Peter Pan

Peter Pan, originally uploaded by James Gillespie.

That's right! Peter "Freaking" Pan. Pan the MAN!

The boy who never grew up. He is one of my favorite literary characters. Despite the extremely racist 1950's Disney animation, I still love this story, the book is even more incredible than any movie you've seen. J. M. Barrie really captures the immature, adventurous and mischievous nature of this amazing character. This is my favorite sketch of the bunch. I'll get on colouring these bad boys soon.

Tiger-Lily

Tiger-Lily, originally uploaded by James Gillespie.

Proud Tiger-Lily, I really like how she turned out. I think she looks really pretty but kind of irritated. Just like a teen girl should. One last character to some. I wonder if you can guess which one.

Tink

Tink, originally uploaded by James Gillespie.

The shiny little Faerie Tinkerbell

John and Micheal

John and Micheal, originally uploaded by James Gillespie.

The two brothers, in my world John does not go with a top hat or umbrella, he beats pirates to death with his bare hands.

Michel blinds them with cuteness and then bites their ankles. Not just pirates, he'll do that to anyone. He is a savage beast.

Wendybird

Wendy, originally uploaded by James Gillespie.

This is my representation of Wendy, I tried to keep her young looking but give a hint that she was so close to becoming a woman. I modernized her a bit by throwing her hair in front of her face which she would most likely not have been allowed to do in her time. But this is my vision of Peter Pan's characters, so I can do what I bloody like. I'm close to finishing the little paintings. It is more challenging than I expected but they are coming along. More sketches to come. Stay tuned.

Captain Hook

I posted about some small paintings I am working on. Here is the first of the original larger sketches the paintings are based on. I drew them in a beautiful James Jean sketchbook gifted to me by my good friend Adrian Shum. I picked up some mechanical pencils to go along with my sketchbook and it was the best decision I ever made. I mean the best decision other than marrying my wife. I don't know why I bother to write stuff like that, she doesn't even read my blog anyway. I guess cause she is just down-right awesome... more imaginary brownie points? That is not a rhetorical question, so leave your answers.

Back to Hook. This sketch turned out well as did all the others, I was on a roll that day. So the mechanical pencil I've been using is partially responsible for these images turning out. I have for years been carrying around a pencil sharpener and regular old pencils, I was a purist, no modern day doodads for yours truly. But the problem with pencil sharpeners is they dull and break your leads and regular pencils get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and so on, you get my drift. Needless to say I made the switch and I have not looked back.

I will post the rest of the original sketches over the next week. I may even colour them digitally to complement my oil painted mini versions. You never know. I hope that all you who enjoy my blog regularly, or if you don't keep returning for some masochistic reason are well.

Have a great weekend. Best of luck to all Canadian athletes at the Vancouver Olympics.

GO YOU GOOD THING!

Peter Pan Art Project

I am challenging myself to paint small. I have done some preliminary sketches of these characters from Peter Pan. I drew them up and them redrew them at a smaller size. Each of these drawings is about 2 inches by 2 inches and I intend to paint them in oil. They will all be contained inside of a single picture frame and the characters can be changed in and out for each other. Essentially it is a low tech computer desktop. Without the computer... what?