All the work for my Feline Fancies show, in my living room before hanging it at the venue!

Now is Come September

September 16, 2016by karencomics 1 Comment

… which is a line from a traditional song that I really like to sing this time of year. Not that it has anything to do with anything else in this […]

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It's an artist's life, Uncategorized

Summer Seas

August 6, 2016by karencomics Leave a comment

From my Mermaid Music webcomic: Hello readers! I’m surfacing from the ocean of work I’ve dived into, inhaling a few deep breaths to let you know I’m OK and so is […]

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It's an artist's life, Reblogs

Fun with Fireworks

July 2, 2016by karencomics 4 Comments

It’s July! In Canada, July is ushered in with Canada Day. The scents of BBQ and suntan lotion waft on the breeze; the giant concert downtown reverberates off the houses […]

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It's an artist's life, Photography

Merry Lasses 2 — Very highly textured collage with acrylic, and drawing, 11x14 on canvas board

Finding Forgotten Art

June 20, 2016by karencomics Leave a comment

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been cleaning out my “away” studio, preparing to leave it at the end of July, retreating into my home studio to focus fully […]

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Collage, It's an artist's life, Studio

Colored Pencil Magazine Article!

May 31, 2016by karencomics 2 Comments

Hey, art-process fans! Want to know how I made this comic? I just got word that the article I submitted to Colored Pencil Magazine is now in the June issue, […]

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coloured pencils, Comics, Illustration, Technique

After the Whirlwind

May 29, 2016by karencomics 6 Comments

Sometimes it seems to me that like life is a big, irresistible wind: a wall of atmosphere that picks up this puny human and sweeps her willy-nilly through the sky. […]

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comics conventions, It's an artist's life

The Quadra Cats are all assembled for some interplanetary cultural puzzlements — but they all love takeout!

Takeout Planet!

May 11, 2016by karencomics 1 Comment

I’ve been working like mad on the new book of the Quadra Cats stories. It’s based on the single-page episodes, but with much, much more added to link them together into […]

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Cats, Comics, Uncategorized

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Comics Class
Polymer Clay maquettes
Watercolour Basics
Watercolour Wizardry
Technique of the Week

Upcoming Appearances

Saskatoon Comic and Entertainment Expo(Click here for website)
September 17-18, 2016
Prairieland Park, Saskatoon

I'm going to Saskatoon for the very first time! If you're in the neighbourhood, this looks like the place to be:

A place for fans from every corner of the nerd universe to gather and celebrate what makes them geeky in a positive, safe, and elevating environment – science fiction, comic books, film, television, horror, fantasy, animation, pop culture, and so much more!

Mermaid Music is a book!

At last, you can hold the first chapter of Mermaid Music in your hands! I'll be working out the internet sales method and you'll be able to order them soon. Stay tuned!

All text and images © Karen Gillmore 2014 -2015

...except as otherwise noted. If you share, please link back to this blog — you'll feel a warm glow right in your karma!

Celtic Art

Wolf and the Stones (pen & ink, watercolour, coloured pencil)

Wolf and the Stones (pen & ink)

Eostre (pen & ink, watercolour, coloured pencil)

Eostre (pen & ink)

Celtic Green Man (pen & ink, watercolour)

Celtic Green Man (pen & ink)

Celtic Dragon (pen & ink, embellished version)

Celtic Dragon (pen & ink, outline version)

Elemental Steed: Air (acrylic)

Elemental Steed: Water (acrylic)

Elemental Steed: Fire (acrylic)

Elemental Steed: Earth (acrylic)

Elemental Manifestations: Water (pen & ink, watercolour, collage)

Elemental Manifestations: Fire (pen & ink, watercolour, collage)

Elemental Manifestations: Air (pen & ink, watercolour, collage)

Elemental Manifestations: Earth (pen & ink, watercolour, collage)

Celtic Seahorses (linocut on banana paper)

Celtic Seahorses (pen and ink)

Celtic Seahorses (pen & ink, watercolour, coloured pencil)

Coloured Pencil

“Two Lips” — from a photo I snapped of a bunch of tulips someone had given me. As the petals started to fall away, they got more and more interesting. This one took quite a long time, lots of burnishing.

“White Rose” — I took a bunch of white silk roses into a class I was teaching one day, and we all had a good time trying to make them look natural, adding backgrounds and suggestions of colour.

