Fairy Tale Characters

ECA degree show industry opening tomorrow night! The show opens to the public on Saturday 1st June. Until then, here are some of the folks you might find there, my wee paper pals Sleeping Beauty and Sleepy Rapunzel.

A sneaky peek at my degree show...

Here is a couple of snaps from my MFA degree show space at Evolution House in Edinburgh - it will be open to the public from 1st-10th June. These are some of my fairytale paper figures and wallpaper designs. Feeling good to have submitted. I've had three days off. I'm getting bored. New project please!

Flowers, birds and shoes

New patterns inspired by things I like (that also happen to be in fairytales I like)

Hello!

I made this illustration and entered into the Hallmark design competition a couple of weeks ago. The theme was 'love'. These birds are all about the love. 'Love birds' if you will.

Anyway, I WON!

Tip top news, and I am very pleased. Here is the link where it says 'WINNER' (and means in relation to my illustration, not a swimming race when I was 12 which is perhaps the last thing I won)

Hallmark Design Competition

Lino printing!

Today I finished printing the third and final colour on my first ever unsupervised reduction lino print. 'Confusing' doesn't even cover it. It's pretty much maths. 'Messy' doesn't even come close. My jumper is splotchy and my fingers are blue. But I feel quite chuffed with the result so I'm going back for more! This time I will wear an apron.

First two colours:

Ten prints made it to the finish!

Surrounded by stories!

Hello! It has been a while...but I'm back in the studio. I have some work in an exhibition as North Edinburgh Arts centre which will be on display until 2nd Feb (oh look! here's the poster...)

Setting up the exhibition with lovely talented illustrator pals (and feeling very chuffed to be exhibiting alongside em' all) was tip top, and I also had much popcorn and wine after. So it was a winning day. Here are some pics to show it actually happened, and that my friend Phil looked at it.

 

AND today I came into the studio and my lovely pal Holly and I got our print on! Today's menu: Lino printing. I'm off to get more lino and some proper tools. And plenty of plasters.

R is for...RAINDROPS!

Working on a series of illustrations beginning with 'R' for my favourite-almost-3-year-old-nephew (I have 3 nephews, so being diplomatic) Ruaridh. Initially intended for colouring in, I had a go at colouring this one myself. Splish splosh. I hung washing out today...oops.

Yesterday my bonnie wee nephews turned 1, and as a present I made them these name and date prints. Hand-lettering and hand drawing bunting, stars and patterns... I could happily do this all day!

Today I met the lovely Louise Power from Walker Books. A brilliant opportunity to have an expert look over my work and give me advice. She was very helpful, honest and encouraging. We also talked about bins full of ladybirds... I feel very inspired and full of ideas, hopefully the Picture Hooks conference tomorrow will only add to this! And there's sandwiches provided. WIN.

Louise liked my house illustrations - here are a couple. I'm thinking of a whole street. I'm focussing on developing this decorative style by drawing more houses and objects, but also building up a folio of characters. I'm drawn to geese...watch this space!

Mmmm. Sundaes. Looks like a little bird's been thieving though....

I've been having lots of fun working on layouts for my Tweet Street Party book! It is also quite lovely to have to look through lots of baking and ice-cream books in the name of 'research'. Hmmm, I think it might be time for cake.

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.

Hello! I've been working on creating new characters and images made up of lots of different marks and patterns. This is a wee sample of a recent creation. Does this mean that all my obsessive pattern doodling is (kind of) justified...??