Laura Mallaghan Illustration

I find the mute swan the most majestic bird in the lake, pure white feather, vibrant orange-yellow beak and absolute black to detail the face.   Navy and white combination looks very elegantly modern like you actually see them in the lake, with navy as water. I was inspired to paint white onto the navy when my sister painted her bedroom wall, with some paint left in the pot I used it for my painting. I painted on a few papers filled whole, stared the blank navy, visualising on what to paint on, came up with an idea of having white, as any white birds and white flowers. The mute swan was the first in my mind to paint. Even though I used acrylic paint, it takes layers to solidified, especially the white paint, as the navy showed through. For instance, you can see from the picture I started to paint that navy show through white. I thought the outcome of acrylic paint will look rough because of how thin the paint is, as layering over it does leave some texture marks. But turned out it ...

I do cherish all sort of wildflowers we have here, by my garden and even down the countryside field. I enjoy taking some photos of wildflowers, as well as the garden-planted flowers, that they're either vibrant, interesting and pretty. They do inspire me to draw and paint, including this watercolour paints. I replica it from the photos I took from my home garden. They haven't bloomed in my garden yet, by the way, however, there are some buds so that means they will quite soon, maybe next week. Yay. Have a nice day. 

It's Good Friday today! And good weather here with 22C and sunshine. I'm waiting for Easter Sunday so that I'll have some Easter chocolate eggs and devour it. On behalf of all the rabbits, I want to make awareness about rabbits at Easter time, rabbits are 10 to 12 years commitment, not as Easter gift! People buy them for their children as Easter gift, without researches, thinking about finances, commit to having them for their whole life, they'll end up abandon in a few months. Young children will get bored with them eventually, even they weren't begging to have one. The vet bill is expensive from such a small, delicate creature. They're high maintenance so they're not great "starter" pet. They require a large space to entertain themselves outdoor and lives indoor, but shut in the hutch outdoor, mostly being forgotten. When people gave them up, they dumped them in street thinking they can survive out there like the wild rabbits. There a...

The Milkweed butterfly, also in another name of the Monarch butterfly, inspired me when I watched BBC's Spy in the Wild Series 2 in February. In episode 2 "The North", in this scene located the mountain in West Mexico, with the Spy Hummingbird capturing the place that's considered the world's most beautiful natural gathering, where the Monarch butterflies hibernated during the winter. It was Spring, the Spy hummingbird flying around millions of butterflies resting on the oyamel fir trees (I just looked it up of what kind of tree because I can't remember what it was, hehe). When the sunshine on them, warmed their delicate wings, then started to fly. And when they fly, it was absolutely spectacular, all orange and flow through the trees. I imagined myself in there, underneath them and watching them as they migrate to North. I felt calm and delight thinking about it, it was awe-inspiring. Being called the Milkweed butterfly is because they feed on ...

It's another bank holiday Monday this month, today it's Spring bank holiday. The weather today is slightly warm but cloudy, barely any sunshine. Even yesterday was scorching and Saturday was nice, although were expected to be thurderstorm in the day time for whole weekend but it didn't, can't really predict the weather. Anyway, today I did some waterpaint on Pansies, one of my absolute favourite flowers. I have so many of them in the garden, I took some pictures in sunshine to admire them, that's when I got inspired to do illustration on my spare time. These are the photos I took in beautiful weather. I waterpainted each of these pansies from the photos on here. So here are the pansies watercolour illustrations, when the sun was finally out! I actually really enjoyed doing them, and am thrilled by how they're looks, i'm impressive with myself and my waterpaint skill.  Have a love...