Back To School

I just can't seem to keep away from Edinburgh College of Art. Luckily, they are okay with this and have even gone so far as to get me in to do a spot of teaching. So far so good. SO good. I've been blogging about our first project on the ECA Illustration blog, have a read!

It has been so inspiring to get out drawing with the students and work with them back in the studio. Seeing their work and the way they approach the briefs has motivated me to dust off the sketchbook (ok, buy a lovely new sketchbook) and get drawing for the sake of it. No client, no target audience, just making images in response to things.

Life drawing and doodles from the Botanic Gardens

As a lovely balance I am still working on some great freelance projects. Watch this space for a range of cards designed for Archerfield Walled Garden, a freshly updated website, as well as some new prints for sale. 

Perhaps most exciting (so much so that it will get it's own blog spotlight very soon) is that a colouring book I wrote and illustrated is now available for pre-order online...fancy An Art Adventure anyone?

Now and then

Hello, hiya and hola! (seeing as this is my first post since returning from my trip to Spain. It was BRILLIANT.)

I was there with my very clever archaeology boy and while he was off being a real life underwater version of Indiana Jones (I'm pretty sure that's what he does) I managed to fill my days away sketching the amazing city of Cartagena. 

I treated myself to that new sketchbook I was banging on about and it is now filled with things like this.

and this

oh, and this

Then I came back to my own beautiful city and decided it was time for Edinburgh to become the focus of my illustrations again. So, I started a new project...

I have been sourcing photos of the city (the Central Library has a brilliant collection of images and information from Edinburgh's past, while Lost Edinburgh is another great resource). From these photos and the stories that surround them I've been drawing detailed images of key buildings as they were at points in the past, and then drawing how they look now.

Right now I am doing this in my evenings, as a wee indulgence and to keep myself sketching (as I resolved to do), but I am so fascinated by the images I'm finding and Edinburgh's vibrant past that I hope the project will grow into something...though I'm not yet sure what. So I guess I just keep drawing and see where it takes me.

Sketchy memory

My hall cupboard is one of those open-at-your-own-risk cupboards, so full (of terribly important unthrowoutable stuff I never use) that my catching reflexes and pain threshold are put to test every time I open it. So, as is the custom when I am very busy with work and look for any excuse not to sit down and get on with it, I decided this week I should give it a good clear out. In doing so I found a pile of sketchbooks from the first year of my Masters:

Teapots seem to feature heavily throughout the books...

...as do cakes. Hmmm.

These finds got me thinking about projects I had begun two years ago and then seemed to let fizzle out, and I have decided to get back to some of them. Keeping a sketchbook is one of the most rewarding things I think an illustrator or designer can do. I once filled a book with weekly illustrations inspired by the one word briefs on the 'Illustration Friday' blog (well worth looking at if you aren't familiar with it). And I know many an illustrator pal (Kasia Matyjaszek, Astrid Jaekel) whose sketchbooks are stunning works of art in themselves.

If I needed extra motivation, it has come in the form of The Big Draw - a UK wide drawing festival that kicks off tomorrow with events all over the country. There are a few in Edinburgh that I plan to check out.

So, tomorrow I will buy a new sketchbook (any excuse for stationary shopping), get researching for some new projects and revive some old ones. Look! I procrastinated and it paid off. Nice.

Le immagini della fantasia

A few months ago I was asked to contribute an illustration to be featured in Le Immagini Della Fantastia, an annual Italian publication and exhibition. Immagini is now in it's 32nd year (having been founded in 1982 by Stepan Zavrel) and features illustrators from all over the world. I am lucky enough to have collaborated with such talented illustrators as Jonathan Gibbs, Cate James and Kate McLelland.

Here is my submission. My brief was to create an image to accompany the 'April' section of a piece written by the amazing Viv French which celebrates Scotland throughout the 12 months of the year. The exhibition will be held in Italy this October. What's that you say? I should go to Italy? I SHOULD go to Italy...

Go bananas!

