The Sybilline Books

Illustration Friday - Feet - The Vampyratemonster

2006-03-20T15:47:00.001Z

It just so happens that the current IF topic coincides with a picture I drew for a mate who's been down in the dumps. :-)
There are all sorts of things to be said about "feet" but I like them big, at least on my monsters.

CleverHand - New Portfolio

2006-03-20T15:40:00.000Z

The CleverHand site finally has gone on-line and here's my new portfolio:

http://www.cleverhand.com/artist.php?artist_ID=7

Spring's still not here

2006-03-20T15:29:00.000Z

It's grey and dull here and far too cold for this time of year. I really want it to be Spring. Lots of little bits of fresh green and some sun shine. The weather makes me feel so depressed. To cheer myself up I've designed a new (aptly named) Spring Dress:

Illustration Friday - Simple

2006-02-13T00:48:00.000Z

I am all on a Valentine's theme today. The topic was Illustration Friday, and since there are only 2 days left to create a new Valentine's card, I've thought this is perfect... AND my friend Alison did it before me. I actually came up with two very similar cards, one a card to a prosepective Valentine, the other to a sure winner. :-)
Enjoy!

New Magpie Magic Jewellery Blog and Website

2006-02-13T00:44:00.000Z

I've finally managed to get my jewellery website and blog up on the web. I've been making jewellery for a while, but now I've really caught the bug. It's so much fun and in a way very similar to my way of drawing which is all about colour. Below is a little taster:
This is my Valentine's Day Specials Range - from Thorny Rosebuds to Triple Chocolate, to Daisies and Butterflies, Moonstruck, Seventh Heaven to Handbags and Gladrags. :-)

Get Your Skates On!

2006-01-29T00:45:00.000Z

Haven't had time to do much drawing recently - with work and kids and household and my budding new jewellery business there wasn't much time or energy left. However, I just finished this little one.

My friend Alison got the honour of naming it and her choice was Baz, so Baz it is. :-) I think it suits him.

And Another Weird Fashion - Stone Age Dress

2005-12-31T13:20:00.000Z

Couldn't resist to try and draw some leather and fur and make it all look really wild - so here we are, the Stone Age Dress:

This was lots of fun to do and to decide which accessories to add. What would the Stone Age Lady need? High heels, of course, no real lady would want to be seen without that, and, naturally a handbag to collect roots and (very likely in this dress) hearts... :-)

Here's the top of the dress in some more detail:

Weird Fashion - Cinderella's Dress All Gone Wrong

2005-11-28T23:25:00.000Z

Couldn't resist this design. I wondered what would happen if the fairy godmother hadn't been quite so efficient. Would Cinderella still have gone to the ball? Just a bit of fun, I am sure she'd still would have ended up with the prince. :-)

And here's some detail:

More Weird Fashion - Black Widow Dress

2005-11-27T00:02:00.000Z

For some time now I've been designing weird dresses - from bat dress to battle dress, from dragon dress to butterfly dress... (all those dresses and more are shown in my Artwanted portfolio - link on the right-hand side). This is my latest creation - the Black Widow Dress.

These dresses are lots of fun to design... and I've got a few more ideas, so watch this space.

And here are the shoes in detail:

Illustration Friday - Strength

2005-11-17T15:59:00.000Z

This week's topic is strength. The following image is not new, but to me it pictures strength better than anything else I could think of (at the moment). It's a fusion of photographs I took at the Botanical Gardens (in Cambridge, UK) and a bit of drawing. I first created it for a competition with the topic "Fusion". It's not an easy picture and most men seem to hate it, but it is one of my favourites.

Illustration Friday - Night

2005-11-17T15:55:00.000Z

This image is a bit late since it is for last week's topic, however once I'd finished it I still wanted to show it. I've just been so busy with work, household, kids, going to a wedding and this that and the other... I wish there were more hours in the day.

The production process was the same as for the last image (see below - Going Gorey).

