2013 Art Summary

A summary of all my work this year; of course there was a whole pile to sift though, but I do believe these were my more successful pieces including (in order):

:: University Projects
Under Milkwood (short film)
Sketches for the Blue Plaque Society
Book cover for Brave New World, Aldous Huxley; The Folio Society
Spread for The Cat Maiden, Aesop's Tales
The Black Cat (short film)
Portrait of a Camel; Derwent Pencil Prize
Reworked book illustrations for Brave New World, Aldous Huxley; The Folio Society

:: Personal Projects
The Red Wedding, reversible illustration
Bohemian, experimental illustration
The Grid Method: Jennifer Lawrence, a tutorial
Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt; fan illustration
Costumed Cats tiled pattern
Tea-Cloth tiled pattern
Newcastle Sunset, a work-in-progress digital painting
Grumpy Old Kayll, an experiment for a future short book
Apples and Onions, vector typography
(King Bee Projects) : Two backgrounds for Melody; TV Show; The Elves and the Shoemaker
Candyland, children's illustration to a written passage
My Miley zine contribution
Merry Christmas; penguin tree design
Autumn; a digital painting

My work has changed and varied so much that sorting through it all made me think a lot on it. An illustrator, I have been told, should have a 'style' that is inherently theirs, no matter the subject matter. I have become a jack-of-all-trades character as I have tried to overcome my weakest techniques. I know the drawing method I always use, but I also know the methods I have to use due to different jobs. We shall see how this pans out in 2014.

Happy New Year to all!

Photoshop: Autumn (cont'd)

While organising my art folder and all the things I've been doing these past few months, I came across an unfinished painting I started back in September. I remembered those red trees, and I wanted to tackle painting a mountainous scene. 

So I started painting the mountains this evening...and I really liked how they looked, and wanted to show them off a bit more. The previous composition covered most of the mountain range - this was due to me liking the trees and thinking I could not paint mountains. What joy it is to persevere and to learn new subject matter. 

 I love capturing scenery and backgrounds (being fond of little details), so I really wanted to finish this off:

Autumn

 Photoshop

Here are the mountains in all their glory, because I do love them so:

Christmas Cards (cont'd)

Happy holidays to my readers! I'm considering making shirts soon, and am researching various ways to do so. I am also making a comic book and a zine. Such great plans for 2014!

King Bee Studios Internship

As mentioned, I did a 6 week internship at King Bee Studios in London as an illustrator, and to get an insight into the animation industry. It was rather informative and stressed how very organised one must be, as well as being both quick to change little details, and continuously producing very good content. It was a rather stressful time as I helped on substantial projects - one of which is on air right now!

Here is some work I did while I was there:

'Rhino mascot' design; original head design by Francesca Tabasso. I worked on creating a more athletic body. The studio decided on the far-right stance. This was a one day brief, and the one I did on my first day.

Background edits for project 'Melody', currently airing on CBeebies! This was very exciting to be included in, if only for a snippet. The top images were the originals by Thomas Spettel. Shoes and character designs by Francesca Tabasso.

Character design for 'Penny Dreadful'. This was a project I was put on in my first week at the studio, and it was such a refreshing one. I was to come up with different styles of the characters. The cartoon show is to be based on the books by Joanna Nadin. It is written from the viewpoint of 10 year old Penny and they are such fun to read. I wanted to capture her vivid personality with bright colours and bold shapes. Here are my thought processes:

Polaroid designs for 'Soul Jump' characters, to be pitched to the Cartoon Sketch Show. Soul Jump are a band of "mismatched losers" who compete with another band for a record deal. These were done to a radio interview audio track, so I took my ideas from the things they said.

Christmas Cards

I was initially going to put these up for sale, but I have yet to discover how.

#1 - Christmas Hunk

Candyland

My friend Abi is running a competition in her school, and the winners get to have illustrations of their written passages. The passage I received depicted a land made of candy, where we would do nothing but eat candy all day. Sounds rather wonderful and sickly at the same time!

Candyland

Photoshop

Passage:

In the future there will be a candy world with lots of sweets and candy canes. There will be different flavour cars like chocolate and strawberry. In candy world it will have final strawberry surs river. When it rains lovely chocolate surs comes down. In candy world we just eat candy. In candy world there are lollypop trees and we would lick them. 

It was so fun doing this piece, from rough (see below!) to the tiny details. I found myself looking up different kinds of candy to pop in, being more a fan of chocolates than candy canes and lollipops. It was just so good doing something bright, vibrant, and happy. (It’s been a challenging week with deadlines falling on the same day.)

This may have been the most vivid piece I've done this year. I might be pushing it. Time to use some dark colour palettes!

BOOK LAUNCH

Last year I made a book. This year it has been published. I AM SO EXCITED. I am officially a children’s book author and illustrator!

If you have young kids/cousins/siblings, or just like illustrations involving a cheeky mouse - then I encourage you to take a look! Do leave me a review/tell me if you liked it!


THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO PRE-ORDERED!!! I love you all so much! (I even signed one, which was exciting!)

Available for purchase (£3.99, free delivery):

Mooncotton
Althrop
Hampton Bond Books

Waterstones
Amazon

Bulk orders:
Bookshop UK

City People 2

City People

This year has been a crazy year for travel, and I've seen some wonderful people on the way to and fro different parts of the UK, or within the cities themselves. The world is so metropolitan nowadays that you really do see various cultures and personalities. I've decided to capture them. They make the world so much brighter!

Here are the first two. More to come, of course. So many great outfits and looks!

V&A drawings

I will miss my time drawing in London museums. I have made good use of my weekends though, improving my skills. It started off quite difficult drawing from pure observation, especially with the bustle around... But I do like it. These were quite long poses, having found that the V&A have folding chairs available. How artist friendly!