Good news...(okay, so this might not be news to everyone - and to many people this may be very old news, but)...I am illustrating a picture book! 

I am over the moon to have been asked to work on Never Bite a Tiger on the Nose (sound advice) by the brilliant Lynne Rickards. The book is all about healthy eating and features some very hungry children and their cheeky animal friends. 

Today my desk looked a bit like this:

And at times like this:

Things have started to get colourful:

Lynne has written a lovely rhyming story, hopefully I can do it justice and help bring her characters to life. The finished book will be distributed to 3 year olds across Scotland as part of Scottish Book Trust's Bookbug scheme in March 2015. So it's back to work for me - tonight I think I'll work on some monkeys and bananas. Mmmm bananas. This book is making me hungry.

Mastering the art!

Today I write from a deserted ECA studio...which hopefully means that the Masters students are relaxing/celebrating. Their degree show is up and running and it is a belter. I popped in this afternoon and WOW.

POW! Yasmine's colourful space

Thought provoking and bold (not to mention beautiful) work by Maria Stoian

Laura's picture books are unbelievably engaging, her characters are charming and stories hilarious  

There are many more talented illustrators to see, as well as great work across the other disciplines taught at ECA. Show runs all week  and the last day is Sunday 24th August so go and visit while you can!

Retro Future is Past

Last night was the National Museum's Retro Future event and I was there. Drawing. In front of people. And some of those people had cameras. And some of those people and their cameras were there on behalf of the BBC. Although I wasn't interviewed, if you tune into Museums At Night on BBC 2 at 7pm tonight (or catch it on iplayer) you might see me looking flustered in the background. So, my clambering over another hurdle on the track towards becoming a confident self assured professional type person involved drawing on blackboards as revellers sent tweets of objects for me to draw. 

I was up against fellow illustrator Rosie Cunningham as she drew on an iPad. She is very talented and very lovely and rather than the advertised 'illustration battle' it was more a case of us helping each other through it. My brother, sister and best pal Jen were also there making me smile. Yes, I am not ashamed to admit I need a team of supporters to get me through most things. They're used to it, it's okay.

It is all thanks to The Red Door Gallery who stock my work and asked me to take part in the event. Thanks guys! I'm off to prepare for my next step - I'm off to Newcastle to see my lovely friend and amazing illustrator Holly Sterling and impose myself at her place of work Paper Dove for a couple of days to learn all about the world of illustrating for greeting cards. Bring it on!

Museum musings

You know when I said May was going to be busy? Well it just got busier. It's okay, I asked for it and deserve no sympathy. The project most rapidly speeding into view is this months' Late Night at the Museum, and I have pens at the ready and am genuinely excited by the project. I just happen to be totally terrified at the same time. That's possible, right? Meeting the lovely Rosemary Cunningham this week has helped to calm my nerves, so fingers crossed for a successful event. I'm not even going to be unsettled by the fact there will be cameras there. From the BBC. Nope. See how calm I am? I'm relaxing myself drawing shapes. Helpfully these shapes are based on the objects I will be drawing on Friday.

Shapes. And the pens I made the shapes with.

In other news I have a new stockist. The lovely Archerfield Walled Garden shop near North Berwick will have a selection of my prints on sale this week. The North Berwick and Edinburgh prints will soon be kept company by a series of St Andrews and Glasgow illustrations - having lived in both places it is nice to be revisiting my old homes in the name of research. 

And finally: the ECA Degree Show is about to commence! The very talented illustration students this year set up this week and have worked so hard and produced incredible work. I hope they are all very relaxed/drunk/asleep right now. The opening is 24th May and the show runs until 1st June so swing by if you can.  

MAY be a busy month

Lately I have been able to indulge myself and call it work (even more so than usual) as orders for my prints are coming in more frequently these days, which is nice. And the indulging comes in the form of packaging up the prints. I love it. You know the people who moan about wrapping presents? I'm not one of those people. Give me some ribbon and tissue paper and I'm happy for hours. (Flat's covered in scraps of paper and sellotape, but I'm happy).

