¡Ole! Flamenco Fun for Kids

Ta-dahh! Here’s my poster for a fabulous upcoming kids’ flamenco show: ¡Ole! Flamenco Fun for Kids!

“Stamp your feet and clap your hands with Farida the Flamenco Fairy and friends!”

The show, created by Studio Flamenco, will stomp its way into the Adelaide Fringe (the largest annual arts festival in the Southern Hemisphere) in March. If you live in South Australia – or you are one of the 90,000 visitors who flock there for the Fringe every year (it’s hands-down the best time to visit) – you can buy tickets here.

This illustration was created as an ink and brush drawing with nib pen details, and colored digitally. As I’m across the Pacific, in California, I’m stoked to have contributed (even a little) to the color and energy of the Adelaide Fringe… ¡Ole!

Derby crazy #1: Fresh Meat sketches

 

Click on an image to enlarge!

One reason for my tardiness in updating my site this year has been my blossoming involvement in the glorious yet time-gobbling world of ROLLER DERBY! I drew these fierce and colourful fictional ladies during my Fresh Meat training with the wonderful Adelaide Roller Derby while I was learning basic skills, and the oft-spoken-of derby obsession was only starting to take hold. They are sketchy scribbles, dashed off in the flush of enthusiasm but much as I might itch to re-draw this wonky wheel or that disproportionately-long limb, instead I present them to you here in all their imperfect, excited glory – much like new derby skaters at their first scrimmage! Enjoy – my first derby-related art post, but very unlikely to be my last.

Bonnie Adventuress!

 

Another card, this time for my lovely, one-of-a-kind buddy Bonnie on the occasion of her intrepid solo bike tour around New Zealand following Adelaide Roller Derby’s visit with (and victorious bout against) Auckland’s Pirate City Rollers last year. She’s an adventuress and no doubt about it!

Pedal parade

I never really need an excuse to draw bikes and their riders… but the recent Tour Down Under here in Adelaide provided one anyway! In this peloton are a jumble of assorted loose & jolly cyclist scribbles from around Tour time and a couple from my Spring Ride brainstorming too. Hop on your own trusty treadly today!

http://robintatlowlord.com/2012/03/21/pedal-parade/

Spring Ride this Sunday!

The birds are above and the bees are a-buzzin’ … Spring is here! The Bicycle Institute of South Australia gave me free reign on this poster for their second annual Spring Ride, and it ended up a cavalcade of colour and new life. It was more of an excursion into watercolour than I’ve braved before, and I’m very happy with the freshness of this big birdy and how she holds her own without the black lines I usually use.

The Spring Ride itself looks set to be an excellent event, I can’t wait! A couple of the organisers are the masterminds of past Ready Set Ride outings and I reckon anything they’re associated with is guaranteed to be heaps of fun. If you live in Adelaide, come along! This Sunday, from 10:30 at Victoria Park. There’s more information here and here …

 

wuff, wuff!

 

DOGS! I’m a bit obsessed with ’em. In pencil, watercolour, ink and pen, I’ve been busy doodling woofers all over the place. Here are a few of my recent canine creations in a variety of styles. Lovely little fellas.

 

Group portrait (with a guest star)

Yep, I occasionally draw adults too, in case you’d been wondering! This group portrait / caricature was commissioned by my housemate and features her workmates … and … their dream date, a certain Mr Obama! They look like they’re somewhere suitably swanky, too.

Kids’ Portraits #3

One more portrait from last summer’s bumper crop of kids’ portraits for Christmas gifts, but this one had the distinction of being a gift for the little girl herself, rather than her parents. Mataya loves her labrador, so a special somebody commissioned this picture to brighten up Mataya’s room and help her learn to spell her own name and Tao’s.

Kids’ Portraits #2

Here are some more kids’ portraits in a different style: realistic watercolour and pencil drawings with stylised backgrounds. It was particularly fun to create the bright patterns and collage flowers on Baillie’s portrait. I will be taking portrait commissions again this year: send me an email me if you’re interested in a one-of-a-kind Christmas gift!

Kids’ portraits #1

Last summer I started accepting kids’ portrait commissions. They’re fun, excellent drawing practice, and make unique family gifts. Initially I thought “Oh, I love the looseness and energy of drawing from life, so I won’t work from photos unless I have to – wherever possible I’ll have a sitting with the kids to really get their likeness and personality!” Then I did my first commission, drawing my friend’s four boys one afternoon at their home. A ‘sitting’ was all very well for the older two brothers, but for the younger two it was completely out of the question. Energetic, happy and playful little boys, they wouldn’t stay in one spot for longer than a few seconds, and while I like to think I’m a pretty fast sketcher, the best I could do was dash off a few fleeting impressions here and there. I pulled these sketches and observations together into these two pencil drawings, which I coloured using photoshop. After that I was completely comfortable working from photos, especially for portaits of wriggly little kids!