"He couldn't look handsomer, I couldn't feel humbler, we couldn't be happier"

Almost a year since I last updated, huh?

In truth I got The Big Sad and didn't much feel like drawing, but I truly feel like I'm out of it. I've had phases like this before where I think I'm feeling better only for it to come crashing down around me, but this is just feels different somehow. Like I'm not trying to force anything or go through any motions, I'm just lighter and more engaged again. I feel like the old me, and it's wonderful. And I've slowly felt like drawing again, for myself without pressure, and this is the first thing I've felt like sharing.

Earlier this month Wicked shared a publicity shot on Twitter of Brittney Johnson and Sam Gravitte as Glinda and Fiyero respectively and something about their posing made me instantly want to draw it. I also really got into fountain pens this past year, and originally painted this with layers of inks in the colors Blushing Mushroom and Adventurine by Ferris Wheel Press. It's my first time trying to incorporate inks like this, and I'm having fun with it and enjoy the texture. I ended up going over the inks with a light brush of colored pencil just as it lacked definition. Hopefully if I keep practicing I won't have to do that, but also this probably wasn't the best image to practice that method with as areas are too small and detailed. The inks are shimmery though, which left a neat effect!

Although this is based on an image featuring Brittany Johnson, I've drawn my own design of the characters as I always do. I am not whitewashing Glinda, she is white in the book which is integral to Fiyero's character development as the only person of color in Shiz. As I've written about before I prefer to keep the characters as a combination of their musical and novel selves as it adds more depth and I love them both. I just wanted to take a moment to explain so no one misconstrues my intentions! I'm by no means trying to diminish Brittany's acomplishment as the first Black Glinda on Broadway, which is about damn time. Casting should always be colorblind.

This isn't the best thing I've drawn, but I'm just happy to be drawing again. Perhaps I'll share some of the earlier things in this sketchbook, but I also have a lot of ideas for the future. I can't say when as I have a lot going on right now, but know it's coming.

Inside my sketchbook

I haven't been posting here much because I've got so much art to post and catch you up on that it's a little overwhelming tbh! I've been feeling similarly about Instagram - I hear everyone say about how it's good for engagement to post every day so I saved a whole bunch of work up, but I can't say posting every day has made a jot of difference to my engagement whatsoever, and being less spontaneous about it all has sucked all the fun from my account. I was scrolling back through my feed and I honestly think I was doing better before I started overanalysing it, so once I've caught up it'll be back to basics for me! Sharing things I'm excited about as soon as I've created them.

So this is going to be a bit of a catch up post!

I'm still getting used to trying to draw backgrounds and perspective and stuff, but also in a more simplified way. I don't know if it's because I draw realism as well, but when I draw a location I tend to get caught up in all of the little details rather than catching a mood or energy of a place and it's something I'm trying to work on as it's a style I really admire. I also think it would be a really nice practice to get into for my travels too. I drew this from a photograph and I was quite pleased with how it came out!

I originally wanted to digitalise this, but I also drew it so long ago that I've kind of lost all motivation and would rather work on new ideas ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ When the world first went into lockdown a year ago (OMG!) I had a ton of ideas, more illustrations than I could keep up with and so many that I wanted to colour digitally and turn into "proper" works, but I ended up with such a backlog that it began to feel like a chore and I've given up on a lot of them for now at least. I at least painted this one so the idea is still kind of there! I had wanted to incorporate some of their key lyrics into their clothing and background.

I kept working at my ballpoint illustrations, and here's one of Mika I did last summer before I went to Kyoto. Stations in Japan have all different stamps and I love how they looked in my sketchbook.

I realised I never drew the Cowardly Lion! I'm very out of practice with drawing animals so they're always a challenge for me.

Of course I've still been drawing Aaron.

And the Joker too! I tried before to colour the Joker's makeup after I drew it, and last time I used Copics which turned out way too vivid and kind of killed the drawing. I still really wanted to try the idea though, so I used coloured pencils this time which I think worked out much better! And I did the blood in gouache to make it really stand out.

I had this idea of a friendly bear for a while, I kind of want to put it on a shirt? 'Goddag' is just a way of saying Hello in Danish, I'm trying to incorporate more of it into my work to show a bit more of my cultural identity instead of defaulting to English all of the time.

It was autumn and I wanted to draw something cozy! This is like, my ideal day to me. Books, candles, music, cookies, and a raging storm outside. If you zoom right in the books on the shelf are some of my favourites I grew up with!

