Finding the Gruffalo and Stickman

I love Christmas and it’s a great opportunity to experiment with different types of painting. In this instance I knew that my two granddaughters loved the Stickman and the Gruffalo and I wanted to give them a very personal gift that they could keep forever. The results of my efforts are shown here and I’m actually quite pleased with the results.

Both paintings only took a couple of hours to produce and measure around 10 x 8 inches and are painted in acrylic. These paintings are not for sale, not even as prints. Notwithstanding the obvious copyright issues I would certainly encounter I think it would make these paintings much less special if I tried to profit from them. I want my granddaughters to know, in the future, that they have something very special from me. Their reactions when they opened their gifts seemed to indicate that I’m on the right track!

I rather enjoyed painting these and I am now inspired to think about illustrating my own books. I already write books for my grandchildren, again as personal gifts and not for publication, but I illustrate the books using photographs from my travels and adventures. I’m now going to think about how I might create a new character, or family of characters, that I can bring to life in my paintings and my books. This will undoubtedly add a whole new dimension to my artwork but should be a lot of fun.