Heidi

These illustrations have taken a little longer than I hoped due to a few issues with my computer last week. But thats all sorted now and the Heidi inspired series in now finished.

I've created a set of six illustrations, including 2 book cover designs, all inspired by the scenery and characters in the story of Heidi:

Next up on my list of illustrations to finish off is The Language of Flowers series. Hopefully I'll get those finished and share them here some time next week.

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)

New Illustration: Flowers in the Attic

"It is so appropriate to colour hope yellow, like the sun we seldom saw. And as I begin to copy from the old memorandum journals that I kept for so long, a title comes as if inspired. 'Open the Window and Stand in the Sunshine.' Yet, I hesitate to name our story that. For I think of us more as flowers in the attic.'

- V.C. Andrews, Flowers in the Attic

Hello!

Today I have another new illustration to share. (If you've visited my new website you might have already seen it!)

Recently I finished reading Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews. I'd previously watched the films and enjoyed the stories but I felt they rushed through it a bit so I was intrigued to try the books and discover the full story. I've only read the first one so far, and I'd definitely recommend it. The writing style takes some getting used to as its a bit long-winded, but the story itself is great (if a little dark in places!).

I want to try and incorporate my reading with my drawing more often, and create illustrations based on the books I read, starting with this one based on the characters from Flowers in the Attic.

Throughout the book it is mentioned how the children were previously referred to as the Dresden Dolls for their "perfect" appearance, but now they've been abandoned in the attic like discarded toys. This inspired me to draw the characters as dolls rather than humans, and to draw them from behind so that they're faceless. I've also used a muted pastel colour palette to represent their life without sunshine, and avoided the colour yellow as they "never coloured even one of our paper flowers yellow" because yellow represented hope, of which they had none (I did say the story was quite dark!).

Here's a few work in progress shots and close-ups from the illustration:

I've started to re-design the layout of this a little in order to create a design for a book cover, which I may share on here soon too.

In complete contrast I'm now reading Alice in Wonderland and plan on doing a mini project based on that very soon.

Art: New Animals

A couple of days ago I started doodling a new elephant character in one of my sketchbooks, and I realised it had been quite a long time since I drew a character that wasn't a deer, giraffe or rabbit! There are so many animals I could and want to use for my characters, so I decided to make a start on coming up with some new ones.

Here's the finished coloured illustrations of 6 new animals:

These are just ideas for now and I'll probably develop them a little more before I use any of them in any of my designs. But for now my favourites have got to be the panda and the horse! What do you think?

Art: New Illustrations

I've spent a couple of days working on some new illustrations from last week's sketchbook drawings.

There's two new character designs, a building illustration and 2 pattern designs.

I've been wanting to do an illustration of Downton Abbey for quite a while, and this week I finally got round to it. I only discovered I enjoy drawing buildings when I was working on the castles for my Once Upon a Time project, and I really loved doing this one.

This is the second instalment of my new Flower Girls series, and of course it just had to be a giraffe.

The first image can be seen in this post, and there'll be more added to this collection soon.

I've also been planning for ages to work on some pattern designs. Last week I was watching My Fair Lady with mum and it became the inspiration for this pattern. A little way into the film there's a scene involving a Chinese fan and a bird cage, an along with Eliza's huge feathered hat I thought that would make for a pretty combination of items.

This is my submission to this weeks theme on Illustration Friday: King.

Based on my characters in Once Upon a time and the Flower Girl characters.

Another pattern, this time based on summertime, with strawberries, ice-cream cones, daisies and parasols.

I've been really enjoying producing work again, and have lots of plans for more designs in the near future!

I've also added some of these designs to my Society 6 and Art Rookie stores, so they're available to buy on a huge range of fun products!