Karen Gillmore Art

Comics & Illustration

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Tabling in Toronto

May 13, 2018by karencomics 4 Comments

Here I am in the big, big city, folks! I’m such a stay-at-home of late that if feels like a huge adventure, even though I know travelling like this is […]

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comics conventions, It's an artist's life

Going Mobile

May 6, 2018by karencomics 2 Comments

Since I’m off to TCAF this week I decided it would be fun to blog as I go, even though I’m not taking my computer – I really want to […]

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Comics, comics conventions, Drawing-a-Day, It's an artist's life

TCAF Bound!

April 23, 2018by karencomics 3 Comments

A few days ago, I got an email that set my heart to racing and my feet to jumping up and down in a happy dance — I’ve been accepted […]

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Book Covers, Cats, comics conventions, Quadra Cats

The April Fool’s Easter Bundragon

April 1, 2018by karencomics 3 Comments

How often do April Fool’s Day and Easter fall on the same day? I couldn’t resist the urge to do this funny li’l guy, once he’d popped into my head! […]

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coloured pencils, gouache, Illustration

Drawing a Crow in Coloured Pencil

March 13, 2018by karencomics 10 Comments

Seems like crows are everywhere these days. For us urban dwellers, they’re one of the few representatives of wildlife we see on a regular basis. Social media is full of […]

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coloured pencils, Technique of the Week, tutorials, Uncategorized

Studio Journal 5: Progress, Aided and Abetted by Trolls

February 8, 2018by karencomics 2 Comments

When I first decided to keep this public studio journal, the plan was that it would make me feel guilty if I didn’t report to the world my progress in […]

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Studio, Studio Journal

Hourly Comic Day — What I Learned

February 3, 2018by karencomics 3 Comments

Hourly Comic Day is an informal, annual event started in 2009 by John Campbell. It takes place on February 1. Here’s a really good post about it by Sarah McIntyre. […]

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art challenge, Cats, Quadra Cats

Studio Journal 4: Archaeology of Flat Surfaces

February 1, 2018by karencomics 2 Comments

Every room tells a story. A room full of stuff tells even more stories, if you can focus on each bit and its interrelationship to other bits. Which is a […]

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Studio Journal

Studio Journal 3: The Easy Stuff, and a Photo Safari

January 24, 2018by karencomics 4 Comments

When faced with overwhelming details in a big job, if there is no clear beginning point, I often start with the easy stuff just to get started. From there, order, […]

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Photography, Studio Journal, Uncategorized

Studio Journal 2: Starting Points

January 14, 2018by karencomics 10 Comments

Whenever I’m faced with a daunting project, I always think of it as a tangle of string, and start searching for an end to tug, tracing the knots to unwind […]

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Studio Journal

A Studio Journal

January 7, 2018by karencomics 5 Comments

All that measuring of artwork for my previous post gave me an idea: why not do the same thing, only by the week? And report on other things going on […]

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Studio Journal

The Measure of an Artist

January 2, 2018by karencomics 6 Comments

Happy New Year! Here’s this bright shiny year, as full of promise as an blank sheet of paper, and maybe as scary too, for the same reasons. Thankfully, we all […]

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Comics, Inspiration, It's an artist's life

Playing in the Digital Snow

December 27, 2017by karencomics 5 Comments

We’ve reached that strange time at the end of the year that I call Holiday Limbo. I saw it described in a post on Facebook as “…that time between Christmas […]

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Digital colouring, Inspiration, Photography

The Cats of Yule

December 23, 2017by karencomics 1 Comment

That has kind of a nice ring, eh? “The Cats of Yule” — I think it should be a song, or maybe the name for an Irish-style fiddle tune! I’ve […]

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Cats, Watercolour

Jurassic Lark!

November 7, 2017by karencomics Leave a comment

If you’ve been following me for a while, you may remember that back in January, I was working on a comic about dinosaurs for an anthology. I wanted to wait a […]

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Comics, Digital colouring, Digital Drawing, Uncategorized

A Quadra Cats Hallowe’en

October 31, 2017by karencomics Leave a comment

I’ve been so busy with Inktober, and it’s all been Quadra Cats — inking the comic pages and doing the little drawings of interplanetary felines. So I haven’t had time […]

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Cats, Quadra Cats

Finding Authentic Visibility

October 24, 2017by karencomics 2 Comments

It’s a turtle. Why a turtle? Because I’m very slow off the mark in reporting on a week of my life that challenged and inspired me, while scaring me a […]

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Cool Stuff for Artists, Inspiration, It's an artist's life

Inktober, Part 2

October 17, 2017by karencomics Leave a comment

It’s time to share some more Inktober drawings! At halfway through the month, I’ve been flagging a bit, trying to keep up with all my other drawing work, in addition […]

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art challenge, Ink, Inktober

Inktober 2017: Week 1

October 8, 2017by karencomics 1 Comment

I’ve been thinking about seasons and cycles lately; not only the natural ones, but personal and cultural ones. I have noticed that one of my sets of seasons consists of […]

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art challenge, Cats, Inktober

Mermaid Saga Resumes

September 25, 2017by karencomics 2 Comments

How ’bout that headline, eh? I can think of all kinds of things it could be about if I read it in a newspaper! But since you’re reading it here, […]

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Comics, Mermaids!

