Artist Journal – Update, June Plans & Sketchbook Tour

I’m back and raring to go!

Our holiday was a whistlestop tour of The Balkans and it was both wonderful fun and hugely tiring. Over seven nights we stayed in six hotels, visited four countries and drove 1500km. While I now know I’m unlikely to book a tour like that again, the people we met on our travels were friendly, interesting and warm, and the places we visited were breathtaking.

Proof that we left the house! Behind us is the Gračanica Monastery in Kosovo.

I took a lot of photos and plan to use them as references for sketching. I made sure to include city photos so that I can practice and improve my skills when it comes to drawing buildings and urban scenes.

Before we left, I made sure to schedule posts for the Hannah Kate Makes social media profiles, which allowed me to completely switch off while I was away.

Taking a complete break from the business did me the world of good! Who’d a thunk it, eh?

I’m back and full of energy, ready to work on my projects across the summer.

But first, we had our final in-person event before the mid-year break.

Two days after our (long and protracted) journey home, we set off for Stafford. It was our first time visiting the town, both as tourists and as traders.

Morbid Markets organised a friendly event in a fantastic venue, and I felt lucky to be trading alongside so many talented creatives. It was a great way to end our touring season with a bang! I hope to return to trade at one of their events in the future.

If you’re local to Stafford I recommend dropping into their next pop-up.

I’m now taking a break from touring until September to allow me to focus on other projects.

As always, you can check out the events page here on the website for all up-to-date information on where you will be able to find us in the future.

My plans for June, and the rest of the summer, are a continuation of those from May…

·       Get back into a routine with time set aside for creating.

·       Overhaul the website.

·       Get a grip on wholesale for Hannah Kate Makes.

Over the past few weeks, I have been relatively successful in carving out a few hours each day for creative play, practice and working on commissions and new artworks.

Reinventing the website and grasping the nettle with wholesale are still to come but they are, at least, planned into my calendar. More on those across the summer.

As you saw in the last blog post, I was casually dipping into the Draw As You May prompt list. My first contribution was a drawing of Maleficent for the Famous Cartoon Character prompt.

My next drawings were for the following prompts:

A House Exterior. 

It was a toss-up between the houses from The Addams Family and Practical Magic, but the home of the Owens sisters won out in the end.  A house that every whimsical dreamer wishes was theirs to host midnight margueritas and grow roses in the garden. Sketched in pencil and coloured with polychromos pencils.

A Quentin Blake in Your Style.

I gave myself an hour* and the hardest part was choosing which Quentin Blake illustration to draw!

The huge croc in the original caught my eye and I thought I'd give it a go. I can only apologise for the feet and I've no idea what's going on with the placement of her knees on the right. Sketched in pencil, inked with micron pens and coloured with polychromos pencils.

*The drawing took about half an hour, but I was dithering on my phone. Of course.

A Famous Landmark.

I had to draw these beauties, as sculpted by the brilliant Andy Scott. The Kelpies were sketched in 2B and 6B pencil.

Draw a famous painting in 30 minutes.

Drawing to a timer always makes me feel a little flustered! I didn't have time to add any colour, but hopefully the melty clocks will give you a clue as to my inspiration.

My homage to Dali’s Persistence of Memory was sketched in pencil and inked in Micron pens.

A Page of Pattern.

I'm not entirely sure I hit the brief as I doodled more than created a proper pattern, but I enjoyed the mindful doodling and colouring all the same.

Tentacle outlines in Micron pen and coloured with Copic markers.

Dessert.

Here's the chocolate...Here's the moose!

If you're of a similar vintage to me, you're probably also unable to say chocolate mousse without quoting the Swedish Chef.

My strawberry and chocolate mousse sundae drawing was outlined in Micron pen and coloured with Copic markers.

Here ends my participation in this year’s Draw As You May challenge. It helped me immensely with getting back to a quick warm-up practice I my sketchbook. Not having any pressure to create some “perfect” felt like being given a permission slip to play again.

While I took a brand-new sketchbook with me on holiday and a travel-ready roll of pencils, I had no time at all to relax and doodle while I was away. As I said earlier, I’ll draw from my holiday photos now that I’m home.

Since my return, I’ve had a little figure drawing practice from reference photos of a reclining model and a vintage snap of the fabulous Josephine Baker. The perspective is a bit skew in both of my efforts, but that's why we practice!

Finally last weekend saw the annual Ghostbusters Day take place in New York City. To celebrate I immortalised Slimer with obnoxiously bright acrylics. It was a joy to break out my paint brushes again.

I’m now very happy to confirm that my commissions order book has reopened and I’ve already had a flurry of interest.

There is currently one available slot left for June and I’m already booking for July onwards. If you’re interested in working with me to create your own custom piece of artwork, you can read more here.

That’s it for this journal instalment. As always, the best way to keep updated with all things Hannah Kate Makes is to sign up to The Spooky List and receive emails straight into your inbox. You’ll find the form below.

Take care and stay spooky.

HK x