tree – AJAiken

The West Highlands, Scotland

Following on from my photos of Spain, here are some from a recent trip to the West Highlands of Scotland.

The first two drawings, in charcoal, are from a workshop on an artists’ retreat back in February. It was (just) warm enough to sit outside, though I remember my hands freezing. Both charcoal sketches were drawn half looking at the paper, half looking only at the object. The top one has several under-drawings that haveContinue reading “Sketchy Trees”

Study Squares #4

Here are some quick pen studies of the views from the train today – mist in front of trees, stubble in the snow, hedges, ploughed fields, footprints, snow melting.

Tree Seasons

There’s a little maple tree outside my window in the new house. At the beginning of the year when we had quite a lot of snow I did a quick study of it because I loved the way the snow blobbed around the branches. A couple of weeks ago, I did another study. It’s funContinue reading “Tree Seasons”

Goodbye Trees

My grandparents are moving and leaving behind the house that my mum grew up in. It’s a huge change for all of us as it’s been such a big part of our lives. Behind their house is a large field filled with beech trees where my mum, and then my sister and I, grew upContinue reading “Goodbye Trees”

Birthday Card

Making birthday cards for people is something I really like to do. Here’s one I made for my sister a few days ago. I’ve created paper cut-out cards before, but this is the first time I’ve played with depth. It was fun! I should make more.

Burbank Palm

I’m in LA for the CTN animation eXPo which takes place this coming weekend. Today a group of us from Scotland visited the Disney studio, but before that we spent some time sketching. Here’s a drawing I did of some palm trees.

Bird Animation – Development

For a while I’ve been scribbling down ideas for this bird project. This weekend I began to do some more research into the location and character design. Here are some of my sketchbook pages! These were all sketched using Zig Clean Color Real Brush pens by Kuretake. I like how they give a good variationContinue reading “Bird Animation – Development”