The Feline Federation

September 11, 2017by karencomics Leave a comment

Did I mention that the Quadra Cats have returned from their summer vacation, too? No I did not! Here’s the cover to book 3, The Feline Federation, now up on […]

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Book Covers, Cats, Quadra Cats

Pine Cone, Artichoke, or Pangolin?

September 10, 2017by karencomics Leave a comment

Now that I’m back in my nice quiet studio, and caught up on all the things that need catching up on after a trip, I’m starting to make some time […]

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art challenge, Watercolour, zooly

The Wild Pacific Trail

September 9, 2017by karencomics Leave a comment

When first I embarked on this attempt to tell about my inspiring two weeks on the west coast of Vancouver Island, I thought seven days would be plenty. It’s not. […]

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It's an artist's life

An Aquarium Photo Safari

September 8, 2017by karencomics 1 Comment

A love of aquariums came upon me suddenly around the age of nine or ten. Not those little ten-gallon things you keep a few goldfish in — I had one, […]

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It's an artist's life

All Washed Up — on the Sand

September 7, 2017by karencomics 6 Comments

Do you ever have a dream where you find some kind of treasure, only to wake up and find that it was only a dream, but still with a sense […]

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It's an artist's life

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The Quadra Cats, a webcomic

The cover of Takeout Planet, the first book in the Quadra Cats series

When the neighbourhood cats meet a takeout-obsessed Alien Cat, they become impromptu ambassadors for Earth! Updates Mondays and Thursdays.

Mermaid Music, a webcomic!

Mermaid Music, Book One cover

Mermaid music is the story of a girl who accidentally runs away to sea, and finds herself in deep water indeed! Click the image to read the webcomic from the beginning.

All text and images © Karen Gillmore 2014 -2017

...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, watercolour, coloured pencil)
Wolf and the Stones (pen & ink)
Wolf and the Stones (pen & ink)
Eostre (pen & ink, watercolour, coloured pencil)
Eostre (pen & ink, watercolour, coloured pencil)
Eostre (pen & ink)
Eostre (pen & ink)
Celtic Green Man (pen & ink, watercolour)
Celtic Green Man (pen & ink, watercolour)
Celtic Green Man (pen & ink)
Celtic Green Man (pen & ink)
Celtic Dragon (pen & ink, embellished version)
Celtic Dragon (pen & ink, embellished version)
Celtic Dragon (pen & ink, outline version)
Celtic Dragon (pen & ink, outline version)
Elemental Steed: Air (acrylic)
Elemental Steed: Air (acrylic)
Elemental Steed: Water (acrylic)
Elemental Steed: Water (acrylic)
Elemental Steed: Fire (acrylic)
Elemental Steed: Fire (acrylic)
Elemental Steed: Earth (acrylic)
Elemental Steed: Earth (acrylic)
Elemental Manifestations: Water (pen & ink, watercolour, collage)
Elemental Manifestations: Water (pen & ink, watercolour, collage)
Elemental Manifestations: Fire (pen & ink, watercolour, collage)
Elemental Manifestations: Fire (pen & ink, watercolour, collage)
Elemental Manifestations: Air (pen & ink, watercolour, collage)
Elemental Manifestations: Air (pen & ink, watercolour, collage)
Elemental Manifestations: Earth (pen & ink, watercolour, collage)
Elemental Manifestations: Earth (pen & ink, watercolour, collage)
Celtic Seahorses (linocut on banana paper)
Celtic Seahorses (linocut on banana paper)
Celtic Seahorses (pen and ink)
Celtic Seahorses (pen and ink)
Celtic Seahorses (pen & ink, watercolour, coloured pencil)
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.
“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.
“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.
“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.
“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.
“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.
“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.
“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.
“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
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
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
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.
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.
sm flower demo 9
"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.
“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.
“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!
“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.
“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.
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.
“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.
“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
“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.
“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.
“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.
pebble sampler — I make samplers of many of the techniques during class, using pebble shapes.
Wildly blooming
Wildly blooming
"Haunted River" — painted over a saran-wrap texture in multiple glazes; an example of mixing paint on the paper.
“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.
“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.
“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.
“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
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
"The Sky's the Limit" — a tiny painting, 4x6 inches, in which I demonstrated lifting wet paint to reveal the light.
“The Sky’s the Limit” — a tiny painting, 4×6 inches, in which I demonstrated lifting wet paint to reveal the light.
"New Horizons" — watercolour, 4x6 inches
“New Horizons” — watercolour, 4×6 inches

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