This is my latest print for sale

Today I was delivering prints to the lovely folks at Red Door Gallery and discussing my next exciting project...I'm not giving too much away as I'm quite nervous, but I will be doing some more live drawing at one of my favourite places in Edinburgh. I'll be sharing the experience with the talented Rosemary Cunningham and will post up on my facebook page the twitter # when it goes live. 

May is full of illustration-y things! And it looks like June will be too. And so was today. Yup, I'm definitely kind of doing a good job of pretending to look like I am maybe possibly making this illustration thing work!

Chessmen. And more windows.

I've been working on a few different projects recently, and one of them involved drawing in windows. Again. (I promise I do get asked to do this, it isn't some weird addiction...though it is really fun) This time I was hand-lettering and drawing fireworks for the Edinburgh University Student Elections.

It was a really fun commission, even the part where I was drawing on the mirrors in the bathrooms. It's a unique profession alright, this illustration business. Not many jobs have you colouring in a giant star at 3am. In public toilets.

Since that wee adventure I have been indulging in some lovely research: Collecting postcards and looking at books of Victorian illustrations. Oh, and yesterday Simon and Angie Lewin came to ECA to talk about the beautiful fabrics and wallpapers made by the St Jude's artists. Check them out here:

http://www.stjudesfabrics.co.uk/

I've also been visiting Edinburgh's Museum on Chambers street in preparation for my next exciting job...(live drawing at their late night event in May - eep!)...The Lewis Chessmen have got me smitten. I love their shocked little faces!

Slow and steady wins the race! (It's not a race. But if it was we won.)

So, February, still hanging around eh? Get a shift on, I want (my birthday and then) some sunshine and flowers. In the meantime, here are some pictures of a workshop I held at ECA yesterday!

(preparation involved some very serious tortoise illustrating)

In collaboration with the Centre for the History of the Book for Innovative Learning Week, we had a group of students from across a number of disciplines come for a day of looking at the amazing collection of Aesops' fables before heading to ECA to print and fold their own books. The prep was fun - it was a pleasure to meet the very clever Masters students. I also love an excuse to hide away in the studio and cut out pretty little stamps for an afternoon. A large group had signed up so with Lucy (teaching fellow), Anine (studio assistant) and Phil (my fellow AiR)on hand we were ready to go. Focussing on the story of the tortoise and the hare (a personal favourite...I don't advocate moving anywhere too quickly so I approve of the moral of this tale) students made folded books, cut out lino images and hand printed their work onto the books. The results were impressive, considering only one of group had ever relief printed before.

Students cutting their lino and rubber stamps (and Phil lending some expert advice in the background)

An awesome example of the work - this student embraced the race theme and made a lovely little sequence of images

Queueing up at the printing bay (Yes it got a bit messy. And yes I loved this.)

So all in all a fun day. I think I could get used to playing around with ink and stamps and calling it 'work'. 

Public Service Announcement: 2014 is cold. Stay indoors and make pretty things.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and isn't this weather awful?

Now we have got that out the way I'd like to show you what I have been up to lately. I came back from Christmas in New York (yup, that happened) with a ring on my finger and a wedding to plan (that happened too) and full of good illustration-y intentions. Aside from a lot of house fronts and logo designs I have been busy sketchbooking and making patterns. I'm working on a self-initiated project about my home and things I associate with home:

And today? Well today was pretty good. I was part of the Scottish Book Trust Illustration Lab - chaired by Viv French and with guest speakers Val Braithwaite (Creative Director at Bloomsbury) and illustrators Catherine Rayner and Nick Sharratt. Here is a sneaky snap I took while looking at Catherine's sketchbooks and dummy books:

I manage to seriously geek out whenever I meet Nick Sharratt and today was no exception. I mumbled something about copying his illustrations from the front covers of my Jacqueline Wilson books when I was about 8, then I got all flustered and ran off. Smooth! That aside, the day was really great. Now I have a brief to get working on to present at our next session in two weeks. Busy busy!

