(Below: the final water colour painting, my pencil sketch and my son’s original drawing.)

Here we go again! The subject for the second instalment of the “stealing my son’s ideas” project is (obviously) penguins!

I liked the simplicity of his original sketch but felt it necessary to add a couple of other penguins to make my version more dynamic. The bright colours came about after I did some painting tests and discovered that black and white penguins just looked too flat.

I’m not 100% happy with this one. Maybe doing it as a portrait like the original drawing would have ultimately been more satisfying. Live and learn!

“The Fox” – digital image created using Procreate on iPad

This is a digital sketch of the next painting in the “My Son’s Drawings” project (that began with the Mammoth earlier this month). When I was plotting it out in pencil I felt that there was a need to per-visualize some of the colours to really get the mood of the piece.

The way I work with watercolour (taught to me in high school by the amazing photo-realist Barry Oretzsky) presents some challenges. If I’m not sure what colour I want to use for a particular part of the painting it can get messy. I have to start with a light colour and then build on top of that to get the final deeper colour. As a result it’s very hard to reverse course (you can’t just paint over it and start again like you can with acrylic or oil paint). Therefore, figuring out what colours to use beforehand is a good idea.

“Collecting the Pieces” ~ Water colour and ink with digital enhancement (stars)

Here’s another test painting from “Hervig Muldoon Hated the Moon“. This image follows not too long after the image I posted of these two a few weeks ago. I’d say they’ve got their work cut out for them!

(Below: the final painting, my pencil sketch and my son’s original drawing.)

I then realized that I have a great archive of creative ideas in the form of my son (who is a much more intuitive and natural artist than myself).

So here’s the first selection from his many sketchbooks. I thought I’d start with something simple. (And incorrect by the way. It seemed obvious to me that this was a sketch of a mammoth staring into a hole but the artist himself tells me that it is, in fact, an attempt to design a logo for one of his gamer profiles.)

Continuing my mission to get my art out in front of the masses I’ve create a new punningly named instagram account called Artifischercolour. There, I’ve been posting images from my children’s books in progress and some art from my past that you can currently find on this website.

Looking at the account name I bet I know what you’re thinking – a ‘C’ in Fischer?! A “U” in colour!? Well, my surname is what it is but as for ‘colour’, I’m a Canadian and, by gosh, we have to distinguish ourselves somehow! For instance, I grew up with “… x, y and zed“, an appreciation for maple syrup and a mandate to spell words in the British way! So, as a Canadian wordsmith and anglophile l have an imperative to include ‘U’s in words that Americans would simply spell with “or” (colour, flavour, humour neighbour!)

At this early stage my follower count is pretty low so if you’re interested in seeing some more of my art, I beseech you to please head over to instagram, visit Artifischercolour and follow me as I venture into unknown territory!

“Let’s Do This!” ~ Water colour painting with digital enhancement.

Since my last update a year and a half ago (in which I claimed I’d be updating this site more often… sorry!) I’ve been working on trying to create my own children’s book. I got advice from someone who works in publishing that making my art available online is a necessity!

So to kick things off I present a test illustration from “Hervig Muldoon Hated the Moon” in which we see our heroes Hervig and Max collecting some of the things that they will need to save the world!

Obviously, this is the beginning of many more posts from me…

“Family Portrait” ~ Digital Drawing

Happy New Year! I haven’t posted anything in a long time and then I remembered that I’d done this drawing a little while ago using Procreate. Now that Madfatter Web Services is retired you can expect a little more action here at trevorfischer.com.

I did this illustration for my good friend, Meher Steinberg. He had just finished his solo album using the pseudonym “Parkdale Vigoda” and in addition to designing the CD sleeve I put together this poster to accompany various music and t-shirt bundles.

As a youth I was a comic book fan (still am but in a less dedicated fashion) and I had a great time recreating the look and feel of a Marvel comic from the 1970s. I incorporated the song titles into the image as graffiti and took some liberties in my portrayal of Parkdale (I’ve never come across a burning trash barrel in Meher’s neighbourhood).

Subsequently, I was gratified to see the poster up in the bathroom stairwell of a local bar, it’s not the Louvre, but you have to start somewhere.

The two faces of the Madfatter

During my days at the Ontario College of Art I painted this water colour image of a crazed character poisoning his dinner guests. Years later when I was learning how to work with Adobe Illustrator I decide to use the painting as the basis for an updated digital version. Somewhere in between there I came up with the character The Madfatter, who eventually came to encompass my on-line presence. A quick explanation of the origin of the name “Madfatter” can be found on my corporate website.

So when I needed a graphic for my company Madfatter Inc. it seemed obvious that this character was indeed the Madfatter himself. I skillfully separated his digital head from his digital body and then used him to adorn my business cards and add some pizazz to the original website. The current iteration of the website uses some brand new illustrations of this illustrious character but these two images here, are where it all began.

You can see full versions of the images below.

“After Dinner” ~ Watercolour on paper.

“After Dinner” ~ Adobe Illustrator Illustration.