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Mixed media

Woody and Buzz watercolour


I painted this a few months ago for a very poorly little boy who loves Toy Story.  His favourite character is Woody, and his twin brother's is Buzz.  The final version included both of their names side by side on the soles of the character's touching feet.  I didn't think it was appropriate to post that version online but it does add some context to the poses if you visualise it.

As cheesy as it sounds, the original Toy Story means a lot to me.  Along with it's influence on my artistic development (which you can read about here), I used to watch it with my little brother when he was a toddler and the soundtrack as much as the visuals bring back a lot of great memories of time spent with him.  Now thirteen years later I plan on watching it all over again with my own little boy.

I can't imagine how it must feel to watch your child suffer and not be able to do anything to help, and that's what made this so heartbreaking to paint as a new parent myself.  Toy Story also has a pretty emotional soundtrack, unfortunately listening to it while trying to paint wasn't very productive - it was hard to see the details through teary eyes.


Shane

Baby Pooh watercolour



Watercolour and coloured pencil illustration for a buddy of mine.  To see baby Eeyore painted in this style check out this post, and here for Baby Tigger.

To see some preliminary sketches check out this post.

Shane S

Creative influence map


Loads more I wanted to include but decided to stick with the grid ‘rules’ on the bottom of the template instead.

I mainly included artists that have influenced my work and technique directly rather than just a bunch that I loved but didn’t consciously take anything from, hence no James Jean, Da Vinci or Watterson.

I'm always interested to find out the creative origins of artists I admire, so have been checking out a whole bunch of these things online lately.  A few highlights are those of Sam Nielson (surprising how similar my own influences are to his, unfortunately I left off Monkey Island but I haven't been able to draw clouds without including a spiral since playing MI3!), and Sebastien gallego.

Download the template file from the creator's DeviantArt page at http://fav.me/d2vx881 and create your own.

Shane S



Tatty Teddy Bathtime

Another puzzle image for Ravensberger, this time featuring some extra characters.  Had a lot of fun with the lighting on this one.

Image and characters property of Carte Blanche Greetings Ltd
You can buy the 1000 piece puzzle on Amazon right now!

Shane S

Tatty Teddy bedtime

Another puzzle image from early last year.

Again I went for the digital watercolour over pencil sketch but also experimented a bit with gradient maps, which are super useful once you get your head around them.

Image and characters property of Carte Blanche Greetings Ltd
You can buy the 500 piece puzzle from here.

Shane S

Tatty Teddy seaside scene

I thought it was about time I posted some of the work that I've done for Carte Blanche Greetings over the last four years.  I'm not going to go back too far though, this piece was painted at the beginning of 2010 to be used on a jigsaw puzzle.  The paint is actually digital over a pencil sketch, so I was pretty pleased that most people thought it was genuine watercolour.

I now work almost exclusively on My Blue Nose Friends so I don't get to draw the little grey bear very often.

Image and characters are property of Carte Blanche Greetings Ltd

This puzzle is still available to buy from Amazon.

Shane S