add two lines between the triangular shape so the shape resembles a dancing man.
Simple flower how to step 3: Draw curves around the lines to make petals and add a dot in the middle. Simple flower how to step 4: Colour in the petals and make little dots around the shape.

Christmas wrap ideas part 3: Super simple black and white

December 14, 2016December 12, 2016 ~ ellajohnston12

I’ve deliberately kept it simple for part three of my Christmas wrap ideas with these easy black and white designs.
I’ve opted for a lovely iridescent white paper and teamed it with simple black tags and co-ordinating ribbon. The gestural stem designs are based on my laurel stem illustration, see the step by step here. The Christmas tree and garland are really simple; I used a white Posca pen to create tiered jagged shapes for the tree, waited for the paint to dry and overlaid it with gold dots. For the garland I drew some simple thin lines with a silver Posca pen then added white and gold dots.

Monday Moodboard: Pantone Colour of the Year: Greenery

December 12, 2016 ~ ellajohnston12

Last week Pantone announced its colour of the year for 2017. It’s ‘Greenery’ and it makes me happy.

A few design experts have been a bit disparaging about this colour with the name ‘Kermit’ referenced, well as a person who admires the work of Jim Henson I don’t think that’s so bad.

But seriously I love a bit of greenery, and I was even singing its praises earlier this year. Bringing the colours of nature into your home is a marvellous thing and the vivid shade of this Pantone works incredibly well with both subtle pastels and equally vibrant hues.

The colour is described by Pantone as a “fresh, yellowish hue” that “symbolises the reawakening of nature in spring and is a symbol for a new beginning”. Great – just what we need after 2016.

I’ve embraced shades of greenery already in my own new print designs (before the announcement I may add) so I’m incredibly happy that it’s not just me looking to find hope in natural colours and forms.

Christmas wrap ideas part 1: Totes trad red and green

December 12, 2016 ~ ellajohnston12

Over the next four days I got some top easy gift wrap ideas for giving your Christmas pressies that extra pizzazz.
Idea number one is inspired by the totes trad red and white festive theme as outlined in this Christmas trends post. As I might of mentioned, this red, white and green colour scheme is one very much favoured by Dr B. So I always do something every year that’s a little concession to his yuletide preferences (although in fairness he’d have penguins and robins and Santas everywhere if it were up to him).

This is my concession to tradition. I have loads of gift tags and Posca pens left over from the craft shows I did this autumn so I thought I’d get busy with some quick and easy wrap revamps. I used two different nib sizes (5M and 1MR) to create different sized dots on the wrapping paper and some of the tags. I then finished it off with a trad twine bow. I also completed some of the gifts with a bespoke wreath tag. It’s dead easy to do, so much so I’ve got a little step by step for you below for you to try.
You don’t have to be a fantastic drawer to create this wreath, I’ve shown loads of people how to do it; if you can make a mark you can make this wreath. You’ll need a circular tag and Posca pens in dark and light green, gold (or silver), red and blue.
Step 1: Make a dark green circle using a rough layered zig-zags.
Step 2: Overlay the dark green with a lighter shade.
Step 3: Once your wreath is dry (the pens are paint based so you can use them as such) use the gold pen to draw lines around the ring as above, like it is wrapped around the wreath. Once you have covered the wreath with gold lines draw circles along the lines to make a string of beads.
Step 4: Add coloured baubles in-between the gold bead garland.

Step 5: Write a little festive phrase in the middle.

Drawing of the week: Zebra

December 6, 2016December 5, 2016 ~ ellajohnston12

This time for my drawing of the week I’ve done a very earnest little Zebra. Even in the middle of doing loads of Christmassy type stuff I still made time to work on my zoo animals series.

Although I love black and white drawings I can never resist subverting a traditional black and white subject with a bit of colour, so as well as using my black pens on this illustration I’ve adding some purple and yellow watercolour notes.

Moodboard: Scandi-style Christmas

December 5, 2016 ~ ellajohnston12

My posts have been sporadic of late because I have been having the busiest time sending out Christmas orders and selling my ways in various Christmas markets. It’s been fun but boy has it been full-on.

Anyway, my festive mood, and indeed this Monday Moodboard, is in total full flow now working on a set of Scandi-style designs and illustrations for Christmas demos for Posca pens and for my Christmas wrapping. I’ll reveal more of this later in the week but in the mean time enjoy some of the patterns and imagery that has been inspiring me.

Drawing of the week: Pelican

November 22, 2016November 21, 2016 ~ ellajohnston12

My drawing of the week this week is of a pelican.

As a prolific drawer of birds, I’ve always wanted to draw a pelican. I like the long beak/bill (with that funky pouch) and squat body; they appear to me as both elegant and bulky at the same time.

This illustration was created with blue and orange shades of watercolour and black uni-ball pin pens. He looks quite stern here but I’m sure this guy is quite friendly when you get to know him.

Drawing of the week: Elephant

November 15, 2016November 13, 2016 ~ ellajohnston12

This week’s drawing of the week is of an elephant.

There are no trends, no ‘work’ here (even though I have been talking about drawing zoo animals). I made this picture for my husband.

It was our 14 ‘ivory’ wedding anniversary. We’re not buying each other ivory because that’s wrong, so we needed an alternative. We (completely independently) used our imaginations with this watercolour and ink illustration and Dr B wrote me a poem entitled ‘Elephant’. We think they are our best pressies to each other in all our marriage.

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