It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas now int it!

I shared one of these designs in the summer when I created them, but I thought it would be better to share the rest when everyone is in Christmas mode!

I'm rather ashamed of my lack of blog posts the last few months.. it's been a bit of a mental year indeed.. So here's to a happy Christmas, a slightly calmer 2014 and more stuff on my blog. Hooray!

It's been a while...

Warm up stretches

Thought I'd share a little warm up drawing I did this morning before starting my actual work! I do have to warm up with something unimportant sometimes...

Christmas Village

It's been a crazy time lately... As well as handing in my first practical module for my MA coursework, I've been busy developing my portfolio for my agent to show at PG Live and Surtex - exciting!!

Here is something I worked on last week. I actually did three different scenes in this style, but I'm not sure I should be filling up my blog with so much Christmas stuff really, since everybody is in summer mode. So I thought I'd share just one!

Baby went to Amsterdam

... Four, five days for the big canal

I haven't been to Amsterdam sadly, but I had Peter Bjorn and John's Amsterdam song stuck in my head a lot when drawing this!

Put on your dancing shoes...

I had a little break from Christmas and did some girly cards for my Bright portfolio! I like the cat shoes best.

Chistmas comes but many times a year...

...(for me it does).. Well Springtime is finally here (hooray!) but the weather has turned the last couple of days so I thought I might as well post up a couple of my most recent Christmas designs for my Bright portfolio!

The Daddy robin is decorating to surprise the Mum and babies when they wake  up...

party hat time

I might still make some changes to this but wanted to update on the last post with my party hats in colour!

little update

Can't believe it's been a month since my last blog post! I've been juggling a few different things really - work for my agent, my MA coursework and I've also been freelancing for UK Greetings. It's been nice to have a mix again of working in a studio and working at home!

Thought I'd share a piece I'm working on today for my Bright portfolio. Animals in hats!

Will add the colourful version when it's done...

Say No to Snow

It is my birthday on Wednesday and it WILL be springtime! Please show your support in any way you can!

Slightly crazy easter bunnies

I had really good fun this week illustrating these Easter designs for my Bright portfolio!

The big 100

I got my 100th follower on twitter this week!!

And then someone went and unfollowed me before I'd finished the drawing!

But it's fine... no offense taken!

Save the date!

I was very honoured to be asked to design a 'Save the date' card for my long time friend Hannah (look at her blog to see her lovely photography).

Hannah is my sister's best friend and has been in my life since I was too young to remember otherwise! And since getting engaged to James has made her pretty much the happiest person I know, I felt entrusted to put across their joy in this design! I've kept it simple though, to allow plenty of creative room for the official invitations!

happy sunday

Here's some milestone designs I've worked on this week for my Bright portfolio...

up & running

My profile has been set up with my new agents, Bright. Hooray!!

There's a few designs on there that I have developed for my Bright portfolio. More to come soon! Click on image to go to the page...

Oooh, it's all going on...

Hello!

Lots has been happening lately, I've had a really busy couple of weeks, not leaving the house much and working long days up in the attic! But today is an exciting day because I have signed and sent off my contract to join the Bright agency!! So in a way it feels like the hard work has paid off but of course, this is only the beginning...

Hopefully I'm going to be busy with lots of exciting things... Until I get commissions (and in between them) I will be doing speculative work that will be made available for licensing - and this work I'll be free to share with the world as I do it. So, I hope this blog will become a bit more interesting from now on!

Here are my first designs I have done for the agency this week, for Mother's Day and Christmas:

I was thinking of my own Mum when I thought up these Mother's Day designs. She is indeed my biggest fan and she's thrilled about me getting an agent! And also with the bag illustration... my Mum manages to fit all kinds of things into the tiniest bag! She also takes her own teabags everywhere, hence the little teabag in this bag!

Solid Walls of Sound

This weekend I worked on this piece - to submit to the Secret 7 competition.

Please vote if you like it!!! :)

http://www.talenthouse.com/creativeinvites/preview/aef80e1dd23ebeda8888e30bd495f38e/886 

Alice the hero

I haven't made a post in a little while because I've been having a busy time with uni work and I spent last week with the MA Design massive in Berlin, which was amazing! Saw lots of inspirational stuff - photos to follow!

In the mean time I thought I'd post up this little birthday drawing I did for my friend Alice who is studying with me. This drawing is of when we were on our team building trip in the wilderness and we all had to climb up a giant pole. Alice was the first up and stayed as cool as a cucumber while the rest of us laid an egg.

OCEAN in all it's glory!

Ta Daa!!!

I am so delighted that I've had lots of page views while I've been doing this, it's been very encouraging. I had the joy of discovering my boat could float and took some photos of my little man, in his boat, in the 'ocean'...

For now this was trying out an idea really. To develop this, I need to think about how I can create more of a sea for the boat... On the other hand, I did want to combine illustration with using everyday surroundings (like the bath) as props - just like I would have combined my imagination with things around the home when I was a child - like when playing with dolls in the bath for example. I'd like to take the boat out on location and photograph it in a pond setting!

I'm so glad I decided to share this with the world as I was doing it. If I hadn't have announced I was going to blog and tweet as I went, I might have given up at the toilet roll paper mache point!!!

Thankyou again - anyone reading this - for looking! :)

OCEAN just about finished!

Goodness me... Well I'm delighted I have got all the bits of my illustration finished and ready, I'm leaving the final coating of glue to dry overnight (I want the boat to be waterproof!) and can put my image together and photograph it in the daylight tomorrow!

Can't believe I got this silly little boat finished! It took hours and most of them were spent thinking 'what am I doing...'!

This is a little bit of it... Will post the finished result - including ocean.. - tomorrow! Hooray! I'm going to have some chocolate now.

OCEAN part way through...

Crikey. Well I think I underestimated how long this would take but the design has continued to develop in my has as I'm going along... So I said a one day project - it may be literally 24 hours yet!

I've stepped away from the paper mache for a late lunch. As a child I used to wonder why I loved watching Art Attack but never really tried to make any of the things on the programme. Now I am glad I didn't. That programme really was a little dishonest about paper mache. It takes forever!!! And that bit where Neil Buchanan would cover it in tissue at the end and it would magically make it all white and lovely and ready to paint, that has turned out to be the least fun and stickiest messiest bit so far! Really enjoy the bit with paper though, therapeutic and fun.

I'm spending ages constructing this little boat for my illustration even though it's only a part of it! But I like a challenge and am trying a new way of constructing an image.

Having great fun despite the rant about paper mache. Did feel reminded of how nice it feels to get PVA glue allover your hands then peel it off.

OCEAN - one day project

As some of you might know, I've been exploring creative boundaries recently and experimenting with ways to well, diminish them. One of the most common creativity stiflers (don't know if that's a word but it is now!) is fear of something not going right. So I've decided today that I'm going to do a little experiment to face the fear of doing something that might fail and it being public. Maybe some people always work like this but I'm fairly new to blogging and tweeting so I've never done this before. I'm going to blog as I respond to this week's word from Illustration Friday - Ocean. Wish me luck...

12.30 pm

I want there to be a little rowing boat involved.

I had an idea last night about ways to combine illustration with reality, the way I combined imagination with reality whilst playing as a child. I want to open out from how I normally work flat on paper/screen and start bringing in other elements and materials. So I thought the old Blue Peter toilet roll might be a good thing to start with..! This is all the rough plan I have.

My kind of maths

Some more sketchbook pages, from a little pocket sized sketchbook I also use... I found these mathematical diagrams which I thought could be fun to see what I could make them into!

Abracadabra

I've got my thinking cap on