Leo Mitchell: Art & Illustration

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Guess which silly bugger got acrylic paint in her hair after her very large canvas fell on her head?😂

✨ SPARKLE✨

I’m so excited we got this. It’s going to make for a very whimsical and colourful month. Which, honestly, I think I’ll need to contrast against current events…

Our first letter prompt, starting with D! As usual I like to something match our prompt to the current occasion, in this case, Easter and my birthday. Not only do I find-out that my birthstone is the diamond, but my birth flower is the Daisy! Two D’s! Just had to make the diamond egg shaped, and voilà! I also contacted one of the local galleries and had this custom canvas shaped made. I’m actually pleased with myself for this. I’ve never painted a gemstone before, let alone a multi-coloured diamond. 

Though, I cant help but find it funny that my most elaborate piece yet is accompanied by my simplest egg - a blue duck egg.  

My first idea was going to be a diptych of the party and bunny dodos from ‘Ark: Survival Ascended’, before I learned about the diamond and daisy connection and ran with it. Maybe I’ll come back to them someday? 

I knew doing simple letter prompts would yield some amazing results from the group, just for the sheer variety it offered. Not only subjects everyone drew, but some even getting creative with the letter itself. Just look at them all!  I cant deny I was tickled-pink by my friend’s demented demon ducktator…

As for my baking, I did some simple Danishes. I’ll admit they’re not the prettiest, but I’ve heard no complaints about the taste. 😋

In all the excitement of the portrait gallery, the Easter display, etc. I’d forgotten to post March’s theme - Mountain! 

I always thought I’d do something based around mountain goats for this piece, but I felt an urge to try something new on canvas again. I discovered this method of creating mountains with a textured and regular acrylic paste! It was liberating to just let my palette knife do the work and not worry about detailed line-art. Especially since my chosen subject, the Rainbow mountain in Peru, complex in terms of structure - just its colours.

I discovered that when you mix acrylic paint with bicarbonate of soda, it creates this perfectly fine sandy/stony texture. Helping make the perfect little mountain egg. 

Everyone in the art group was amazing with this prompt. It’s hardly a surprise why mountains are often such a favoured topic for artists.  I suppose we were all in our element, in a way, even while trying somehting new. 

As seems to be custom I decided to bake something I around the them - ‘Rocky Mountain Cookies’. I doubled the amounts from what the recipe state and somehow ended-up baking 90 Cookies! Not that anyone was complaining: From my art group, neighbours, local kids, relatives and some of their friends - everyone all got some. To the point where they’re almost starting fights to get them before they run out! One friend compared them to Eris’s golden apple, or that I’m the baking equivalent of Walter White because of how addictive they were. Heh… Baking Bad.  

One of my pieces has been accepted into a local exhibition, opening with a celebration do on Saturday!  🎉 🎨 This is the first time I’ve ever had my work in a public gallery outside my art group. I can’t tell you how elated I feel because of all this!

🏔️ MOUNTAIN ⛰️ 

I can’t hide my excitement, this might be my best piece yet! Since this was for the month of Valentine’s, I was in the mood for something romantic. This one depicting a kiss scene from the 1955 BBC televised adaptation of ‘Othello’; Between actors Gordon Heath and Rosemary Harris.

With Othello in mind, I looked into television sets that were available in the UK at the time. Settling on a 1955 Bush TV53 14", painted on canvas, with the kiss scene done in pen & ink and glued-on later. I hadn’t presented a piece on canvas since my circles last year, so it was so fun to dive back into this. Especially now I’ve finally gotten my standing easel up and working again. Allowing myself to spend hours lost in the process ‘till my feet got sore. 

Last but not least, I didn’t expect to paint an egg this month. But sure enough, there was indeed a time where some companies made egg-shaped remotes. Usually when you search “egg remote” You get very different results… 

I’ll admit I half expected more pieces from everyone else to be fan-art, based around their favourite shows. Turns out a lot of us wanted to have the box as a main feature. Though, I do love how two of us chose to do on Bill & Ben the Flower Pot Men, of all programmes! You love to see it.  

For context around mine; You know how if you were to ask someone, especially any American, they’d say ‘Star Trek’ had the first interracial kiss on telly in 1968? This isn’t true. I knew the UK hospital drama, ‘Emergency Ward’, had Star Trek beaten by 4 years. However, I was determined to start digging for more examples. Turns out, the UK has even more examples going back further: including, but not limited to ‘You in Your Small Corner (1962)’ and ‘Armchair theatre - Hot Summer Night (1959)’. Down the rabbit hole I kept going ‘till I found Othello, 13 years before Star Trek. Not only that, but it was also the first televised version of the play to have a black actor in the lead, rather than a white actor in blackface. It would be another 40 years before a theatrical release would do the same. For instance, Sir Lawrence Olivier would minstrel-it-up on the silver screen only ten years later. 

Now, with a topic as sensitive as this, there did come some debates on what was truly the first, locally or globally. I’d gone through a few online articles arguing whether or not Lucille Ball kissing her real-life husband, Desi Arnaz, a Cuban-American man, in 1951 actually beat Othello. Mostly because there was a lot of debate, even as the time, around whether this counted as mixed-race or mixed nationality. I’ll admit I had a hard time coming to a conclusion myself, but I felt it was important to mention for the sake of transparency. 

📺 TELLY 🖥️

WHITE - Our first theme of the 2026. After narrowing-down my ideas, I wanted to try an ethereal-looking piece with a swan and white roses. Swans & Roses… Sounds like a British tribute band, doesn’t it?

At first, I felt bad I had nothing to upload for ‘Dragon Appreciation Day’, and this may be a day late, but when I came across this reel by lys_illustrator on insta, I just had to give it a go! ‘Paused on each part, saw what bits and pieces I was working with, and I had a vision! Next thing I know, me and my friend were chatting and coming-up with ideas and details about our dragon species while I sketched.

🤍 WHITE 🏳️

2025 ART SUMMARY

Another great year for art! I’m quite proud of how I’ve experimented with new styles and painting mediums. Including, but not limited to, my new hobby and love for wooden egg painting. ‘Feels like a huge new step in my art journey.

The art group’s monthly themes have certainly done wonders for that! Our themes this year being: January - ROMAN February - HORN March - BREAKFAST April - POOL May - CIRCLE June - SWEETS July - DANCE August - SHOP September - HARVEST October - EGG November - BUTTERFLY/MOTH December - WATER

I also feel myself going back to some of my favourite topics to let myself have fun with the process again. Take the pressure off myself for anything related to deadlines.  I still can’t get over how much of a buzz my Missing Targaryen Dragon Eggs created, becoming the topic of a Hallowed Harpy video!

Not to mention this was easily my best Inktober to date! I can’t wait to see what the New Year brings!

Which was your favourite piece from this year?