The 100 Day Project

I've decided to join in The 100 Day Project this year. I regretted not doing it last year so though it best not to make the same mistake again! I didn't find out it was starting until the day before though, so didn't have as much time as I'd have liked to come up with a theme!

I've been trying to work more with characters lately so I figured that was a good direction to go in. So for the next 100 days I'll be sharing a new illustration (mostly sketchbook work, sometimes coloured images) of a character. The characters will either be new ones from my imagination, or from books I'm reading or TV I'm watching.

I'll be sharing them all on Instagram with the unique hashtag #emi100characters

And every week or so I'll do a catch up post here on the blog.

First up, me and Jamie have just begun watching Game of Thrones (and desperately trying to catch up by the time the new season starts so we don't get too many spoilers!)

I didn't think I'd particularly enjoy it but right from the first ten minutes of episode one I've been completely hooked! So it only seemed right to make it the theme of my first entry for this project. I went with a baby dragon, inspired by my favourite scene so far, when Daenerys awakes from the ashes of the fire with her newly hatched dragons. Expect a few of these illustrations to be Game of Thrones themed!

For day 2 I've drawn a little character design for Heidi, the book I'm currently reading.

There's a new series of illustrations on the way for that one, but I've been having a few computer issues so haven't been able to colour them yet. Hopefully they'll be ready to share next week!

So thats 2 down... 98 to go!

(Although I'm away for 2 weeks in June so I may have to skip those entries)

Rosanella

This week's fairytale was Rosanella, a lovely story involving beautiful maidens, fairies, roses and giant bumble bees.

I've illustrated one of the maidens being carried away by the bees, surrounded by 12 roses representing each of the maidens and their lovely qualities, that altogether make up the beautiful Rosanella.

A Little Princess

Last week I finished reading A Little Princess. I'd watched the film multiple times when I was younger but had never read the book. There are a lot of elements of the story that are changed between the book and the film, and I'd definitely say I much preferred the book (apart from the fact that the father doesn't survive in the book, I wasn't as keen on that part!)

The story is full of beautiful imagery and gave me plenty pf ideas for illustrations. I've created a book cover, character design, and two illustrations of key scenes in the story (the girls sat on the rooftop overlooking the street, and Sara discovering the "magic" in the attic)

Here's a few close-ups of my favourite parts of the illustrations:

And some work in progress shots from my sketchbooks:

I'm really pleased with how these pieces turned out, and I enjoyed working on some more detailed scenes for these ones. I'll be reading Heidi next and hopefully producing a series of images for that too. I'll also be back later in the week with another instalment of my Fairytales from around the World" series.

Forest Floor

These illustrations came from a few doodles in my sketchbooks. I was experimenting with some new styles of trees and leaves for future illustrations, and decided to turn them into finished coloured pieces:

British Butterfllies

You might have seen on Instagram that I've been drawing a few butterflies lately. Rather than leave them in the sketchbook I thought I'd turn them into a poster of British Butterflies.

I've got quite a few recent illustrations that I'm planning to get prints of for my Etsy shop, so hopefully this will be available soon!

The Nettle Spinner

In an attempt to catch up after a few missed weeks, I'm back today with another new Fairytales from around the World illustration to share.

The Nettle Spinner

I went for quite a simple image for this one, just illustrating the title of the story and the main objects within it. I'd see this being used on a book cover or a title page for the story.

In my Sketchbook: 06/04/16

Its been months since I shared some pictures from inside my sketchbook, so this is just a tiny selection of everything I've drawn since then!

Included here are some sketchbook pages from various projects: Alice in Wonderland, The Language of Flowers, A Little Princess, British Butterflies etc.

Alice in Wonderland

This illustration has been in the works for quite a while now.

I read Alice in Wonderland last year and made lots of notes and doodles in my notebook, and came back to them last week to finally create the illustration. 

When reading the story I had the idea that all of the weird and wonderful things Alice experiences could be all in her imagination, inspired by an odd assortment of toys in a dolls house. Its a sort of "hand-me-down" dolls house where various pieces have been lost and replaced with mis-matched toys, resulting in the strange scenes that Alice imagines.

Everything in this illustration is based on characters, objects and scenes in the story:

The cat, the rabbit, bread and butter, a caterpillar, chess pieces, Queen of Hearts playing cards, tea-cups, a toy train etc.

Here's a few close-ups:

Little Golden Hood

I've gotten a little behind on my Fairytales form around the World series and haven't shared a new illustration for it for a few weeks now. So this week I'm catching up and I'll be sharing illustrations from two fairytales, starting with this one:

The True History of Little Golden Hood

This is a re-telling of the story of Little Red Riding Hood, in which the main character wears a golden coloured cloak instead of red, and her and her Grandmother are the stronger characters and are victorious over the wolf (trapping him in a well at the end)

For this one I revisited the characters I created for my University work and illustrated Little Golden Hood as a deer in the woods.

I'll be back in a few days with another new fairytale illustration!