Illustrating a story...the story of BEER!

Good day! I've just finished a week doodling at Archerfield Walled Garden in East Lothian (my illustrations are also on their website, just one reason to visit the site...)

http://www.archerfieldwalledgarden.com/

The brief was to draw a diagram explaining the 'story of beer' on the wall outside their microbrewery in time for their Oktoberfest event this weekend (if you can, GO. I'm not just saying this, I have tasted the beer for professional reasons and it is gooood). I encountered a few problems with the wall surface and tricky height of the space, so thanks to very understanding and enterprising client Elly, I was allowed to paint on some boards. Which I found thanks to my very resourceful and helpful brother (who is very clever and makes awesome stuff out of wood - see this stuff here: https://www.facebook.com/EastCoastGardens).

So it started looking like this:

(oh yes, I was painting in a barn. It got a bit...spidery...but apart from that it was peaceful and fun and made me very pleased about my career choices)

And then it looked like this:

And then it went on the wall where it looks like this:

And then I went doodle nuts and did this to their chalkboards:

So, that was that. Another example of how I don't know where this job will take me next...and how cool is that?

House doodling and other activities

Blog time! 

Where to begin? I'll start with houses. Lately I have been designing posters, illustrating maps and drawing on chalkboards, but all the while I have been taking commissions to draw houses and special places for people to pass on as gifts. I love doing this. Like, really love it. Basically people send me photos of the house or place they want me to draw (so far I have received commissions to draw new homes for people moving in, old homes for people moving out, wedding venues for newlyweds and even the odd bandstand and treehouse). 

These are popular gifts, I guess because they are such thoughtful gifts and are something quite different. I've also just extended the service so you can now chose from a few options:

• Framed (usually best for local delivery)
• Unframed (printed to a specific size and ready to frame - best for posting further afield)
• The digital file at high resolution. This has numerous benefits...1: It is much quicker as you do not have to wait for the post (which is always useful if the gift is a bit last minute!) 2: It means you are able to print the image at whatever size/on whatever item they like, and 3: It is £5 cheaper :-)

I've made a small website where you can see a full price list and examples of the commissions I have carried out so far.
If you are interested in taking a look, here it is: http://cargocollective.com/doodlemyhouse


AND in other news...

The residency is in full swing and so far so good. I am officially 'Illustrator In Residence' so I have been doing my best to reside at my desk in the lovely Hunter Building studio and act like I know what I am talking about. I have delivered one talk (terrifying), given one Photoshop tutorial (less terrifying and it turns out I am far more Photoshop-literate than I thought I was, which is nice) and today I took some lovely third year students to see 150 Years of Printmaking - an exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery in Edinburgh:

http://www.openeyegallery.co.uk/exhibitions/

I can highly recommend visiting for a look at the etchings, screenprints, wood engravings and lino prints that are not only beautiful but also give a wee insight into the creative practices of a few influential British artists and designers. The stand out piece was the Paolozzi screenprint.

That is plenty for now. I'm off to draw a house, have a hot chocolate and catch up on Downton (I'm a good multi-tasker).

Busiest. Month. Ever.

So August, we are having fun eh? After a whirlwind week or so at Oasis and some extra visits beyond that, I can show you this:

(The finished window complete with castle backdrop)

And this:

(The finished window complete with castle backdrop CLOSE UP. oooh)

And this:

(A photo booth screen that I drew all over and is now in store for customers to sit in front of and say cheeeeese)

And finally this:

(A photo of my bag in the 'Wardrobe must-haves' section of the Scotsman on Saturday. Yes, really!)

But it doesn't stop here. I finish at the book festival in one week, before which I will be live drawing (eek) with the lovely amazing author Viv French at the book festival's "Are you sitting comfortably?" storytime session this Sunday. THEN I will be diving headfirst into my residency at ECA and I can't wait. Got a few exciting commissions and meetings lined up. It's all go! Speaking of which, I start work in half an hour....