Life: I graduated!

On Thursday I had my official Graduation ceremony back in Southampton.

Seeing as we actually finished back in June, it had been a pretty long wait to officially graduate!

Me, Jamie, Mum and Dad all went down the night before and stayed in a hotel (which happened to be right next to our old flat!) and got up early in the morning to and get my robes (and hat of course!) and have our official photographs taken. I had a bit of an issue with my sash as it kept falling off my shoulders, and Jamie had to run into town to get me some pins!

The ceremony itself was great, we all went up one by one and shook the Vice Chancellor's hand and were given our degree certificates (all with lots of cameras pointed at us!) and then there were a few speeches, including one from Sir Peter Blake who was given an honorary Doctor of Arts degree at the end of the ceremony.

Afterwards it was outside for lots of photos! Including the obligatory throwing our hats in the air, of course. Here's a few of my favourite snaps from the day:

So thats it! I am now officially:

Emma Simpson Ba (Hons) Illustration!

I should also now be getting back to my regular schedule of illustrations and blog posts. And I'll also be carrying on with designing my new range of cards ready to be launched in the New Year!

You can keep up with all of this easily by following me on Instagram @emmamargaretillustration

Life: 22

Tomorrow I'm turning 22! 

To celebrate, there's 22% off any orders over £5 in my Etsy shop using the code:

CELEBRATE22

(Expires at midnight on Monday)

(And the above illustration is a little peak at the new range of card designs coming soon!)

In my sketchbook: 13/11/14

My sketchbooks have been filling up quickly over the last few weeks as I've been continuing to work on my new Greetings Card range, as well as few other new products coming in the new year. I've been drawing cakes, flowers, animals in party hats and lots of other fun things.

Here's a few snippets of my recent sketchbook pages:

(Excuse the poor lighting, writing blog posts at 4pm means the sun is already starting to go down!)

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... 

Shop: Christmas Cards

Over the weekend I listed all of the new Christmas cards in my Etsy shop and on my website!

There are 6 new designs, all £1.75 each, 3 for £5 or one of each for £9.50 (+P&P)

To see all of the designs in full, head to my Etsy shop (which has also received a little festive makeover!) or my website!

Over & Over: Odd Socks

I've mentioned a couple of times now that I'm really enjoying making patterns that involve drawings lots of the same object over and over again and adorning them with different markings and shapes. A collection of socks seemed like a great way to do that again, so this week's pattern is "Odd Socks".

I went for quite a wide range of colours for this one (as opposed to last week's limited colour palette for "Tea & Coffee") to try and make this a fun, colourful collection of odd socks!

I'm starting to struggle with ideas for these patterns, so any ideas for themes would be appreciated!

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:

Over & Over: Tea & Coffee

Inspired by the Piled High illustration I did last week, I wanted to do something else involving lots of patterns and markings, and I went with a collection of imagined mugs and teacups!

I went with quite a muted colour palette on this one, focusing on china blues and a coffee browns.

I really enjoy making these kinds of repeat patterns, drawing the same object over and over and using lots of different lines and markings, I'll probably do more of these in the near future, possibly with plates or candles... any other suggestions?

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!

In my Sketchbook: 22/10/14

My sketchbooks are still being filled with Christmas card designs, patterns and quotes. Some of these will be (or already have been) shared as illustrations here on the blog, and others will be revealed very soon as my new range of Christmas cards!

There'll be plenty more of this over the next weeks as I continue working on all of my current projects!

The wedding commission is now finished and hopefully I'll be sharing that here very soon too.

Over & Over: Make Do & Mend

Today's pattern design features crafting objects with a sweet love-heart theme. Spools of thread, pink buttons,  heart-shaped scissors and thimbles and pins adorned with more love hearts!

"Make Do & Mend"

I haven't decided on a theme for next week's patterns yet, so any suggestions would be greatly apreciated!

Art: Piled High

Whilst doodling at work last week I ended up filling a page with these little squares of patterns. I think they look like lots of patterned scarves or fabric samples piled on top of each other (which makes sense seeing as I'm dealing with fabric samples during the day at work!). This was done quite quickly without any planning so some of the lines are a bit wobbly and there's quite a few changes I'd make now, but it was great fun to draw and so I decided to scan it in and give it a little bit of colour! 

Some close-ups of the patterns:

I might do some more pages like this during the week, its a great way of coming up with patterns and markings to use in the rest of my work.

Snap snap: 18/10/14

The last week in photos.

This week has involved lots of drawing & designing...

- Packing up Etsy orders.

- Designing Christmas cards (with a special visitor in the background).

- Designing wedding stationery.

- Catching up on Downton Abbey (This mini print is still available in my shop for £2.50)

I've done much more drawing than this over the week, but I'll save that for an "In my Sketchbook" post next week!

Wise Words: Adventures

This week rather than drawing a new quote, I found an old favourite and edited it a little.

This was originally a screen print (still available in my shop, reduced to £5) but here I've made it into a digital image and added a little colour...

"Take wild adventures"

I quite like the way this turned out and I think I might go back over some more of my old screen print designs and give them a colourful makeover. Look out for another illustrated quote next week (a brand new one this time!).

Over & Over: The street where you live

This week's Over & Over pattern design features some fun and quirky buildings...

"On the street where you live" 

For this one I wanted to do something a little more uniform, with all the objects in a straight row to make a change from the more random style of my other designs. A street of houses seemed like a good place to start with that!

Next week's theme is "Make do & mend", think buttons, needles and spools of cotton.

In my sketchbook: 13/10/14

 This week I've been working on some Christmas cards designs, wedding stationery (still not pictured here yet!) and carrying on with my "Over & Over" and "Wise Words" projects.

Here's a little look at some of the pages from my sketchbooks this week.

Next week I'll be carrying on with all of these projects, and also working on the new blog series I mentioned before, "Illustrated Eats" starting with a recipe for some delicious rainbow cookies!

Over & over: Sweet as Honey

This week's Over & over features jars of sweet honey, pretty blossoms and buzzing bumble bees...

"Sweet as Honey"

I'm been working on quite a lot of doodles for these pattern designs, they're a great way to keep me entertained whilst its quiet at work! Next weeks pattern will feature a variety of fun and quirky buildings..

Snap snap: 04/10/14

The last two weeks in photos.

- Friday visits from Beabea are a highlight of my week.

- Working on some new illustrations, I'll be sharing them here soon!

- Doodling for a new pattern.

- Making notes on some fairytales I'm hoping to illustrate.

-There's lots of items reduced in my Etsy shop, including all hand printed cards reduced to £1.50 each.

- Sketching for last week's "Wise Words" post.

- Baking rainbow cookies. My first attempt didn't go too well, but the second ones were a lot better. And who doesn't love the smell of freshly baked cookies drifting through their home??

- Leafy doodles whilst at work.

Wise Words: A Wish

As promised, this week's "Wise Words" piece is a quote from a Disney movie, or more specifically a quote from Cinderella herself.

For this design I've used a combination of my favourite typography styles: the "wish" is in the style of my Happily Ever After piece (and last week's "Wise Words"), and "your heart makes" is in the style of my Once Upon a Time piece (both of which can be seen here).

Any suggestions for next week's quote?