Jungle Pattern

I decided to take a brake from illustrating wild animals and draw more wild animals. I went on and create a repeating pattern that I've always wanted to do. It can be hard to get the positioning right so the design tiles smoothly. In this pattern I wanted to approach the shape of the animals in a more graphic design manner and worry less about accuracy, regarding the anatomy. Although my illustrations aren't really realistic in general, I always like to present what an animals look like in a stylised way, but still stick to some basic anatomy rules. With this pattern I became a bit more adventurous and took more of an artistic license. I might try to make some more in the future!

Happy Hippo

With no delay I went on and completed the next beast of the wild, the Hippopotamus or Hippo for short. I decided to take this pachyderm where his name suggested, "horse of the river", and although hippos look nothing like horses, they do love water. The hippo takes a dive into the fresh waters to cool himself down and there he sees wonderful shapes and colours, ribbons of fish and weed, all moving in slow motion. A school of fish is startled by the impact of the dive, while some other fish remain unimpressed. Something I wanted to portray in this illustration was the hippopotamus's main characteristics, his unique and enormous mouth  - wide open - and the bulk of his body. I didn't want to just show his head sticking out of the water, but to show the whole animal, so I thought I'd take him underwater. Also having this very heavy animal floating in the middle of the illustration, defying gravity, creates a very interesting visual.

Gorillas go Bananas

For my Wild Animals project I chose to do the gorillas next. These gorgeous big beast have huge muscles and furry forearms and can look pretty intimidating, especially to a child. On the one hand I wanted to show the gorilla's might, but at the same time I wanted to present a tender side to him too, so I thought I'd make him a father who's taking his little gorilla baby for bananas. Best dad in the world or what? Also I wanted to create an environment that felt natural for gorillas to live in, thick jungle with all shades of green all around and massive leaves hiding the sky. During this illustration I myself discovered the fascinating way in which bananas grow from the banana tree, batched up on a branch with a flower at its end, brilliant! So I wanted to share this new found knowledge with the children, although they already probably know.

12th May - International Nurses Day

A big Thank You to all the Nurses out there who help the weak and suffering.

Lion - revisited

Τhe lion's head, made for the cover of my Wild Animals project, was the very first illustration in the series. However, after having completed it and printing it out I came to realise that the mane, was too messy with colours and shapes and distracted from the main shape of the lions head, which I felt was a shame. Now with a fresh eye I revisited this illustration and created this alternative look, which combines the exciting shapes of the original mane with a cleaner, easier to distinguish look.

I sometimes come back to an illustration and try and improve it if i feel I can do something better with it. Having finished this illustration I will move on to the next wild animal. I'll be posting sketches soon!

Gazelle & Butterfly

Resuming back to my Wild Animals project, I completed the Gazelle & Butterfly illustration with great delight! When I started sketching for this illustration I wanted to capture the lightness of the gazelle and the grace with which it hops around effortlessly. In its jump, the gazelle momentarily becomes an avian creature and meets another creature up there in the air, a butterfly. The gazelle is dazzled by the pretty colours of this African butterfly, turning its neck to appreciate it. The butterfly in its turn is looking at this big animal rather curiously. Both elegant and beautiful, both in the air, yet so different to one another. Of course I had to put the gazelle in its natural habitat, so I created an open sky savanna with golden grass and umbrella thorn Acacias.

I had to wait a couple of months to put the final touches to this piece as my computer crashed just before I had the chance to finish it. Now I can finally share it with you and exhale!

first day of spring!

Today is the first day of spring for 2012, here is another pen and ink drawing to celebrate the start of this much anticipated season!  

Pen & Ink

explorer

mother

comet

Here are some of my most recent pen & ink drawings. Inspired by traditional archetypes and mythology I create these pictures with fast, rough strokes, creating a more powerful and impulsive result. I like using simple geometry to give the dynamic I want in a very straightforward way. I find it very enjoyable and creative to be able to express my idea so directly, without having to work on a piece for hours. It's a good balance for my more elaborate work.

Parents - pen & ink

Parents is a pen and ink drawing and is part of an ever growing series of such sketches. In these sketches I try to draw a lot of my ideas without worrying too much about detail and without spending hours working on them.

Going back to a traditional, non-digital medium to create images I rediscovered a certain charm and beauty in the process of drawing directly on paper. The work feels more intimate, it feels unique the way the ink sets on the paper and the way you can't "undo" what you've done. This gives you a bit of an adrenaline rush as you don't want to mess it up. All these factors give the image its personality and character.

When working with pen and ink I found I was producing images a lot faster and was putting a lot more of my thoughts on paper. Some of the sketches are images or scenes from dreams I had, which sounds a bit crazy, but it's fascinating to see "unique" artwork in your sleep and then recreate it in real life.

Prior to these pen and ink sketches I worked with oils and made a few paintings which I will be posting next.

Comic Strip

After a long brake from posting on my blog I have returned!

Having dealt with a series of computer failings I am once more ready to begin posting my mainly digital work!

