In my Sketchbook: 01/10/14

Some snippets of my recent sketchbook work.

There's quite a variety of themes running through my sketchbooks at the moment, as I'm working on several projects including the two new blog features: Over & Over, and Wise Words.

I'm also working on a series of illustrations featuring my animal characters, and some commissioned wedding stationery (not pictured here yet).

Over & over: Birds of a Feather

I'm enjoying this project so far, and I'm actually a little bit ahead of the planned one-pattern-a-week and have quite a few ready to share with you in the coming weeks!

So here's this week's patterned design, which is of a feathered variety.

"Birds of a Feather"

Wise Words: You can do it

For this week's "Wise Words" piece I was planning on using a quote from a fairytale or Disney movie, but during my search I found this quote from Walt Disney and thought it was perfect:

I'm working on some wedding stationery using typography in this style at the moment and really enjoying it. As I carry on with this project I'll probably use this style again, but experimenting with using different container shapes other than a heart.

Next week I'll stick with my original plan and use a quote from a fairytale! 

Over & over: Cherry on top

Another new feature that I'm hoping to start here on the blog, is "Over & Over": a new pattern design based on a different pattern each week.

This week's theme is something for those with a sweet tooth, involving lots of muffins, cakes and fondant fancies. With strawberry jam, glacier cherries, vanilla buttercream and royal icing...

(drawing these may have given me a few cravings and influenced me to do a little baking!) 

"A cherry on top."

Today I Like...

A few of things inspiring me this week:

1. Illustrator Kristin Nohe shares pictures of her "lunchtime doodles" over on Instagram and its been inspiring me to start drawing more when there's nothing to do at work.

2. I've really loved Ez Pudewa's illustrations for a long time, and she's now starting up a new brand called Petit Pippin which looks pretty exciting!

3. I've been using these colours a lot in my work lately.

4. Finally, I loved these animal pillows by the lovely Bonnie from Going Home to Roost.

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:

In my sketchbook: 18/09/14

A few snippets from my sketchbook this week.

I've ben drawing lots of cakes (and trying to resist the urge to go into the kitchen and bake some instead!), birds and quotes. I have lots of ideas in mind at the moment so there'll be more to share very soon.

Snap snap: 17/09/14

The last week in photos.

- Preparing everything for the shop update. There are now lot of new items available to buy from my Etsy Shop or Website.

- Pretty flowers from Mum and Dad.

- With Downton Abbey starting up again this Sunday, it seemed liked a good to time to list this Downton themed mini print in my shop!

- Drawing cakes for some new pattern designs.

Now that the shop is up and running again, and I'm settling into my new routine in our new home and new jobs, I'm finally getting the time to get back to drawing again. I'll be sharing some snippets from my sketchbook later this week, and I also have plans for some new illustrated features here on the blog:

- Illustrated Eats: Fun food recipes using my illustrations as diagrams

- Wise Words: Similar to my old "Say it right" feature, but this time I'll be illustrating the quotes rather than using computer fonts.

- Over & Over: A series of pattern designs, I'm hoping to create a new one each week using drawings I create whilst I'm at my day job!

Shop: We are Open!

Hi everyone!

So, I have FINALLY gotten around to sorting out the products and re-opening my shop!

The virtual shelves are now filled with lots of fun and colourful products including paper doll kits and downloadable colouring sheets!

You can purchase all the new item from my Etsy store as always, but thats not all.

I've also just launched my new shop on my website, so you can buy directly from there using Paypal without having to sign up to Etsy!

Go ahead and have a little browse through either of the shops. Orders over £8 receive a little free gift!

I hope you like all of the new products!

Snap snap: 09/09/14

The last few weeks in photos.

- This was taken a few days before we left mum and dad's. Beabea has habit of laying on anything that you put on the floor or sofa. Washing and ironing piles belong to her.

- Planning the layout of the new place.

- New giraffe illustration, available on a variety of products on Society6 and Art Rookie.

- Plant shopping.

- Packing up for the move.

- Making patterns.

- All the new designs available in my Society6 shop.

- Lovely flowers and moving in cards at our new home.

- My new studio space. See more pictures and a little info about it here.

- We're all in agreement that a new oven must be christened by cooking a huge chocolate cake, right?

- Beabea came to visit me for the day and spent quite a while lying on my desk looking for cats out the window.

- Experimenting with new product ideas for the shop.

Life: New Studio Space

I've been absent for the last couple of weeks whilst I moved home and got everything all sorted out. We' been staying with my family for a few weeks whilst we looked for a place nearer to London for Jamie to get to work, we struggled to find somewhere to begin with, but two weeks ago we moved into a lovely little maisonette in Dartford. We worked really hard over the bank holiday weekend and within 4 day everything was unpacked and organised!

Within our new home, I've been lucky enough to have a new little studio space in our living room.

I spent a day organising all my art supplies, creating an inspiration wall and filling shelves with pretty things. My new space is now bright and colourful and full of inspiration, with everything need in easy reach. Here's a few snaps of the finished area:

I decided to create the inspiration wall using wire and pegs rather than blue-tack or pins, so that this way I can change the pictures around whenever I like without causing any more damage to the wall.

The little animals were something I made last year with some plastic animals and a can of white spray paint. In our old place I had them dotted around the various rooms, but this time most of them are in a little row along my desk windowsill. 

A few old favourites are still up on the walls, such as my meerkat painting, the wooden typo postcards my owl illustration, along with some new things such as the bird garland around the window, and some of the pages from the "Today is going to be a great day" calendar.

And here's a few snaps of the other rooms:

Now that I'm all settled in (and finally have the internet installed) I'm hoping to be back to blogging a little more often, and creating lots of new work. My first task however is to get the shop back up and running! I have some new products arriving tomorrow so I'm hoping to have it all done by the end of the week. Look out for new products and huge discounts on old products too!

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!

Snap Snap: 08/08/14

The last two weeks in photos.

- Adding pattern details to some illustrations.

- A lovely walk in the sun with these two. This has to be my favourite picture of the three of us <3

- My book on display at the Conningsby Gallery in London.

- Iced lattes in the sun.

- A beautiful Rifle Paper card from my cousins.

- Lots of drawing has been happening lately.

- Pretty flowers at the pub.

- Strawberry doodles

To keep up to date with what I'm up to, you can follow me on Instagram, here.

In my sketchbook: 07/08/14

This week, my sketchbook has been filled with all sorts of subjects. From fairy-tale castles and forest trees, to bird cages and floral fans (and lots of other things in between!). I'm having one of the times at the moment where I have too many ideas and not enough time to complete them. Before I get around to scanning in a drawing and colouring it and turning into what it was intended for, I've come up with another idea and have started drawing that too! Tomorrow I'm planning on trying to change that slightly and actually make a start on finalising some of these ideas. So look out over the weekend for pretty patterns, character portraits and fairy-tale maps!

I've also made a start on doing some of the drawings in my "642 Things to Draw" book.

I've stuck to the more simple prompts for now, but hopefully I'll get a little more adventurous with the ambiguous ones soon!

Back soon with some finished illustrations to show you!