Branching out in my musicals, ey? XD Les Mis is one of my original musical obsessions way back and I wanted to show it a little love. I tried to blend Enjolras's stage and movie costumes - I had to do the vest because it's iconic, but I prefer the movie's pants and blond wig.

I have a whole bunch of Oz illustrations too, but I'll add them to their own post!

Daedalus and Icarus

I've always really loved Greek mythology. I'm not sure why it's always held such allure to me more so than any other mythology, but it has and as a little girl I carried around an illustrated book of Greek myths everywhere I went in the same way other children carried around security blankets or plush toys. I loved it so much that my mother took me to Ephesus when I was 6 so that it could be brought even more to life for me (I think she was kind of hoping I'd grow up to be a learned historian, but no such luck!). I was obsessed when Disney released Hercules and combined my two biggest interests into one, and as a teen I developed some minor internet popularity for creating a series of illustrations around Disney's Hades and my own design of Persephone that blended the traditional mythology with the Disney universe. Because it was something I began to be recognised for drawing for a long while it became all I drew, and naturally from that I went the other way and completely lost interest. I don't know what's piqued it again recently, but I'm back and I can't get enough!

I didn't really think about this too much as I was painting it, I just had an image in mind that I wanted of Daedalus reaching for his son Icarus and just went for it. First page of a brand new sketchbook and I approached it without a second thought, a bravery I'll likely never see again! I messed up in that I forgot to make Daedalus look older than Icarus, and by the point I realised it was too far in and if I'd given him white or grey hair it would've thrown off the whole palette and distracted from his wings, so I just gave him some grey temples and hoped for the best. Hopefully the myth is obvious enough to get away with it!

I coloured the sun with a gold sharpie, and I love the contrast it gives the piece. The rest is gouache, touched up with a little coloured pencil for the outlining and such. I'm enjoying painting a lot lately. I turned to digital as I didn't feel like I could get the results I wanted from traditional mediums with a cohesive colour palette, but I feel like painting digitally has taught me how to paint traditionally too.

Sister Alyonushka, Brother Ivanushka

Another Russian folktale, this one based on Sister Alyonushka, Brother Ivanushka. You can read the whole tale here. As in a lot of these stories they were orphaned as children and set out across the forest so Alyonushka could find work. Her younger brother Ivanushka soon grows thirsty on the long journey and begs for water each time he sees it, but each time Alyonushka says no and warns that he'll be transformed into various animals. Finally he's so thirsty that he doesn't stop to ask at the next spring, and Alyonushka is devastated to see him transform into a goat. There's much more to the tale, and you'll be glad to know that it works out happily - Ivanushka is able to save his sisters life and gets transformed back into a boy.

It definitely has elements of that scene in Pinocchio. I feel inclined to say that Ivanushka was less deserving of the punishing transformation as literally all he wanted was a glass of water, whereas Lampwick and co got up to all kinds of shenanigans - but really no one ever deserved that.

Anyway, when I was deciding to draw The Armless Maiden I initially couldn't decide which folktale to illustrate so I decided to go with both. I've never drawn a goat before, but I think it came out OK? I tried to include elements to hint that all isn't what it seems by giving him the same coloured fur and eyes and Alyonushka.

Inside my sketchbook

Like I said in my last post, I've been drawing a lot in my sketchbook lately and thought I'd offer a peek at what I've been working on. Not all of it's finalised, much of it is simple sketches that are waiting to be digitally coloured, but I always enjoy 'behind the scenes' glimpses so figured I'd offer one!



Y'all know how I love to draw a ballpoint portrait of Aaron Tveit 😅 I found this photo saved on my iPad when I was clearing it out and realised that I'd meant to draw it way back. I actually find drawing portraits a good way to unwind, and I like to stay on top if my skills. In the past I've either focused exclusively on realism or exclusively on illustration and then gotten frustrated when I've lost skills in the other.

I am often asked if I'll do portrait commissions, and I'm afraid the answer will always be no. It's something I do for fun and it's difficult for me to put my heart into it when I don't care about who I'm drawing, which is why I draw the same people over and over. It's also why I stopped sharing my portraits for a long time as I didn't want to create a business of it and get stuck drawing strangers.