During this time I've been away, I tuned to traditional mediums and created a few oil paintings and some pen & ink drawings, which I will be uploading in the near future. But for now I would like to post a little comic strip I felt like doing, just to say "it's nice to see you again!"

I hope you like it!

Panagis

Crocodile and Egyptian Plovers

The second animal I have Illustrated for my book of wild animals(including the cover illustration of the lion) is the crocodile.

The artistic direction of this book is to keep the essence of the animals and view each through an imaginative lens, playing with their patterns, textures and colours. I wanted to present the crocodile as a funny looking, long shaped lizard with a very big mouth and a playful character who likes splashing in the water, rather than a cold blooded dangerous reptile with menacing jaws.

I thought it would be a lot more interesting to put the crocodile in his natural environment, showing his amphibious nature, his relationship with the symbiotic Egyptian plover (aka crocodile bird) and also look at him from an angle that shows how he is long and flat and crawls on the ground.

A study of Sherlock Holmes

 

 

A study of one Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles.

These two elements are part of the same illustration, inspired by the classic Sherlock Holmes crime novel the Hound of the Baskervilles.

Again, as in the Adventure of the Speckled Band, in the Hound of the Baskervilles the breed of the canine is not clarified, but instead we are only told that it's a big hound. After some research I decided that the Great Dane (aka Danish Hound) was a perfect candidate for the role as it's great in size and can look menacing, so I sketched my Baskerville Hound using the Great Dane as reference.

Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Speckled Band

The Adventure of the Speckled Band is a Sherlock Holmes adventure written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In this detective story the murderer uses an Indian swamp adder that crawls down a bedside bell rope to kill his victims, without leaving any traces behind. One of the victim's last words are "It was the band, the speckled band!" referring to the snake.

It is one of the most imaginative Sherlock Holmes short stories, regarding the murder weapon. The Indian swamp adder has a lot of people puzzled as to what manner of a snake it was, as there is no such species.

I wanted to illustrate my impression of the venomous Speckled Band, as it crawls down the rope and attacks. It was a lot of fun trying to create a snake's face from the front, as there is little there to work with. Using geometry to solve the problem, I came to this interesting hourglass shape for its face and gave the swamp adder huge yellow eyes to create the image of death in its expression.

It's a little homage to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes I wanted to pay, as I often work while listening to his adventures, dramatised for radio with Clive Merrison and Michael Williams.

Lion

A new project can be very exciting to begin. Starting on a collection of illustrations of wild animals I felt the need to push my artistic vision to a different direction. I began with the king of the jungle, the lion, and used geometry, circles and ellipses, to bring together a my composition and give it balance. When it came to colour, I wanted to become even more adventurous and added to the palette more colours, other than the expected yellows and browns.
With this illustration, as well as the ones to follow, my goal is to present wild animals through a more colourful lens using a lot of imagination to capture their spirit and their character.

World AIDS Day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

World AIDS Day is held on 1 December each year and is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, show their support for people living with HIV and to commemorate people who have died. 

 

taken from the website www.worldaidsday.org

Lion - preview

With all those holiday cards I missed my animals. I have started making a new set of illustrations that focus on animals in the jungle.
So once more I resort to geometry to find beautiful shape compositions and a balance in my design.

Although there is geometry and symmetry, to a degree, I always keep my shapes organic and uneven.
Starting to work on these illustrations I'd like to experiment a bit more with colour combinations and use bigger texture patterns in order to give a richer, more unique look.

I began working on the lion and have been taking my time discovering the geometry in his face and mane as well as the colours that express his might and power.

Merry Christmas

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This is the final holiday greeting card I designed to celebrate the upcoming holidays. The star over Bethlehem and an angel spreading the news of the birth of the baby Jesus.

For this Christmas card I used gold and red colours to follow a more traditional aesthetic and reference the more spiritual aspect of the holiday as well.

Spring - revisited

 

I decided to print some posters for my nieces for the upcoming holidays and thought my illustration "spring" would make for a beautiful poster as it's colourful and has a butterfly and a bunny, doesn't get better than that! However, when I printed this illustration in the past I found that I would have liked the colours to be a bit different, so I went back to the original illustration and spent a few hours making all of the changes I wanted  before I have it printed in poster size. Now it is finally ready and looking better than ever!

Happy Hanukkah!

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The Festival of Lights, the eight days of Hanukkah!
The menorah has eight candles that symbolise the eight days the Maccabees’ menorah miraculously remained lit for, despite the fact that the oil fueling it was only enough to last for one day, during the Jewish revolt against the Seleucid monarchy. The ninth candle in the middle is the shamash, the servant, used to light the other eight candles.

You can buy my Hanukkah Cards by clicking here!

Christmas Cards!

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Winter brings us festivities and celebrations once more, it’s the time of the year when we exchange wishes and give presents to our beloved ones.

For this Christmas I have designed a card in red to capture the warmth the holidays bring to our hearts despite the cold weather.

You can buy my Christmas Cards by clicking here!