The Rockfords project is based around...
...the children of a family of rocks who get up to all kinds of mischievous and experimental adventures to pass the time of day.
These little guys came about after I saw the work of an artist on Instagram who sketched and painted large boulders balancing on each other, which were all held together with a small stone or rock.
I really liked the looks of his work, and as I am always up for trying out new things with my art supplies, I tried a couple of rock sketches myself.
I sat for a short while on the patio, in the sunshine, thinking about how I could incorporate the inspiration from the 'rock artist' and combine it with the little rock character running around inside my head.
I thought about the balancing acts and the small stones propping up huge boulders that I had seen, and somehow my mind wandered into the realms of 'physics'.
This is when I created my first little rock sketch, where the swing is held together by a huge counterbalance rock on the end of a tree trunk. As you can see in the sketch, there is a bit of balancing and propping going on.
Needless to say, as a complete beginner to drawing and painting rocks, they didn't amount to much, but when looking at my humble efforts, I saw a face in one of my boulders, and that was when my imagination was fired up.
It was this rock 'kissing' the small rock, that sparked the idea of turning them into characters.
The theme of physics combined with a playful rock was the way I wanted to carry on this project; however, one small lonely rock wasn't enough for some of the ideas I had planned, so I created some extra rocks in order for my scenes to work.
Coming up with the name of the project was a foregone conclusion:The Rockfords' were born.
I wasn't very good in physics at school, but I think this would work.
When sketching for this project I follow a more methodical approach.
I begin by penciling some rough sketches of my ideas in a cheap sketchbook, playing around with the character's body positions, the 'props' that they use, and the overall composition.
Once I'm satisfied with the sketch, I move on to drawing the scene with pencil in my 20cm x 20cm sketchbook, which I use solely for this project and my Rocksville project too. After that, I add ink to further enhance the lines and bring more definition to the artwork.
Finally, I apply the paint, which adds depth and brings my idea and the scene to life. This meticulous process allows me to create what I would term more an 'illustration' as opposed to one of my everyday loose and carefree sketches, where I normally start with ink or paint.