Detail of the image:

Going Gorey - The Castle

2005-11-03T22:44:00.000Z

I watched the Lemony Snicket film at the weekend - rather late, I know - however, I fell in love with the animations at the end and just had to find out who the animator was. It's in fact a UK company called Axiom. Check it out. Their stuff is really great.

Inspired by this, the film, and Halloween, I created the Castle image below.

First, I made lots of patterns using a very limited colour range (greys, blues, and soft browns).
Next, I made a sketch of the image and used layers to create vector shapes, which I turned into selections that I then filled with the patterns I had made.
Lastly, I created highlights and darker areas and turned on the lights in the castle. :-)

All of it was done with Corel Painter(TM) - my favourite program in the world.

Here's a close-up of the castle that shows the patterns I used.

Lastly a bit of fun:

The GashlyCrumb Tinies - You have a terribly wicked
sense of humour and people are drawn to your
wit. Children beware of the thin, pale man
with the black umbrella!

Which Edward Gorey Book Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Which Peanut Am I?

2005-10-31T07:12:00.000Z

Hiya,

Just found this quiz on Toni Kelly's Blog:

You are Schroeder!

Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Fun! Thanks Toni!

Illustration Friday - Broken

2005-10-30T15:14:00.000Z

This is a combination of two ideas - on Artwanted there's currently a contest requiring a skull or skeleton, and Illustration Friday's current topic is "broken". I combined the two in the image of the Demon Skull below. Its body might be broken but its spirit is kept alive by the magical symbols drawn by a shaman in its own blood and the ashes from its burnt body. Sorry. Got carried away. Must be listening too much to my son's blood thirsty stories. :-)

Jewellery

2005-10-29T21:18:00.000+01:00

I've been making jewellery recently and have really got into it. I photographed everything bar one pair of earrings... However, some of the photos didn't come out as well as I hoped. Anyway here are some slightly blurred images of my jewellery. I'll try again and hopefully the next lot will be much better.

First one up is the first bracelet I've made. It's a charm bracelet in pinks and reds:

The second one was an experiment for my friend Nicki - it's half woven half "netted" and was quite complicated but fun to make:

This is a bracelet I made for my friend Liz - don't tell her, it's for Christmas! The bracelet has a beautiful leaf shaped toggle clasp and a little sun charm which I bought bought on eBay (as I did most of my beads).

And here are the matching earrings, also with teeny little sun charms.

Finally, the icy bracelet. Made today and my favourite so far.

I've also done an octopus bracelet and matching pair of earrings for Annis and a lovely pair of blue earrings for my friend Alison. I should get some nice pictures of these from Alison to share soon.

Lastly, I made a handbag charm in amber, browns, silver and copper, but the photo was just terrible... Hopefully, I will manage a nice photo of my jewellery one of these days...

Halloween is coming

2005-10-29T11:09:00.000+01:00

I thought I deserved some fun with all that work and no play.... So I did some Halloween pictures.

The first one is Vampireena and her pet spider Blobbles. As you might have guessed, she's not as sweet as she looks.

Her best friend is Zombielou and his pet caterpillar Spikey. He is in fact the softy of the pair, in every sense of the word. :-)

Christmas Card 2005

2005-10-27T11:12:00.000+01:00

This is my first design for a 2005 Christmas card. I love Art Nouveau and the German version "Jugendstil" so this is where the design idea originates.

Little Astronaut Part II - The Moon

2005-10-27T11:08:00.000+01:00

A short while ago I did an illustration for Illustration Friday for the topic float. This is the second part to that illustration. I wondered where my little astronaut was off to and what he would find when he got there. This is what I came up with. :-)

I've been TAGGED!!!

