In this drawing lesson, we’ll start to explore how the marks you make on your page when drawing will create the texture and form of your subject.

This is important as it helps you to show something about the qualities of what you’re drawing – to describe the details and also the texture and the form itself.
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In this lesson:

• we’ll first take a look at why the marks we make as we draw are so important
• we’ll look at how to use the direction of our marks to give information about the form of what we’re drawing
• we’ll look at drawing close up details
• we’ll look at drawing textures
• we’ll put it all together in a still-life drawing practice

My colourful Celtic Magpies & Magnolia art, plus a dive into magpie superstition, myth and meaning...

Beautiful black and white birds that are accompanied by a whole host of superstitions and meanings…

Here’s what you need to know about magpie superstitions, myth, folklore and meaning…
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The magpie is a handsome and extremely intelligent bird – and one that I feel suffers a lot in our perception from the myths, folklore and superstitions that surround this highly unusual bird.

The bird, Pica pica (the Eurasian magpie) was originally known, from at least as early as the 13th century) as the ‘pie’ – thought to mean ‘pointed’ referring either to its pointed beak or tail.

It was colloquially known as ‘Maggie Pie’ – it was quite common to give a proper name to a bird (for example Jenny Wren, Jack Daw, Robin Redbreast). Maggie is a diminutive of Margaret which was sometimes used to mean a woman (generic woman) – supposedly because the chattering of the Maggie Pie sounds like the conversation of women.

Now we know the term ‘pied’ as meaning black and white. But it’s thought that this came from the black and white plumage of the magpie and was then used to refer to other birds with similar ‘pied’ colouring.

My beautiful Brown Bear Celtic art - available as art prints, T-shirts, homeware, accessories and more...

I love bears, and after creating my Celtic Bear art and researching our myths and folklore around bears for the blog post accompanying that artwork, I still wanted to create another brown bear artwork, one with a lovely bear face...

​So I set to work adapting a drawing I'd done a several months ago, digitising it, and making it into a digital artwork ready to be printed onto canvases, giclee prints, cushions, throw blankets, journals, mugs and more...

Here's a peek behind the scenes of my creative process.... click on the images to see them larger!

Colourful Goldfinches & Thistles Celtic art plus a look at the symbolism and meaning of goldfinches and thistles...