Here’s a little something I just did just for fun. I’m not sure how these two became friends, I guess they just are…
Bear and Cat
Meet the Mermaid
After helping create the underwater themed mural with children at the St Ives Bookjam recently, I decided to make my own underwater picture! It started life as a simple black and white ink drawing which I then scanned and coloured in photoshop. It’s unusual for me to work in the computer as I usually like to slosh as much paint around as I can, but it just seemed like the best way to do those beams of light… 
…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:
Brush Pen Kitty
I was given a brush pen the other day and here is a little cat from my first round of experimentations. I rather like the brush pen though I haven’t really figured out how to use it properly yet. It seems to make me want to do wet-in-wet drawings though it’s probably most useful for sketching outdoors in combination with watercolour pencils. I shall have to keep experimenting.
Inky and Dotty
I have just finished my roughs for the next Maisie Hitchins book so it’s time for something a little different. This is one of the drawings I have been doing lately in my sketchbook. It was made with indian ink straight from the pot using the pipette to draw with. I rather like drawing like this because it is very spontaneous and a little bit uncontrollable. When the ink was dry I gave the drawing some colour using Caran D’ache neocolours which are another one of my favourite things. They are sort of pastelly but sort of oil-pastelly too and also can be watercoloury if you wet them! I know, it’s all a bit too much…
Queens of Hearts
I was looking through some old work the other day and came across these two loveheart ladies. They are made with collaged tissue paper, ink and coloured pencil. I can’t really remember what prompted me to come up with these but I always rather liked them!
Wheeeee!
Here is a little fellow I made a while ago when I was working on an idea for a book. I got a bit busy so he is still waiting for the rest of his story! Awww…
Best Friends by Julia Donaldson
I have been keeping this one under my hat for what feels like ages but finally its out and I can brag about it! This is my new book Best Friends written by none other than Julia Donaldson!
It’s a bit of a thrill to have illustrated a book for our children’s laureate and creator of the Gruffalo. This is a lovely story featuring a range of characters from a wonderfully smug little bird through to a grumpy cloud and a very old and wise mountain. Best Friends is one of the plays from a series called Bug Club which is the brainchild of Julia Donaldson and aims to encourage very young children to interact with stories by playing the different roles within them.
Christmas Cards 2012
December always sneaks up on me and it’s high time I sorted out my Christmas card for this year. But I’m not sure what to do! I always like to make my cards by hand but I’m a bit busy this year so I may have to come up with an alternative – and quick! Here are some of my efforts from previous years:
marion lindsay 