2005-10-19T22:04:00.000+01:00

Alison tagged me to tell 20 random things about me. I wasn't too sure about this, so I looked up what Alison had to say about herself. Now I know what she had in mind, here we go:

I am sunshine person, I need the sun and dislike the winter because I don't get enough sunshine, although I love those crisp winter days when it's terribly cold but a bright, sunny day. Maybe that's why I like sunflowers? They always make me think of sunshine.
I have to be creative in some way or other. At the moment I am into beading - jewellery mainly - and I'll post some samples very soon. Promise!
Yesterday we went to our son's parents' evening and found out that he's at a very high reading level despite being one of the youngest in his class. I was so proud and pleased.
Today, I bought some books for my son (and me, but don't tell him). We got the latest Chris d'Lacey Fire Star and Cornelia Funke's Dragon Rider.
I love dragons. In my Artwanted portfolio are loads of dragons because I can't stop drawing them.
I also love cats and have two of them. One's white and called Rodney after Rodney in "Only Fools and Horses", the other is called Mayberry - not a name of my choice.
We also have two gerbils who are called Timmy and Chester after the TV cartoon series "Fairly Odd Parents".
Like Alison I am ambidextrous although probably not quite as much. I can do most things with either hand.
When I was a teenager I wrote poetry (like most teenagers) however, at some point I realised that I knew what I wanted to say, but it just wasn't poetry so I've stuck with prose ever since. I do miss it sometimes though, because poetry is special and I wish I could write poetry like Alison and Leah.
When I was little I wanted to be a musical star until I realised I can't sing for toffee!
I always wanted children and from when I was little I was always looking after younger kids.
I love water - baths and swimming.
I like my hair, but hate that it's going grey.
I also like my eyes - they're green and I've always felt special about it, because apparently green eyes are rarer than any other colour.
I love the internet. There are so many opportunities, from this blog, to mailing lists to websites... the list is endless.
Three of my best friends live far away - one in France, one in Australia and one in America.
For a few years now my favourite colour has been green . I find it restful and "fulfilling", if that makes sense.
I prefer tea to coffee, and I drink my tea without milk and sugar.
I love cooking, but that's the creative thing again.
I love going to the botanical gardens here in Cambridge. They're a wonderful inspiration and just a lovely place to be.

There. That's twenty things, and I didn't begin to struggle until number 18. :-D

Illustration Friday - Float

2005-10-03T20:44:00.000+01:00

This week's topic was "float". Whenever I thought about it, I saw a balloon in my mind's eye. So I started with drawing a balloon, the rest just happened.

Hunstanton - A Day Out

2005-09-11T00:18:00.000+01:00

Last week on Saturday we went to a trip to Hunstanton, mainly to see the Sealife Sanctuary but we also spent some time at the beach.

It was a lovely and hot day and, of course, I had my trusty camera with me. I managed to get a few great shots of some penguins, otters and various life and otherwise at the beach (see below).

The Penguins:

This photo was shot through a thick glass window, hence the slight smudges, however, I thought the detail was still good enough, especially for a reference photo.

This photo was shot by leaning above the enclosure fence. I like the dynamic and "alive" feel of this one.

The Otters:

The otters were my absolute favourites. :-) There were also some babies but I didn't manage to get a really good shot of them. :-(

The Crab:

I saw this when we were walking along the beach.

The Pebble Doll:

I found this on the beach. My intention was to take an image of the pebbles that I could use for a paper in Painter. When I looked at the viewer on the camera I noticed this pebble doll that must have been created by people walking along and pushing the pebbles around. I thought this was so amazing that I just had to take a picture of it.

More experimenting

2005-09-09T21:13:00.000+01:00

I've been experimenting with different techniques and materials (brushes in Corel Painter). I felt I needed to simplify my style or at least have a "secondary" style that feels natural to me but doesn't include painting enormous amounts of detail. One reason for this was that I discussed a painting with one of my friends and it made me think. A good painting should be like a good story - it should include as much detail as is required to tell the story but not an ounce more or the story will be lost in the detail; so from now on every detail has to earn its keep.

