Wise Words: Khal Drogo

I've mentioned a couple of times over on Instagram that we recently started watching Game of Thrones (and have been frantically trying to catch up for the new season!)

Now we're all caught up I'm planning on creating a series of illustrations of all the castles and kingdoms (I didn't want to see any spoilers searching for reference images so I've been waiting until we're all up to date!)

But in the mean time, I thought I'd create an illustration inspired a quote from Khal Drogo:

"You are the moon of my life. That is all I know and all I need to know. And if this is a dream I will kill the man that tries to wake me."

(I love how romantic this is and yet still manages to mention how easily he could kill someone if he wanted to!)

I created two slightly different versions, one in full colour and one as a silhouette style, and I'm not sure which I prefer so I'm sharing both with you!

Which do you prefer?

Do you watch Game of Thrones?

Wise Words: Stars

Its been a long time since I've shared a Wise Words illustration here!

Over the weekend Mum & I watched Lady and the Tramp, and I was inspired by some of the lyrics from the opening song, so opened up my sketchbook!

"Look at the skies, they have stars in their eyes."

Although I'm not going to be doing these weekly again, I do hope I'll manage to do them a bit more regularly from now on. And I'm going to try and remember to take a note of any quotes and lyrics that inspire me before I forget them!

Wise Words: Yesterday

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I wouldn't be doing any Wise Words (or Over & Over) posts for a while as I had a hectic few weeks ahead. But one of the projects I'm working on actually involved me creating some new illustrations on the theme of positive quotes and phrases (all will be revealed soon!) so I thought I'd share one of those with you as this week's Wise Words post.

"Don't let a bad yesterday ruin a good today."

Wise Words: Beginnings

Hi everyone!

I'm back with another Wise Words post today, this time with a lovely little quote about beginnings:

I'd love some suggestions for quotes or lyrics for these posts (I'm starting to struggle to find ones I like!) so let me know if you have any ideas!

The fabric designs are coming along quite well this week, and I'll be sharing one or two of them with you in next week's Over & over post.

Wise Words: All that you are

As I mentioned on Tuesday's Over & over post, this week's designs are all of a romantic theme in honour of Valentine's day this weekend!

I wanted to use song lyrics this week, so chose a lovely line form Tenerife Sea by Ed Sheeran. Jamie and I love his music, so it seemed appropriate for Valentines!

"All that you are is all that I'll ever need"

Ed Sheeran - Tenerife Sea

Wise Words: Infinities

I mentioned in my "On my Bookshelf" post last month (there's a January post coming very soon!) that I had read and loved The Fault In Our Stars. I wanted to use a quote from a book for this week's Wise Words, and so this one seemed perfect.

And for those who haven't read the book and don't know the quote, here's the full version:

"There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful." - John Green, The Fault In Our Stars

Wise Words: Flamingo

I wanted a colourful quote for this week's Wise Words illustration, so when I came across this Flamingo one it seemed perfect!

"Be a flamingo in a flock of pigeons!"

Be different, stand out, be you!

I also wanted to use the banners as a container for the text, as I've been using that a lot in my card designs lately, but haven't used it in anything that I've been able to share here yet. 

I ordered all of my new cards yesterday, so I'll be photographing them once they arrive and hope to have them up in the shop by next week!

Wise words: Someday

This week I've been reading the Hand Lettering Ledger by Mary Kate McDevitt, and practising a few different techniques. So this Wise Words post comes from scanning in one of the phrases I've sketched out in the practise pages of the book. This is basically just a little experiment with a few different fonts and some filigree. I'm hoping to carry on working may through the book and learn some new techniques over the next couple of weeks!

"There are 365 days in a year, & 'someday' isn't one of them."
How many things can you achieve in the 365 days that make up 2015?

In my sketchbook: 14/01/15

This is the first 'In my sketchbook' post of 2015. I'm hoping to keep up with these a little more regularly this year!

As I've mentioned previously, I've spent the last couple of weeks working on my new card collection (which I am aiming to have ready to launch in February!), so I've been doing a lot of drawing lately and filling up my sketchbooks! 

Here's a few of my favourite pages:

Wise Words: Shine

We're over a week into 2015 now (where did that go?) but I'm keeping with the New Year positivity for this Wise Words illustration.

"This is your time to shine"

A little bit of motivation to make 2015 an amazing year.

I've made some good progress this week with the new card range, and a little collection is starting to come together. Next week I'll be sharing some images from my sketchbook with you, and hopefully very soon I'll have a finished collection to show you!

In the mean time I'll be trying to keep up with these Wise Words and Over & Over illustrations, as well as sharing little snippets of my work over on Instagram (@EmmaMargaretIllustration)

Wise words: Life is tough

I'm a few days late with this week's "Wise Words" post, and in fact I'm quite behind on all of my regular blog posts! There's been a lot going on lately, and over the next week or so I'm going backwards and forwards a lot for my birthday, and both mine and Jamie's graduations so it may be a while before I get back on schedule! I do however have a couple of posts planned in that time, including a special shop discount to celebrate my Birthday!

In the mean time, here's this week's/last week's bit of inspiration for you... 

Wise Words: Feel it

This week's Wise Words post features a quote from one of my childhood favourites, Winnie the Pooh! This is a lovely little dialogue from Pooh and Piglet:

Wise Words: Tomorrow

This week's quote comes from Albert Einstein,

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow."

It'd been a while since I've included some floral motifs in a piece of work so I decided to this image with quite a simple text with pretty leaves and daisies.

I love these kinds of quotes that focus on the past, present and future all in a really positive way. I also love this one:

"Behind us are memories, beside us are friends, before us are dreams" (Unknown)

Next week I have a lovely little quote from Winnie the Pooh!

Wise Words: The Dream

So here's the first instalment of my new "Wise Words" blog feature.

Each week I'll be illustrating a short quote or saying and sharing it here on the blog.

Here is this weeks little bit of inspiration:

Art: New Illustrations

On Wednesday, I finally got around to sharing some of my sketchbook pages with you. And today, I have some finished, coloured illustrations to share!

Other than the birds, these are all for a project I'm working on with my Illustration Collective, Pastiche. However, when you see them in the final outcome of that project (which is still a secret at the moment), they'll be looking quite different to how they do here (any guesses what we're working on?).

The birds are my first submission to Illustration Friday, for the topic "golden". I'm hoping to start regularly contributing to Illustration Friday, as a way of responding to drawings prompts I wouldn't normally think of. I also bought myself '642 Things to Draw', a journal/sketchbook filled with unusual drawing prompts, so you should be seeing some illustrations coming from that soon as well!