Christmas was a frenzy of cooking and gorging and comfort telly, so I didn’t actually get much time to draw anything; all I have to offer are a few paltry doodles from the sketchbook pages.

The last two are from reference: Tivka the white tiger from a crumpled copy of ‘Hello’ *cough* magazine (it was free!), and Hagrid’s hut, quickly sketched from Cuarón’s gorgeous ‘Prisoner of Azkaban’ on Christmas teevee. I grabbed the concept of the hut, and then….made up the rest. I’m not at all happy with it, but I’m trying to draw more than just the same old 3/4 view portraits. I’ve always loved layouts/backgrounds, and they’re something I really want to work on. Baggio is incredible at backgrounds, so I always get a bit discouraged when I try them, but I’ve decided to pick his brain, grab some books on perspective, and work my way through a box of pencils. Lots more in the sketchbook, but our cheapo scanner is hacking and wheezing and clutching at its metaphorical chest.

I don’t generally go in for resolutions but, for this coming year, Mr Baggio and I have made a pact to draw something every day.

The fat robin wishes you Merry Christmas!

I was actually sitting in the office wondering what to draw for Christmas, when a huge robin landed on the grass outside the window. And when I say ‘huge’ I mean HUGE: this guy was comically fat. He scooted when I scrabbled for my camera, so I painted him instead.

Random sketch pages from the past week or so. Clicky-clicky to launch full view:

I’ve mostly been working on the five millionth iteration of the portfolio site (the layout is almost there and then I have to start piecing the thing together via XHTML/CSS - fun!), and painting happily away in Open Canvas and Photoshop. More on the horribly addictive Open Canvas in a later post.

I can finally show this wee guy - he’s been given to his intended owner (Hi Bek!) and she naughtily opened him before Christmas. Behold, the Big-Headed Kitty!

You can find the pattern (originally from a Japanese stuffed toy book) over on Craftster, courtesy of Sewing Stars. This is only my second attempt at a stuffed toy (and, boy, is it an improvement on the first), but it was fairly easy to get the hang of - despite the pattern being written in Japanese! My brain is percolating with modifications I can make to the pattern; I think I’ll try to make a grey-style alien stocking filler for Mr Baggio.

Some artists kicking me in the inspiration pants at the moment:

JOAO RUAS

His rendering just kills me, and there’s something so sublime and etheral about his subjects, composition and style. His portfolio makes me want to break out the paints and brushes and make a multi-layered mess of my sketchbook.

ALEX STODOLNIK

I’ve been a fan of his work for a while, but I only just stumbled across Red Bear Dead, his online experiment in world-building based on Russian folk-lore. This stuff is gorgeous.

GLEN KEANE

Well, I’ve been crazy for Keane ever since I fell completely in love with his Beast (Disney’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’) as a kid, but I just discovered a blog dedicated to finding and posting his artwork and I’m in heaven.

AARON JASINKSKI

The use of colour in Jasinski’s juicy paintings is outstanding; check out the gorgeous skin-tones of his characters. This is the kind of artwork I could have of my wall and never get tired of looking at.

MCBESS

Bizarre, creepy and beautiful - like a more delicately rendered Robert Crumb.