Below are two of the paintings I did recently that were intended to loosen up my style. I've also started to the first sketches for this year's Bologna children's illustrators competition entry. But more of that later.

The first one is Moon over the Sea. I wanted a very calm, very relaxing atmosphere. Something to look at that would make you feel serene. It was very hard not to add detail but I felt quite happy with it in the end because I liked how the textures and restricted colour palette worked together.

This one - Rosy Hearts - was actually done before the Moon picture and was intended for a Valentine's card design. However I liked it as it is. Again, I've restricted myself to as little detail as possible.

Illustration Friday - Dream - Part 3 - Nightmare

2005-09-01T21:59:00.000+01:00

The final part of my triptych was going to be the nightmare. Nightmares are one of those dreams we often do remember and I wanted to use the elements of the original image and create a nightmare - the same way it often happens in dreams, when seemingly harmless objects turn into monsters and the pretty dream turns nasty and dangerous. Again, I used the same background, but this time I changed the colours and made them much darker; I also added another layer on top with weird lighting. Finally, I modfied the birds; they still resemble the floating shapes from the first two pictures but now they have teeth and spikes.

This was the first version of the picture:

Then, I played around with it in Photoshop. I still can't quite decide which version I like better. The second one seems spookier to me, but I like the darker more saturated effect of the first one, too. What do you think? Let me know.

Illustration Friday - Dream - Part 2 - Flying

2005-09-01T21:43:00.000+01:00

When I'd finished the first picture I really liked the simplicity of it, however I felt it could be part of a triptych, so I painted another one, using the same background but modified and adding more birds and the sleeping shape on the largest of the birds. This one also incorporates the idea of mankind's dream of flying and the actual flying many of us do in our dreams.

Illustration Friday - Dream

2005-09-01T15:32:00.000+01:00

This week's Illustration Friday topic was really fun. Dreaming has always been something magical for me - be it day dreaming or real dreams. I tried to convey the floating feeling I have in most of my dreams, unless they're nightmares of course, and have been experimenting with a couple of new brushes. This was the first one I did. Two more two follow.

Bionic Flower and the Army of Stickmen

2005-08-24T08:01:00.000+01:00

A bit of FUN

My eight-year old son asked me to draw this. For some reason he thought because the initial idea was his, his name should be on the picture, until I pointed out that I spent hours drawing it for him. Kids! :-) However, he was very pleased with the final result and thinks it's one of the best images I ever painted.

He's been drawing stickmen with all sorts of weird contraptions like lightning swords and helmets inspired by the ones mine are wearing since. :-)

Have fun on this grey and presumably soon rainy and stormy day.

Here's a detail from the image:

Illustration Friday - Reflection

2005-08-20T22:55:00.000+01:00

The current topic for Illustration Friday (see link on the right) is "Reflection". My first thought was a reflection in water, however, then I remembered this picture which I did not long ago and which was an expreriment where I allowed myself only to use one single brush... It combines two types of reflection, the reflections of the moonlight on the trees and in the water, but also a place to reflect. Whenever I need to think I tend to go somewhere where there are trees or at least some plants. Makes it easier for me to think. I've been doing that since I was little.

Garden, Work and I am so shattered!

2005-08-17T21:28:00.000+01:00

Started work again this week so things have been busy. I am so shattered... However, I thought I better put some nice pictures up. Maybe they'll cheer up not just me but someone else, too.
Below my favourite rose - it is REALLY called Happy Birthday and flowers in my front garden from late spring to late summer.

I love taking photos of plants and flowers from unusual angles or in unusual combinations. I also have thing about weeds. Some are really beautiful; as is the bindweed below - the bane of every gardener, unfortunately.

Something that struck me when I began illustrating seriously was that if you look at something closely - which you have to if you want to draw it - you suddenly see its beauty. I used to be scared of spiders, then came to only dislike them, however when I did some spider drawings for my son I saw their beauty. Needless to say I am not scared of them any longer. :-)

No spider below but some ivy although I am sure there's a spider hiding in there somewhere...

