By Kelsey Hamersley. Sharpie and watercolor. April 2013.

Quick gesture drawing, by Kelsey Hamersley. Pen. February 2013.

That’s my mom on the left. (Her legs came out too skinny, but I don’t think she’ll mind. :P) I drew this while she was waiting in line at the gas station. It makes for a fun challenge, drawing under a short time frame.

By Kelsey Hamersley. Graphite pencil. November 2012.

The same house I painted in watercolor back in October.

Castle by Kelsey Hamersley. Acrylic. September 2011.

I’ve posted a picture of this before, but finally took a better one, sans the frame.

By Kelsey Hamersley. Watercolor. October 2012.

Yaquina Head Lighthouse by Kelsey Hamersley. Watercolor. July 2012.

By Kelsey Hamersley. Graphite. August, 2011.

By Kelsey Hamersley. Watercolor. May, 2012.

By Kelsey Hamersley. Pen & ink and watercolor. March, 2012.

Another study for East of the Sun and West of the Moon, a continuation of this one, after I realized that in the intro it would have been storming. It was very fun to take the same scene (though I edited somewhat) and give it a different time in the day and different weather—just seeing how it changed the mood. This one’s a little too scary for what I was going for, but a good start. Here’s the quote I wrote below the painting, taken from The Blue Fairy Book’s version of the tale:

“So one day—‘twas on a Thursday evening late at the fall of the year—the weather was so wild and rough outside, and it was so cruelly dark, and rain fell and wind blew, till the walls of the cottage shook again—there they all sat round the fire busy with this thing and that.”

By Kelsey Hamersley. Pen & ink and watercolor. March, 2012.

This was a study for the fairy tale I’m currently working on illustrating, East of the Sun and West of the Moon—the cottage the tale’s heroine lives in with her family. I was definitely inspired by all of the concept art I’ve been seeing lately, books like “The Art of Tangled” and “The Art of The Secret World of Arietty”.