Submission day over! I've just handed in selected work from my first year of MFA Illustration. Among the goodies were this little lot - development work for my story book. I made two little mock-ups for the layouts of the two books I'm working on (I was advised this was a good way to work out how you want a book to look. Not sure the person advising me meant me to take the word 'little' literally, but hey ho).

'The Great Tweet Street Party' book is under way! End of term you say? Try and stop me! This summer I will be mostly drawing birds and cakes and pretty houses.

This is my entry for the Puffin Awards 2012 - the brief was to design a cover for Grimm's Fairy Tales. The tree and feather are inspired by 'The Golden Bird', the tower and hair 'Rapunzel' and the wee apple alludes to a number of the fairy tales - including 'Snow White'.

I've decided to enter more illustration competitions - there are some great briefs out there and by entering them I'm developing my work, learning new techniques and adding to my folio. Not to mention feeling very pleased that I've met another deadline without anyone telling me to...it makes me feel like a real grown-up.