Illustration Friday - Wisdom

2005-08-15T00:09:00.000+01:00

This week's Illustration Friday's topic was "Wisdom". At first, I had no idea what to do with it, then I began thinking of what I associate with wisdom. It was definitely something that was female for me. So I thought of goddesses and, ultimately, Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom; either a picture of the goddess herself or of her symbol, the owl. However, in the end I decided to go for my namesake, the sibyl, in this case the Sibyl of Cumae. I did incorporate Athena's owl in the picture (bottom right corner) as she seemed more relevant to me than Apollo who normally was associated with oracles of all kinds (especially, the one in Delphi). The person barely seen is a Roman soldier going to seek knowledge from the sibyl.

The Sybil's Cave

Botanical Gardens

2005-08-14T18:24:00.000+01:00

The day after our seaside excursion my son and I went with some friends to the botanical gardens in Cambridge (UK). It was a fairly hot day and we were glad we went since the day after it rained. Trust English Summers to be rainy and wet...

Again, I took loads of photos and had a difficult time to choose just three.

Blue Hibiscus

Sunflower just popping out

Water Lily

Wells-Next-The-Sea

2005-08-13T11:54:00.000+01:00

We had a day out at Wells-Next-The-Sea on the Norfolk coast on Wednesday. The weather looked a bit dodgy when we set out but turned out all right by the time we arrived there.

The sea was fairly warm, the sand was nice and squishy, and I managed to take hundreds of photos (well, not quite hundreds, but close enough). Following are three of my favourites.

Sea View

Sea Shells

Black Flower
(sorry I don't know what it's called - if you do, let me know)

New Note Cards Range - 3rd Picture

2005-08-12T09:08:00.000+01:00

What with Ben being on his summer holidays and one thing and another I've been rather busy. However, some of my time was spent drawing. I've begun on a new range of note cards, a very different style from the previous 2 pictures. This is quirky line art with a restricted colour palette and a strict brief (although I am the one calling the shots...) Here's a little teaser:

Second Picture - Sun and Dragonfly

2005-08-12T09:06:00.000+01:00

Here's the second picture - Sun and Dragonfly:

This is a new style for me although it's quite an old style, too. I used to do a lot of psychedelic artwork when I was a teenager. The idea for this one was as a companion for the Moon and Moth picture, but when I started the ideas kept coming. I showed the "sun beams" to connect everything from flora to fauna as this is what really happens, without sun there's no life. The dragonfly came about because I just love them. This one is fairly stylised however I've done loads and there is a fairly realistic picture of three dragonflies in my Artwanted portfolio.

Why Sybilline Books?

2005-08-03T22:42:00.000+01:00

Well, the obvious reason is that my name is Sybille. I've even been to Cumae and sat in the cave where supposedly the original Sibyl of Cumae sat and told people what to expect from their future... I've always liked my name and that it actually meant something. Sibyl is in fact a title rather than a name and means "prophetess".

I looked up my name on Wikipedia and found all that info about the Sibylline books:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibylline_Books

It sounded intriguing and considering that I illustrate and write books (for children mainly) I thought it was good title for this blog. It also has something mysterious, which I liked.

There. :-)

First picture - Moon and Moth

2005-08-03T15:47:00.000+01:00

Thought I'd better add an image to spice things up a bit. I've been experimenting with some new ideas - sort of a mixture between Clarice Cliff and psychedelic painting. I used to do a lot of psychedelic art when I was a teenager and I really loved it. Haven't done anything like this for years, but it was fun doing it again.

Here's the first one - it's called:

Moon and Moth

First One

2005-08-03T14:42:00.000+01:00

I finally jumped on the bandwagon as well. Not quite sure why, but it seems a nice way to get images and comments out there quickly. We'll have to see how it works out.