Turkey Leftovers

Well it's been a few weeks now since my MA show finished and I've been keeping very busy... I've been back into uni to chat to degree students about their projects and I also did a talk at Barnsley College - 10 years after leaving - that was a lovely experience!

I've been brainstorming some ideas and planning pages for some new portfolio work but was struggling to get going on the actual drawings, feeling slightly rusty after not doing as much drawing the last few weeks. So I looked to see what the theme was on Daily Doodle... I got rather into this warm up exercise and I've exercised my odd brain as well as my right hand. Hooray!

MA show starts!

I thought I'd share a few pictures from some of my MA work. I have written and illustrated a book called Put Your Feet Up. The show starts tomorrow and I am one very exhausted lady right now! So I will share just a few, go get in my pyjamas, eat something... and will post more about the work I've been doing very very soon.

Daily Doodle - Veruca Salt

Yesterday I discovered Daily_doodle on twitter - they tweet daily something to illustrate and share what people have drawn. How exciting! So this is my first go:

You can find my twitter here, do please follow me!

trying to find a balance

This only really captures a small amount of what I've been up to lately. In the last year I've become a homeowner, gardener (learning), swimmer (recreational) and part time very healthy eater. As well as the things I was already - greetings card designer, MA student, Auntie, sister, daughter, daydreamer. Busy but fun!

Book sneaky peek

I haven't really posted much of the book I've been working on for my MA, so there's lots to come yet... Here's a couple of pictures I've shared on my facebook and twitter today.

New designs in Waitrose!

Oh dear, my poor little blog has been so deserted lately... I should draw a tumbleweed :( It's not because I've been doing nothing though.. it's the opposite. I will back this up with visual evidence as soon as I can.

In the meantime... these are a couple of my designs I illustrated at Hallmark for Waitrose. They have come into store recently and I've just received the samples. Hooray!!!

Printing in the garden

The other day was the first hot sunny day I've been in my new house and free to bond with my garden (I didn't have a garden for 5 years before this!)... So I did some printing! I've got some ideas in mind for how I'll use the textures... watch this space!

Dr Sketchy Sheffield

Here are some of my drawings from Saturday's Dr Sketchy in Sheffield - tattoo special! I used to go life drawing a lot but since I've had a mega busy couple of years with work/studying/general life I hadn't been for a while! Felt lovely to do some again :)

A dog and a bone

Thought I'd finally put up some little scenes I've been working on for my children's book portfolio. It's just a small project - a story in three pictures - to see what feedback I get from my agent.
I've drawn by hand and then coloured digitally, using scanned textures I've either painted/scribbled/made/found etc! I've sent them off to my agent so will wait to see what I hear, eek!

Illustration Friday 'Twisted'

My response to Illustration Friday's Twisted theme!

Meow

Thought I'd show a teeny preview of what I've been working on today.

This is just a tiny portion of it but I didn't feel ready to share the whole thing with the world yet!

Illustration Friday 'Prehistoric'

After tidying up the whirlwind mess I'd created working on my dummy book before going to Berlin for the week, I didn't know where to start with the amount of different things I needed to do. So this wasn't on my list of things to do.. but I thought it'd be a good little warm up - a very quick response to this week's 'Prehistoric' theme on the Illustration Friday blog.

All I could think of was that feeling of doom at the start of a boring lesson at school.. when the teacher writes a bland title on the board. I usually got this feeling in science, but who know's what the end of this lady's sentence is... It could be a prehistoric science lesson. Eek :(

Wedding invitations

It's been nearly a year now since I posted my Save the Date designs for my lifelong friend Hannah and her James... and now it's just a week to the big day. So I thought I'd share the invitations I illustrated for them...