Back on the Blog!

This blog has been quiet for too long! A mix of moving house, not having internet access and other excuses has meant a terrible gap between posting, but that is over now. One of the things I've been working on, and just just finished, is this website for my sister Sasha who is an artist, and who has owned her domain name for years without having anything to see there. And now she has. Next up is my own website, now that I've learned so much more about how to build them properly!

Queen of Hearts

I've been a terrible poster over the last few weeks, as I've been moving home. The internet connection is still to come, but I thought I'd pop on this illustration I did yesterday. I wanted to do a nice version of the usual playing card designs, which when you look closely at them, are really quite ugly! And of course the romantic in me chose the Queen of Hearts as the one to do!

They Draw & Cook

Have you come across the website/project They Draw & Cook? It's a brilliant idea, set up by brother and sister designers, and the idea is that people contribute a recipe that they've illustrated however they like, and perhaps one day they'll be made into a book. I sent in a recipe a few weeks ago and the other day it got to the top of the list and was posted! Click here for a larger version.

Hair Slide How To

My most recent DIY project for the wonderful Small magazine blog is up (and in fact has been up for a while, I've been somewhat lax) here.

Yogarama

A friend is about to start teaching yoga classes to pregnant women (pre and post birth), and asked me to design a logo...

Book By Its Cover

I've been wanting to try and design a few book covers for my portfolio, here are my first two, both books I have at home (trying to conjure up some sunshine)...

Rosy

My latest pattern...

Looking Up

It's been a while since I've posted a picture for Illustration Friday, but I really liked the theme this week - star gazing - and thought I'd do a simple drawing for it...

Nice Cuppa

I'd love my illustrations to be used on packaging one day, so I thought I'd give it a go as a portfolio project. May I introduce my fictional tea range (not coming soon to a store near you)!

{click for a clearer view}

French Birds

A while ago I did a screenprinting workshop at work and this was the result (might be familiar to eagle-eyed visitors!).

Here are some brand new designs I've done along the same theme...

Birds and Bees

My - slightly belated - July craft project for Small magazine is up on their blog now. It's a little cardboard mobile that was really fun to make and illustrate, but very hard to photograph with all those characters swinging around all over the place!

Animated

I've been thinking about animating illustrations, so decided to give it a go in a very basic way, to use on the homepage of my website. Pixar has nothing to fear as yet!!

News Agent

I've been very excited this week about having just signed up with the great illustration agency Lemonade Illustration. My portfolio isn't on their website yet, but I thought I'd share a few of the illustrators represented by them that I particularly like...

Oscar Armelles

Neil Rook

Céline Malépart

David Pintor

All images via Lemonade

Another Cuppa

I'm pattern-crazy and really enjoying doing them! Here are tea cups, and I have my sights set on fairy cakes next.

Three, Two, One

Hmmm, the days of posting an illustration every day seem very distant... but in the interest of more frequent blogging, here's a new pattern to kick start things!!

Summer Sale

Seeing as all the shops are having crazy summer sales, I thought I would do the same. So, for the rest of July there's 25% off everything in my Etsy shop. If you've had your eye on any of my dolls, bears or ltd edition prints, now's the time to buy!  Also, I'm planning to stock up with some new items next month, so watch this space...

BFG

This week's Illustration Friday theme is Giant. This is the first time I've had something relevant that I'd already done - one I prepared earlier in true Blue Peter fashion! This big friendly giant is one of a series of illustrations that go with some brilliant children's poems that a friend has written...

Pushing The Envelope

Have you heard of Envelop? It's an online shop where illustrators/designers can upload designs that can then be bought by the public and printed on demand onto cushions, tote bags, aprons and more. There are all sorts of cool designs on there. I've been meaning to try it out for ages, and have got my first cushion design up now.

Birdie

This is a papier mâché bird I made last week for my sister's birthday. Except the paste took so long to dry that it was a very belated extra present in the end. Her reaction was "comedy". I'm thinking of making more!

Tea Towels

The other week a friend of my sister's got in touch asking if I'd design a logo/business card/comp slip for her brand new business. It's called Joan and Joseph, and prints lovely tea towels which are available for sale here. I was thrilled to be asked and am really pleased with the design she picked...

Tin Pot Project

My latest DIY project for Small Magazine is up on their blog, here's a picture of the result and you can see the steps to get there here... (they also recently had a new issue out which is very lovely to flick through).

The tins are covered with wrapping paper, and the yellow design is by a folk-art designer whose work I really love - Sanna Annukka.

Make A Wish

Here's another pattern, some friendly candles. It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago and my friends got hold of some candles from America which are all different colours and each flame burns the same colour as the wax, they're like magic!! These ones are a bit more standard (well, except the fact they've got faces of course).

Unseasonal

Here are yet more Christmas card designs, this time for Tigerprint's latest competition which is for e-cards that can be personalised online. Seeing as my designs weren't picked for the last competition I did, I've reworked a couple of them for this one as they fit in perfectly with the typography theme...

Pretty Pattern

This week's Illustration Friday theme is paisley. I've been meaning to learn how to make a pattern in Photoshop so this was the perfect chance... More patterns to come no doubt!

Ripple Effect

This week's Illustration Friday theme is 'Ripple'. Seeing as it's summer I thought I'd go for the ice cream topping sense of the word!

Poetic License

I've been illustrating some poems for a friend as part of a top-secret project, the nature of which means that these two (a couple of my favourites) might seem a bit bizarre out of context but maybe you can make up your own...!

Breadcrumb Trail

I haven't taken part in Illustration Friday for quite a while, and this week's theme - Trail - stumped me for a while until I thought of the breadcrumb trail Hansel & Gretel leave...

Christmas Cards

This is very seasonally-inappropriate, but I've just entered a Christmas card design competition held by the London Design Festival and the Victoria & Albert Museum with these two entries. The brief was completely open except the colours had to be just red, black and white...