IF: Wilderness

mixed media on Bristol board
***copyright - Laura Marsh 2010***

Tea ceremony

Tea ceremony
Mixed media
***copyright - 2010 Laura Marsh***

Happy New Year

Before the butterfly

pen & ink & watercolor on Bristol board
***copyright - 2009 Laura Marsh***

Fun with leftover paint

Sun Horse
mixed media
***copyright - 2009 - Laura Marsh***

IF: Poise

Here is a sneak peek at the first of many illustrations for a new children's book that I am currently working on. This little bug is poised to run away as fast as he can after being discovered in the rug.

Legendary Slacker

Last week's IF, which I missed, was "legendary". The final product, which you see here, is from a sketch that I drew in plenty of time to post, but because I am a legend in my own right (in the realm of procrastination) I never got around to it.

There were many obstacles, real and imagined. I hated the way the drawing looked after I scanned it: The colors came out wrong; I couldn't make it look nice in GIMP; I didn't have a martini of my own. But today, after someone said, "WTF is up with your blog?!" I decided, WTF, indeed, and got motivated. (Thank you, MP.)

Unfortunately, I still hated the way the drawing looked. I decided to go on an artistic quest in the land of GIMP and make the old girl look good (or at least better, poor thing.) Many layers later, I discovered a filter feature called "old photo", which eliminated the problem with the colors. Then, I added a border and a coffee stain (another cool, if chaotic, filter feature).

The result is an illo that looks like a photograph of a bathing beauty (probably a once-famous model) with a drink, upon which a careless boyfriend (most likely Hugh Hefner) set a drink of his own.

Now it's legendary.