Dmitri and Anya from Anastasia, they'll be coloured digitally at some point. I wanted them to be similar in style to my Wicked illustrations, with the background elements specific to each character. Dmitri is in St Petersburg, and supposed to look like he's casually playing with the music box by throwing it from hand to hand - I was really stumped with how to pose him, and this was the first character illustration I'd done like this in a long while so I felt like I was getting back into it. Anya came much easier, and it shows in her more natural posing and flow. Pooka is perhaps too small, but eh. There's the sign in the background where she meets her crossroad - one pointing to St Petersburg, one to the Fishermans Market where she's been given a job out of the orphanage. It's a pivotal moment for her, so it felt like the perfect backdrop. I just changed the writing to Cyrillic because that's the one thing that bothers me about the movie - in all of the Russian locations, all of the background writing is in English and I think it's details like that that can really solidify a setting - or not in this case. Especially as I watch the film with Russian audio so it's even more jarring!



I got some new Copic markers and wanted to try them out, so I sketched this based on a publicity photo of the London production of Wicked. I love this scene in the musical because it's so short but so telling of how the distance between Glinda and Fiyero is growing.



Another sketch to be coloured digitally. I've always liked the movie The Little Mermaid but it's never been my favourite, but it's really growing on me lately. I'm at a point in my life that I can relate to Ariel more, and that feeling of being stuck and yearning for change and the freedom to be who you want to be. Which isn't a million miles from why I relate so strongly to Elsa, who is my favourite, and they're both obviously Hans Christian Andersen characters so I thought I'd create a little homage to that.



Hans looking suitably pissy which is my favourite way of drawing him, and I tried to add some little historical details to his outfit as I've fallen down a rabbit hole of watching historical costumers on YouTube and those videos showing what the princesses would look like historically accurate. No one ever does the princes or focuses on male historical fashion which is a shame I think, I'm almost tempted to try and perhaps create a little series of them myself. And a ballpoint portrait of Mika, my other fave who I draw all of the time! I want to try and translate him to my illustrative style some time and see how it works, as he is very distinctive so wouldn't be that difficult.




I don't know if I've mentioned about it on this blog before, but when I was doing my foundation degree I created a whole illustrated book of the original tale of The Snow Queen. I found the original book I'd created when I was clearing through stuff to move and it felt a bit cringey to me now as my skills have developed so I decided to update it. I'll go into it all in more detail when I've finalised and digitally coloured some of them, but these are some of the rough sketches I'm working with right now. I'm super excited for how they're coming out! I obviously don't want it to reference Frozen as it's such a different story even if it is what inspired it, but as I'm such a fan of Frozen I have thrown in little 'easter eggs' here and there, such as basing elements of Kai on my design of Hans - I made a big post on my personal blog about how I feel Hans is an interpretation of Kai anyway, so it fit. It won't be too obvious where you think "OK that's Hans", but enough to link the two when you think about it.



I've been drawing so much that I had to buy a new sketchbook! I've nearly finished my Leuchtturm, which is a shame as they're my brand of choice and not easily available here. I picked up a Handbook Travelogue Journal which I've been intrigued about for a while, and got the watercolour edition as I'm really enjoying painting lately. I've already begun, but you'll see more of that soon!

"It's not lying...it's looking at things another way"

I'd mentioned before how I found some old art peices when sorting through some old sketchbooks recently, and decided to rework some of my ideas. This is based on what I believe is my first ever Wicked fan art from I wanna say 2011-ish? It was around the time I first discovered I liked the soundtrack after avoiding it for years due to teenage pretension (all of the other theatre geek girls loved it and I wanted to be different so avoided it like the plague only to discover it was actually really good, I think we've all been there at some point right?), but I hadn't actually seen the show yet so didn't really know how it was staged beyond photos I'd seen and what I imagined in my head when listening to it. This wasn't even really my art style of the time so I guess I was experimenting and I don't think I was feeling it back then either as I don't have anything else drawn with these big heads. I liked my general idea though, which is why I wanted to revisit it and I guess it's a bit of one of those 10 year challenges even if I didn't mean it to be! There is a certain satisfaction in seeing that the subject matter I enjoy drawing really hasn't changed in all of this time, it feels very authentic.



The original artwork, and the redrawn sketch. I don't know if I've ever shared how I work, but I like to draw traditionally then photograph the sketch with my iPad which I draw directly over in Procreate. I can sketch easily directly into the app and have done occasionally, but it gives me a use for sketchbooks and I prefer the more tactile feeling of drawing with a real pencil. Plus it gives me a definite record of before and afters, which would otherwise get lost in the layers of a digital painting.