Remember Jane - Final Piece

This is my entry to Think Pink V : Digital Painting-Airbrushing/Drawing Category.

Its finally done.. :) This is a painting of the late Jane Tomlinson. I thought it was particularly apt as Think Pink is all about raising awareness of breast cancer, and Jane Tomlinson was a two time sufferer of the disease. Beating it once, she never let the second diagnosis stop her living her life. She tirelessly fundraised completing many sporting events that most people would deem impossible to complete perhaps even if they didnt have cancer. Jane passed away in September 2007, 3 years ago now, but her memory and legacy live on. Remember Jane.

More about Jane:
http://www.janetomlinsonappeal.com/about/jane/index.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Tomlinson

I thought rather than stick to the pink side of Think Pink, I would try for something more thought provoking and real than a pretty girl in a pink dress, or a rose (etc etc). So, I hope I managed that. I hope my painting makes you think and empathise about not only a real person suffering from something like this, but also the inspiring side this can bring out in someone.

This took about 7 hours to paint, and I really enjoyed producing this. Digital portraits are even more fun to do that pencil ones.. :) It would be really great to do well in the Think Pink competition, from an arty side of things. Its a big deal and I've strived really hard on this to capture the theme, and of course Jane. I put so much more effort into this than any other painting I've done; down to the details of lines and distinguishing marks on her skin to getting the eyebrows down to the hair and the eyes just so... But I suppose if I don't do well but raise awareness of Think Pink and its aim to raise awareness of breat cancer then I've had some success :)

...I don't think there's anything left to say but please wish me luck and enjoy!

Meg

Reference picture: http://www.life.com/image/50917597
Works in progress:
1 - http://imaeko.blogspot.com/2010/09/remember-jane-wip-1.html
2 - http://imaeko.blogspot.com/2010/09/remember-jane-wip-2.html
3 - http://imaeko.blogspot.com/2010/09/remember-jane-wip-3.html
4 - http://imaeko.blogspot.com/2010/09/remember-jane-wip-4.html
5 - http://imaeko.blogspot.com/2010/09/remember-jane-wip-5.html
6 - http://imaeko.blogspot.com/2010/09/remember-jane-wip-6.html

Remember Jane WIP 6

Another half an hour on lunch today - spent painting the hair strand by strand... painstaking but hopefully worth it!

Remember Jane WIP 5

WIP 5, just a quick fifteen minutes on this at lunch today. Have neatened up the fleece but still have to texture it.

Remember Jane WIP 4

WIP 4... spent another hour on this now. Face, for now at least is done (I will most likely come back to it and tweak some bits on finalisation). I will next be moving onto the fleece or her hair. I'm really happy with this so far.. Glad the teeth are out of the way too! :)

Enjoy!

Remember Jane WIP 3

WIP 3 of Remember Jane... I spent another half an hour on this today at lunch, you can see the skin is coming together now (though I still need to texture it). All I can say at the moment though is I... hate.... teeth! They are really hard to draw!! Gotta keep working on those, they are so NOT finished...

Remember Jane WIP 2

Spent another hour and a half on this just now! I'm happy with how its turning out :) I firsly refined the ear and the left eye yesterday on my lunchbreak and now have done the right eye, and started to build up and blend all the skin. Obviously a long way to go on this one but its going in the right direction I feel! Gosh I love painting skin, it has so many colours in it! :D (Though texturing it for all the pores is not so fun haha)

Remember Jane WIP 1

I'm entering the famour Think Pink V contest this year over on DeviantART (deadline on October 3rd so plenty of time left if you want to enter!), and as the contest is all about raising awareness of breast cancer I thought who better to depict than Jane Tomlinson, a wonderful woman who survived multiple bouts of cancer and who never gave up. She raised millions for charity by doing all sorts of physical challenged, never letting the disease beat her, and really shot the disease into a higher profile within the UK. She was an admirable woman who sadly died a couple of years ago.

I hope I can do her justice in this piece. This is the first WIP - rough colours and shades, all to be refined. Running at about 2 hours so far.

Enjoy, and remember Jane.

Portrait Commission - Final

Subject to clients approval this is the final version of the commiission. I am actually pretty happy with it, and it was a lovely piece to draw :-)

Meg's First Cake! - The Finished Thing!

Today, I made my very first cake! How exciting :D

I made it to the basic recipe of a Victoria sponge, but for the decoration I made it up myself so I'm so so happy with how it came out! Tomorrow is when it will be tasted properly (We've had the offcuts and it was very nice but havent tried the proper finished cake yet!) so I can only hope it tastes as nice as it looks :D

There are obviously some rough patches - this is a first attempt so far from perfect! but gosh, so fun! Very tiring though, it took me an hour to prep and cook this, and TWO WHOLE HOURS to decorate it! So tired right now haha!.

Let me know what you think!

You can find all the progress shots and steps here: http://imaeko.blogspot.com/2010/09/megs-first-cake-works-in-progress-d.html

Meg's First Cake! Works in Progress :D

Today, I made my very first cake! How exciting :D

I made it to the basic recipe of a Victoria sponge, but for the decoration I made it up myself so I'm so so happy with how it came out! Tomorrow is when it will be tasted properly (We've had the offcuts and it was very nice but havent tried the proper finished cake yet!) so I can only hope it tastes as nice as it looks :D

There are obviously some rough patches - this is a first attempt so far from perfect! but gosh, so fun! Very tiring though, it took me an hour to prep and cook this, and TWO WHOLE HOURS to decorate it! So tired right now haha!.

Enjoy!

You can see the final thing here: http://imaeko.blogspot.com/2010/09/megs-first-cake-finished-thing.html

Cake is in the oven! :D

Cakes out of the oven! Looking VERY delicious and edible (and I can vouch for it smelling divine too!), but a little on the uneven side!

So I evened it out with the bread knife... :-)

I prepper some buttercream (1 part margerine to 2 parts icing sugar) which tasted very nice when I tried it! ;-)

I sliced the cake in two to prepare it for filling.

Here's the filling! Lightly heated some jam to make it spread better, and put one filling on each layer.

Here's how I prepared the lilies. Cut a heart shape for the petal (its the top of the heart that you "seal" up), and a small ball for the centre. I coloured the ball with yellow food colouring (brushed on and smushed in by my own fair hand. It got a bit sticky so I had to add extra dustings of icing sugar :D )

The finished decorations! I added food colouring to the bow in the same way as the lilies. The lilies look very pretty but I know I can do a much neater job!

Time to sandwich together the two halves of the cake!

Here I rolled out ready to roll fondant icing and laid it over the cake, smoothing it fown the sides and triming the excess (this is where I require most practice out of everything methinks! Its hard!!)

And, apart from adding the decorations on top (final pictures posted seperately here: http://imaeko.blogspot.com/2010/09/megs-first-cake-finished-thing.html) thats it!

Letter Doodles

21 August 2010

So when I write letters I usually doodle allll over them! Nothing fancy but its about as close to sketching as I get so, thought I would share! Enjoy!

21 August 2010

21 August 2010

13 May 2010

13 May 2010