Day 30 of 30 days, 30 illustrations

Day 30: Rush

Woohoo, I made it! I have completed my self imposed challenge to create a new illustration, every day, for 30 days. I think I will save my thoughts and reflections on how I feel it went, for another post.

For now, let me introduce my final illustration. I decided to do an illustration that is probably the type of illustration that people who know my work, know me best for (??). The only new part in this illustration is the face, which itself is an original pencil drawing. ALL the other elements come from my 30 days, 30 illustrations. I didn’t use something from every single day, as that would have been too crazy, and she is already pushing the boundaries of crazy as it is! But I did sneak in a LOT of different elements. If you didn’t understand my process for creating illustrations like this one already, maybe you will now as you can try and spot which day each little bit comes from….! I LOVE creating illustrations in this way, especially when I have so many elements / new drawings to work with… however, it also puts you in an endless cycle of decisions in Photoshop. I ended up with 5 final versions, and let it be told that I for sure could have created at least 5 more. I might still publish my second favourite one out of the final options, but for now this is it:

You can read the intro to my 30 days, 30 illustrations challenge here. 

See more of my work on my Instagram and Facebook.
Holly
x
www.hollysharpe.com
twitter: @hollysharpe

 

Day 29 of 30 days, 30 illustrations

Day 29: Black Coffee

The best way to start a Monday… and every other day!

You can read the intro to my 30 days, 30 illustrations challenge here. 

See more of my work on my Instagram and Facebook.
Holly
x
www.hollysharpe.com
twitter: @hollysharpe

Day 28 of 30 days, 30 illustrations

Day 28: Flowers from a friend

Created with pencil, pen, and watercolour

You can read the intro to my 30 days, 30 illustrations challenge here. 

See more of my work on my Instagram and Facebook.
Holly
x
www.hollysharpe.com
twitter: @hollysharpe

Day 27 of 30 days, 30 illustrations

Day 27: Green space

Today I wanted to draw one of my many house plants. This is one of my more recent additions to my ever growing indoor green space, and is definitely one of my favourites. It is also in a little pot that I painted. I realised that all my illustrations so far have had colour in them, and although in most of them I have used pencil to create them, it has usually been combined with watercolour or ink. So, I wanted to leave this one as as pencil drawing, no colour.

Illustration created with pencil.

You can read the intro to my 30 days, 30 illustrations challenge here. 

See more of my work on my Instagram and Facebook.
Holly
x
www.hollysharpe.com
twitter: @hollysharpe

 

 

Day 26 of 30 days, 30 illustrations

Day 26: Swim II

I talked about my love of swimming and being in water in my last post here. So I felt inspired to create another underwater themed illustration. Sadly I am not usually swimming with tropical fish, but I have been lucky enough to go snorkelling and scuba diving a couple of times years ago and wanted to try and capture the beauty and vivid colours in these phenomenal creatures. Still hoping I’ll get to swim in the Great Barrier Reef one day!

Thanks again for following my 30 days, 30 illustrations!

You can see more of my work and what I do on Instagram and Facebook. 

Holly
x
www.hollysharpe.com

Day 25 of 30 days, 30 illustrations

Day 25: Swim

I feel really grateful that my parents got me and my siblings all swimming lessons when we were kids. Since neither of my parents are great swimmers, it was a big priority for them to make sure we could all swim. At the time, I am sure there were times when I would rather be doing something else, but now I am so glad we didn’t. It is like riding a bike, once you have been taught to swim properly, and then practiced it A LOT, you never really lose it. What you do lose is stamina… I don’t swim as much as I would like to now, but when I do I love it so much. I realised recently that I actually find it very meditative as I am usually focusing on counting breaths, lanes, strokes, so much so that I feel like the whole time I don’t think I am actually thinking about anything else! There is something so tranquil about gliding through water, feeling fresh, energised, and like you are physically, and possibly mentally, lighter.

“We lose ourselves in the things we love, we find ourselves there too” – Kristin Martz

‘Swim’ illustration created with pencil and watercolour.

You can see more of my work on my Instagram and Facebook. 
Read my intro to my 30 days, 30 illustrations challenge here. 

Holly
x
www.hollysharpe.com

Day 24 of 30 days, 30 illustrations

Day 24: Black lines.

I have worn liquid eyeliner for years now, and regular pencil eyeliner for even longer. A lot of my girl illustrations wear it too! So today I thought I would indulge in drawing some lovely eyes with different liquid eye liner styles….  Illustration created with pencil, pen and watercolour.

You can see more of my work on Instagram and Facebook. 
Only 6 days left of my 30 days, 30 illustrations challenge! 

Holly
x
www.hollysharpe.com
twitter: @hollysharpe

Day 23 of 30 days, 30 illustrations

Day 23: Studio tools

It’s day 23 and I decided to illustrate more of the tools I use in my studio! On day 9 I illustrated another of my favourite mediums which you can see here.
I created this illustration with pencil and watercolour.

You can see more of my work on Instagram and Facebook.
Thanks again for following my 30 days, 30 illustrations challenge!!
Holly
x
www.hollysharpe.com

Day 22 of 30 days, 30 illustrations

Day 22: Masculinity

I don’t want to say too much about my ideas behind this illustration, as I hope it will speak for itself. And although a very complicated and intricate topic, I hope it will be interpreted in different ways by different people.

The subject I wanted to explore in this illustration is men in our society, what it means to be a man today, how we (our society) has shaped them, put pressure on them, and in many cases left them behind. Yes, there is a much greater awareness of mental health in general these days, but, when suicide is THE highest cause of death in young men, we have a HUGE problem. Granted, no one has an exact explanation for this, but my theory is quite simple: men, typically, do not talk about their feelings, emotions, and problems, any where near as much as women, if at all. The age old ‘boys don’t cry’ has gotten completely out of hand, and has left in its trail an extremely bitter taste. Then add on top decades of pressure to act a certain way, suppress a load of stuff, and ‘rise to the top’. A toxic concoction which can (sometimes) result in breakdowns, violence, and unhealthy levels of anger and aggression as well as lead to (some) men growing up to be unhappy and frankly, a bit lost.

Two great books, exploring issues of this sort are:

‘How Not To Be a Boy’, by Robert Webb and ‘The Descent of Man’ by Grayson Perry

Both books explore, analyse, and explain, these complex issues better than I could, so instead I did this….

(You can see a bigger version of this illustration here)

You can read the intro to my 30 days, 30 illustrations challenge and some of my ideas behind it here. 

And if you would like to see more of my art and illustration work you can follow my Instagram and Facebook. 

Thanks again for following my blog,
Holly
x
www.hollysharpe.com

 

Day 21 of 30 days, 30 illustrations

Day 21: Rejuvenate

Sundays are a good day to slow down and recuperate. That means something different to me from day to day, week to week. Sometimes it is seeing friends that rejuvenates me, or maybe it’s a long bath, or reading a book, watching a film etc. And sometimes I like to pamper myself with a little Lush face mask! This one is super fresh and minty and acts like an exfoliating face scrub when you wash it off.

I hope you have had a relaxing Sunday and make time to catch up with yourself and what you need before the start of another week!

Thanks for following my 30 days, 30 illustrations challenge! 
You can see more of my work on my Instagram and Facebook.
Holly
x
www.hollysharpe.com