The Tale of the Christmas Log

Hello!

Incase you missed it... here is a little festive tale I shared with my followers on Instagram and Facebook on Christmas Eve. For a while, I've wondered about how I can share some of the funny stories from my childhood - there are so many!

Actually drawing myself and (two of) my siblings was a first step here... the thought of drawing us was intimidating for some reason, but I'm happy with how they came out.

I drew the pictures by hand, in my sketchbook, then added colour on Autodesk Sketchbook on the iPad. It was very fun to illustrate - I hope you enjoy it too!

Drawing Mums - Spot Illustrations for The Mumsition

Hello!

It's been a little while since The Mumsition got published (back in June) and I hadn't yet shared some of my illustrations from it. I thought I'd also show some photos of the finished book and some of my original rough drawings to share some of the process - I always find it interesting to see those on other illustrators' blogs!

The Mumsition is written by Isabel Mohan, Katie Massie-Taylor and Sarah Hesz - the creators of Mush. If you don't know what Mush is, it's an app where mums can meet other mums. Mush also share very amusing content about parenthood on their instagram (@mushmums) too.

Their content is written with a definite sense of humour and the book was too, so I was delighted to be asked to create the spot illustrations, giving my humorous touch to lots of different mums and scenarios. It was published by Piatkus, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group. Search for The Mumsition on your preferred book buying place to get a copy!

There are twenty-one of my drawings in total in the book, so here are just a few...

It has always been a dream for me to illustrate books - and something I'd wanted for a very long time. I'm illustrating another book at the moment, which I'm super-excited about! So I can't wait to show you that, but actually I will, because it's not going to be published until March.

Getting back to my original point... I was therefore a very happy lady when my copies came through the post, so here are some photos of my drawings in their final habitat...

'The first six weeks - When everything is bonkers...'

Mother and Baby Yoga

About to pop!

Taking baby out for dinner

Here are some pictures of my rough drawings both in pencil - and then in ink as I started to draw the final artwork. I think it's nice to see the process sometimes, as it's a reminder of the work that goes into the finished thing before it gets seen. When you're starting out (or even after years of experience), it can be easy to forget about that part when you see lovely finished pieces on Instagram, or in a book or gallery.

Pencil roughs stage

Drawing the final artwork

Thankyou for swinging by my blog! If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you might have seen that I've recently been working on a Sheffield colouring book! It officially launched last week, so I will be sharing a post about that soon, again with some photos of the process. In the mean time, you can take a look at it on my Etsy shop.

Bye for now! :)

Sheffield Creative Guild Collage Workshop

On the 22nd June, it was Sheffield Creative Guild's second birthday party - at Yellow Arch Studios in Kelham Island - and I was asked to set up a workshop activity at the same time as having my stall.

I had been thinking about this idea for a while, so it was a great excuse to materialise the idea and give me a starting point for future workshops. Keeping it related to my collection of architectural prints, I knew I wanted to make use of the brick patterns I draw, different house features I like to spot and my enthusiasm for different coloured papers.

I designed various patterns for the collage workshop, as well as printing my black line drawings on to coloured papers. I went out and took photos of bricks and drew different types of doors and windows. I brought along a section of textured papers and card too, making use of a hoard I've stored over the years of bits that were 'too nice to throw away'.

It was so nice to see the variety of styles in the way people put together the textures and images and I received some really good feedback. I was told it was a good activity for an event where people go alone - it made it easy for them to chat to people while making something. Another person said she loved how self explanatory it was - it was very free and social, with no right or wrong ways.

Here are some of the wonderfully unique results that came out of the session...

My Sketchbook Diary, Week 21 - featuring Karen O, lollipops and broken chairs

As the last straggler bits got sold and collected from Ebay, I prepared myself for a mad month coming up. With three London trips over the next month, the first would be for All Points East festival! I loved watching LCD Soundsystem, Soulwax and taking a trip down memory lane with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. It was sweltering hot weather and poor Lee had to put up with me verbally expressing my exhaustion and aching feet as we walked for what felt like miles, before realising we had left the tickets behind! I insisted I needed a lolly on Sunday before we drove back from sweaty London.

My Sketchbook Diary, Week 20 - featuring strange eating habits, unusual instruments & pink jackets!

It was royal wedding week! Ooh, I love a good royal wedding. I set up camp with my blanket on the sofa, wore red and blue and had a little party for one. We went to an uber-controversial Radio 3 gig this week at the Picturehouse Social Club. The artists handed out sheets of words to everyone in the audience and got us all to shout the words at random to take part in the art. It tickled me. I also welcomed into my life my new pink jacket! It's super bright and super cool! I will add a picture below of the moment I tried on said jacket... and you can see how cool I look.

All the naughty foods!

I thought I would share some food illustration I've been working on recently. As you might already know, I have been drawing what I eat for a while now and I made a cookbook zine last year. I want to illustrate more food commercially, for magazines or publishing, particularly because I am so passionate about the subject. Books and magazines about food are my favourite types to read (yep, I even like to read cook books in bed). I know my black and white food drawings don't look super edible, so I'm taking some time to add more colourful dishes to my portfolio.

I've got lots of ideas for other projects I could do from this... but for now, I'll just keep it simple and say 'so here's a load of dirty food I've eaten lately'! I'll try to make my next food post a healthy one!