“Sheltered” — a demonstration on doing an underpainting in dark grey pencil to establish the values turned into this.

“Broken Seashell” — I like to pick up broken seashells, because their curves are challenging and fun to draw. For this one, I used a technique I often use for figure drawing — woking on toned paper and just picking out the deepest shadow and the highlights with white and black pencils.

“Falling Apples” — When I teach a coloured pencil workshop, I often go buy a bag of apples and hand one out to everyone. Apples are excellent subjects for learning how to build up colour from light to dark. After my demo, he whole class goes back to their tables and becomes very quiet for a while — silence is the sound of creativity! One class I actually had time to draw my apple several times on the same page.

“El Morro” — the famous landmark fort at the mouth of Havana harbour. I got really caught up in the rocks on this one.

“Pink Rose” — One of the most burnished coloured pencil paintings I have ever produced. This little thing is the size of a greeting card, and it took me many hours.

“Bear Hangout” — from a photo I took in Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo. There were no visible fences, and everyone wanted to know how I’d gotten so close to the bears! Usually I would just smile and look mysterious.

Woman in Blue — indigo and white Prismacolor pencils on toned paper

Relaxing Woman — burnt sienna and white coloured pencils on toned paper; a fifteen minute pose

The Blues — Indigo and white coloured pencils on toned paper _ ten minute pose

Man Forming a Triangle — coloured pencils on toned paper. Going through my sketches, I was amused to see how many similar poses I’ve drawn over the years — there are only so many ways the human body can fold up, after all. I thought this drawing made an interesting comparison with the previous one.

“Golden Retriever” — coloured pencil. I got the detail of the brush in the background by indenting the paper through a piece of tracing paper with a pencil. The tracing paper protected the working paper from the pencil, and I was able to lightly colour over the indented lines with my coloured pencils, building up layers of mixed colours. I eventually decided the white lines this left were too stark, and went in with very sharp pencils in different colours to tone them down.

Watercolours

“Mount Baker Dreams” — The ferry from Sidney BC to Anacortes , Washington puts in at one of the islands in between. This is what I saw from the dock.

“Sunshine” — funny how cats always find the warm spot in the house!

“Bones of the Earth” — a mountain in the Montana Mission Range that has an oddly shaped top above the treeline. It is not a volcano, but I suspect there is a hollow at the top with a lake. However, I did not climb up there to see.

Wickaninnish Wind — This tree stands by the parking lot at Wickaninnish Beach , in Pacific Rim National Park.

“One Perfect Rose” — an anniversary card I made for my husband some years ago.

“Willow Banks” — part of a large wetland park at the base of Montana’s Mission Mountains that I visited once.

“Rainbow Pebbles” — many of the techniques described here are used in this painting

“Winter Tree” — a Christmas card I did for a friend; the white was all masked off with masking fluid, after which I could paint freely, knowing all that lovely snow would be preserved in pristine white paper.

“Storm Building” — I used a paper towel to lift colour out of a solid sky wash for the clouds, then dripped in a bit of grey, then more water for the backwashes.

pebble sampler — I make samplers of many of the techniques during class, using pebble shapes.

Wildly blooming

“Haunted River” — painted over a saran-wrap texture in multiple glazes; an example of mixing paint on the paper.

“Night Lights” — the background nebula-like blooms of sky colour are salt; the individual stars are dots of white ink.

“Long Beach Sketch” — the backwashes created by dripping water into a wet wash created the clouds and the misty effects in the rocks on the right.

“Edge of the Woods” — I started with very light washes to build up the background and lighter tones of the foreground; the dark trees went in last.

Cuban Tree

The UFOs are coming! Or maybe they are flying hats. Suggested by one of the students, I thought it was a great idea. This demo used salt and gouache to make stars and the explosions (or maybe they are fireworks). The city is just simple brushstrokes with a flat brush.

This demo was to blend a nice sunset wash, and to show how to make very quick trees with brush scribbles.

This demo was to show lifting paint out of a blended wash (and add some more for shadows) to make clouds, and how to make aerial perspective by making distant things lighter and bluer. I wasn’t sure what the landscape was going to be, it sort of evolved as I went along.

Demo to show masking (I masked off the blue areas), and how to draw people in about ten seconds! This is kind of a bizarre picture because the blue areas look like holes in the sky, but I kind of like that effect.