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!

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!

playing with sketchbook pro

I put Sketchbook-pro on my laptop the other day and have just been experimenting a bit with it... It's a lovely programme and oh my, the symmetry setting is very fun!!

Here's a pretty lady I drew. It was only a quick 2 minute thing while I was trying it out...

Other things I've been doing over the last week...

Finally getting my head around Twitter

Designing Christmas cards and crackers and some logo design

Went to Zero2Illo conference in Nottingham and met lots of fellow Illustrators

Making 'vegetable surprise' - being creative with empty cupboards

(you can add 'surprise' to the name of any dish and make it sound fabulous)

Research and brainstorming ideas for my MA coursework, I love a good brainstorm!

That's it!

A man and his pet elephant

Another piece I did for the opposites brief - finding a way to make contrasts with my passion for illustrating tiny, detailed things.

Close up detail

Experimenting

Here's some experimental work I've been doing recently. My MA tutor shared with me some of the briefs that get given to the first year Illustration students, so I could just do some exercises to loosen me up. For me, I want to keep doing this at the moment to keep experimenting with different media and finding out other ways to put my own spin on different ways of working.

This brief was 'opposites' - in black and white.

Close up

Near and Far

Generally being a bit messy with ink and a brush

(those funny people who can be far away one minute then very close the next)

Wet and Dry

Pastel for the man on dry land and Ink/Wash for the sea

(a little man who just wanted a bit of fresh air)