As you may know from my previous posts, I am finally back to art. Hurrah.

I completed my pintade portraits and a few on grumpy Bumble goose but hadn’t tackled a full illustration as practise for my future story book projects.

Keeping with Bumble I hoped to achieve a colourful and friendly illustration. I am very happy with the results, especially the background. I wanted colour and texture but nothing too jarring with the subject. I used a mix of coloured pencil, wax and charcoal pencils.

I might have overworked some areas and burnished too much. This means you loose paper key and it can no longer grab any colour from the pencils. We live and learn.

The plant is the goose plant, appropriate and I chose a 1930 swimming bonnet from the retro magazine collections I have because Bumble doesn’t seem to care what he looks like. We originally thought he was a girl, so it seemed a good idea.

Here are the stages. It took me approx four sessions of about three hours each. I use a tinted Cansen paper of about 150gsm. Pencils by Derwent, Conte and a mix of cheaper ones of various suppliers like Castle. If anything I would have made the white stronger and the water paler.