When in Venice...

A couple of years ago a friend bought one of my bears as a present for her boyfriend. They call him 'beeb' (after my old label), and he's really become one of the family. So much so that they took him on holiday to Venice last year. And it sounds like the three of them had quite an adventure... I'll let these lovely photos speak for themselves...

Affordable Art Fair

Every year I'm surprised when the Affordable Art Fair comes round... where does time go? Last night was the late opening and, as is now tradition, here are some of my favourites (click on the images for website links):

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Birthday Season

My friends have started turning thirty this year... eeekk! Gold leaf seems only right for such an important occasion...

Bookshelf

I've gone reading crazy over the last couple of months. Here are the books I've read and loved recently, I'd wholeheartedly recommend all of them:

Bleu Blanc Rouge

Three new french-inspired card designs...

And finally...

...the last three pictures in the series started below...

Hearts and flowers

Hmmm, not as romantic a post as the title might suggest, but here are another couple in the same series as the horse below...

Wooden Horse

I've been working on a new series of pictures, using black painted outlines and bright, slightly offset colours. They might be destined for cards or prints... not sure yet, but here's one of them, a Dala horse:

Baby Bird

This papercut was commissioned to celebrate a new baby - and has just winged its way to Australia where the eponymous Minnie lives! It's the first time I've used gold leaf on this kind of papercut, and I like the way it turned out, always nice to add a bit of glitz!

Retro Kit[chen]

Pick Up Line

Last week I went to Pick Me Up at Somerset House. I'd been a few years ago and wasn't overwhelmed by it, but someone at work strongly recommended it and I was so glad I gave it another chance. It was really inspiring, lots of designers and illustrators I hadn't come across before, and a really buzzy atmosphere. Here are some of my faves:

Daniel Clarke

Frann Preston-Gannon

Jean Julien

Maggie Li

Rhona Garvin

Seb Lester

Daniel Frost

Aardvark On Sea

Superboy!

Thought I'd share a new illustration I did today (quite embarrassingly I have a pair of pyjamas not dissimilar to these... although mine didn't come with a cape):

A Couple of Patterns...

The Skinny

Last month I had a great commission to illustrate an article in Slimming World magazine. Yesterday I was in the supermarket and thought I'd check to see if the new issue was out yet... and it is, so very excitedly bought it, et voilà:

Chilly Chick

Post Secret

Earlier this week I popped along to the RCA Secret exhibition - where the Royal College of Art ask lots of students and artists (some very famous) to make a piece of work on a postcard, and they're all sold for £45, and you only find out once you've bought one who created it. I think it's a great idea, and here are some of my favourites out of a whopping 2,700 on display):

Rolling Out The Red Carpet

A few months ago I did some illustrations of some of the Oscar dresses from last year, and then suddenly the 2013 Oscars came around, and I thought I'd do the same again... (prizes for anyone who can guess all the actresses!!) (well, not prizes, but glory).

Final(ly) Cut

This has been a long time coming... but I've finally stocked my online shop with my latest papercuts - the tile ones (see below), and these wordy ones. A couple of the quotes are from Einstein (which surprised me when I found them - I'd always assumed Einstein quotes would be sciency and unintelligible, but it turns out many of them are just lovely).

Stand and deliver

I've been working on some new illustrations for my agency Lemonade to use on their stand at the Bologna Children's Book Fair in March. Here's a preview!

Papercut preview

As mentioned in my last post, I've been working on some new tile-inspired papercuts. Here is my first batch, which will be on sale in my shop soon...