Blackjack

While we were away it was Jamie's birthday. I was completely organised and made him a special card the week before we went!

He'd seen my Queen of Hearts playing card design and told me he really like it. I know he's a fan of anything to do with games, and that we'd most likely be spending the evening of his birthday in the casino on the cruise ship. So I designed my own Jack and Ace of Spades playing cards for him!

Here's the finished illustration for the Jack of Spades card:

And here's the card itself! I think he liked it :)

We spent his birthday in Oslo visiting the Norwegian Folk Museum. I woke him up in the morning by throwing balloons at him and shouting Happy Birthday, and surprised him when we got back with a cake waiting in the cabin!

I'll be back later in the week to share lots of pictures form the trip and tell you all about the wonderful places we saw!

Mr. Bear

Continuing with my Animal Portraits series, today I'm sharing Mr. Bear (wearing his favourite stripy jumper of course!)

I think I'll illustrate Mrs. Bear next, and maybe Baby Bear too! What do you think?

Flower Girls

I mentioned last week that I've been trying to include more faces and people in my illustrations. I thought a good way to do this would be to combine them with my favourite thing to draw: flowers and plants. So I came up with an idea for a series entitled Flower Girls; portraits of girls intertwined with nature, such as flowers growing form their hair or branches from their clothing.

Here are the first two illustrations in the series:

Once again I've been trying to experiment a little more within these images, using coloured lines instead of just brown (in their hair, and the background of the first image).

And here's some work in progress shots:

Stargazer

I've been working on lots of new illustrations this week, and today I have a completed one to share with you.

The idea for this one came from lots of places. I've been trying to include more people and portraits and my work, and I've seen lots of lovely illustrations of constellations lately and wanted to include some in my own work. And of course I'm always a fan of having trees and forests in my illustrations.

I'm also trying to experiment with my work a little bit, using white lines and coloured shapes in the sky part of the image rather than just the brown outline I normally use. I love how this has turned out so I'll be using it in some future illustrations too.

Here's a few images from sketchbook showing all 4 layers of this illustration:

Look out for a new series of 3 'Flower Girl' illustrations coming next week!

Ginnie the Giraffe

Last week I shared an illustration of Priscilla the Peacock, and mentioned I'd probably be creating a new series of animal portraits in the same style.

Of course it wouldn't be right not to include my favourite animal in that series, so here's Ginnie the Giraffe!

Next up will be a bear, and a deer. Any other animals you;d like to see from me?

#the100dayproject Catch Up

I'm now over a month in to #the100dayproject so I thought it was about time I shared an update here on the blog.

So far I've stuck to it pretty well, and only been one day late on two occasions! I've been trying to create a variety of characters both human and animal (and a few that don't fall into either of those categories too!), either completely made up or taken from classic stories and fairytales.

Here's 12 of my favourites from the project so far:

 In 2 weeks time I'm going away on holiday so I'll be pausing the project at day 46 and continuing once I return on June 19th.

To keep up with the project you can follow the hashtag #emi100characters over on Instagram.

The Boy and the Wolves

Its been quite a few weeks since I illustrated one of the stories from my Fairytales from around the World book! Today I've created an illustration for The Boy and the Wolves. This is a pretty short and not too cheery tale of a boy who is abandoned by his siblings after his father's death, left to live in the woods and slowly turns into a wolf as a result! ( I did say it wasn't very cheery!)

So I've illustrated the boy becoming a wolf and becoming a part of the forests surrounding him:

I've got a few more fairytale illustrations lined up so hopefully it won't be as long this time until the next one!

Queen of Hearts

For day 24 of #the100dayproject I illustrated a character design for the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland.

Rather than leave her in my sketchbook I thought I'd scan her in, give her some colour, and turn her in to a playing card design!

You can keep up to date with the project over on Instagram with the tag #emi100characters

And see another character I developed in to a finished illustration here.

Priscilla the Peacock

Last week I hit a bit of a creative block between projects and couldn't decide what to do next. So I decided to just draw the first thing that came to mind, which happened to be a peacock!

I'd been really pleased with the how the character design for my A Little Princess series had worked out, with the faint pattern in the background instead of just white. So I've used a similar style here and I love how its turned out.

I think I'll be using this style to create a new series of animal portraits (this might possibly tie in with my #the100dayproject drawings too) so look out for those soon!

Rapunzel, Rapunzel!

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!"

As one of the images for my #the100dayproject I recently drew an illustration of Rapunzel. Its one of my favourites from the project so far so I thought I'd scan her in and add a few extra details and give her some colour.

If the rest of this project goes well I'm thinking of adding colour to more of the drawings and possibly even turning them into a zine (which I'm also still considering for the language of flowers series)

You can follow along with this project by following the hashtag #emi100characters on Instagram.

Over & over: Wedding Florals

Its been a while since I created a new repeat pattern design, so this week I've designed done inspired by upcoming wedding!

I've used the colour palette and floral motifs that have featured on my wedding stationery so far (Bridesmaid cards and Save the Dates, below). Although I made the colours a little lighter as the pattern is quite busy and it was looking a little dark.

I've got big plans for the rest of the wedding stationery too, including invitations, a map of the venue, order of the day, table plans and menus, and lots more! The venue also has some display cabinets in the room we're getting married in, and I'm going to be creating some illustrations to go in those too (and then I hope to put them up on our walls when we buy a house!) so expect a few posts about those in the next few months.

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?

The Language of Flowers

Well over a year ago I read The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh and have been planning a series of illustrations inspired by it ever since. A few months ago I finally got around to starting the drawings and I've slowly been making progress between other projects. This week I finally finished them!

The series consists of 9 illustrations based on the meanings of various flowers (taken from Victoria's Dictionary of Flowers at the back of the book). Here they all are:

Queen Anne's Lace - Fantasy

Acacia, Dogwood, Fuchsia, Linden Tree, Myrtle, Pinks, Red Rose - Love

Red Rose, Saxifraga - Love & Affection

Angelica, Lupine - Imagination & Inspiration

Stephanotis - Happiness in Marriage

(Featuring our engagement rings. I'm thinking of using this one somehow in the wedding decor)

Primrose - Childhood

Freesia - Everlasting Friendship

Pear Blossom - Comfort

Agapanthus - Love Letter

I may add a few of these as prints to my Etsy shop soon, or possibly turn them into a little zine.

What do you think?

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)

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.