52 Stories

This weekend it was my turn to take part in 52 Stories which is a fantastic project thought up by Cherry Hinton’s Spinney Primary School together with the surrounding libraries. The idea is that each and every Saturday for a whole year a different reader comes into libraries and reads stories to children. The readers can be anyone with a love of books and this Saturday it was my turn. I had great fun reading Ready, Steady, Ghost! by Elizabeth Baguley and Ping! by Chae Strathie and showing the children my original illustrations for the books. Afterwards the children did some drawing and created a character who was naughty, stripy and had red hair and wings – you can see a few of their brilliant drawings below. It was a lovely morning and I’d like to thank all those from Cherry Hinton Library and Spinney Primary who organised everything and made me feel so welcome!

This is a drawing I did after the session was finished, the idea was to leave something behind for the library to put up on the wall - it was rather fun collecting characters from different books and putting them together in one drawing, though I'm not sure if they'd really get on very well together... — This is a drawing I did after the session was finished, the idea was to leave something behind for the library to put up on the wall – it was rather fun collecting characters from different books and putting them together in one drawing, though I’m not sure if they’d really get on very well together…

April 20, 2015 0

I won!

I am absolutely thrilled to bits that my entry to the Make it in Design testimonials competition has won me a place on the next part of the course! My picture was created with water colour and I used a dip pen for the fine lettering. I loved doing the first module in the Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design course and it really has changed the way I look at the world, so it felt right to use bright spring colours to express that. My testimonial was one of two to have been chosen by course leader and design guru Rachael Taylor and fellow winner was Kevin Brackley who is no doubt feeling every bit as chuffed as I am!

April 10, 2015 2

Watercolour and FW ink love

I have been away from my studio recently and travelling light with just my tiny water colour set to keep me company. I had forgotten how lovely water colour is and how different it is to acrylic ink, which is what I use most of the time for illustrations. I love both mediums in different ways; FW inks are incredibly vivid and very versatile, but water colour has a beautiful quality to it. The colours are subtle and each one seems to settle on the page in a slightly different way. I am by no means an expert but I do like to play – here are some patterns I’ve been working on, the first three were painted with water colour and the ones beneath that are FW ink.

April 2, 2015 0

Woof!

It’s high time I redressed the balance and showed that I DO like dogs every bit as much as cats. Well, almost every bit as much… Here are a couple of new pictures for my portfolio featuring friendly hounds painted in watercolour.

March 25, 2015 0

…more patterns…

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been drawing from nature, creating painted textures and putting it all together in my computer to make patterns. Rachael Taylor’s e-course in surface pattern design has been very inspirational and started me off thinking along new lines and working in news ways. Here are some of the results:

March 19, 2015 0

patterns

I’ve come to the end of my e-course in surface pattern design and it’s been great fun. I have learnt a great deal and I still have lots of exercises to catch up on. My tutor, the wonderful designer Rachael Taylor really packed the course full of information so I shall be going back over it all with a fine tooth comb over the next few weeks. For now here are some of my first patterns made with indian ink straight from the pipette and manipulated in photoshop and illustrator.

February 25, 2015 0

Open Studios 2015

I know it’s only February but it’s time to start thinking about Open Studios again! We’ll be opening our studio here in Derby Road for the last two weeks in July but the deadline for the image to put in the OS guide is this Saturday. So I am getting my skates on and trying to produce a picture for the guide which will look good tiny. I’m not quite there yet, but here is my first attempt:

February 12, 2015 2

Hello 2015…

New year is a good time to start new things so I have enrolled in an e-course to learn all about surface pattern design! I only started yesterday but they have already got us going out and about with sketchbooks and cameras in hand to collect inspiration from our surroundings. These are from my walk to the studio this morning:

January 13, 2015 0

December 25, 2014 0

The Case of the Blind Beetle…

A new Maisie Hitchins book has hit the shelves, this one is the 7th in the series and a special favourite of mine because it is so very yellow! This book has an Egyptian theme so I got to draw mummies, sphinxes and burial chambers which I can tell you is a first. Holly Webb has excelled herself this time and Maisie gets into more trouble than ever – it’s a good one! Here are some pictures:

December 12, 2014 1