Digital Arts - Tutorial

Just a quick post to tell you that I have written a tutorial for Digital Arts and it is out today!! I felt very honoured to be asked to do this for them - writing a tutorial, wow, I'm a real illustrator! (I never thought I would get to this point!)

The guys at Digital Arts have been very supportive of me from the beginning of my career - I can't thank them enough!

I will blog with photos from the tutorial tomorrow. For now, here is a little about this issue and the illustration below gives a clue to the tutorial subject! ;)

Lesley Barnes

I mentioned in my Happy List post that I was feeling rather excited about a package on it's way from Lesley Barnes' shop! And today it's here! A wonderful and bright way to start the weekend! As I suspected, I was not at all disappointed. Her work is lively, bold, exciting and colourful. It always cheers me up and makes me want to get some more colour in my illustrations. In fact, I plan to do this. I was really happy with the colour in my Company illustrations and plan to keep this up! (Especially since these pieces were the ones that drew my agent to me!) Below is my lovely package!

I ordered a set of 4 bookmarks and Lesley was kind enough to send some little extras. I especially love the Two Face - happy/sad bookmark and the cat riding on the horse. So sweet! Lesley has been so kind and supportive to me and we both did work for the V&A for the same project (my first commission!) You should definitely have a look at her shop - these made my day!

Happy List

Inspired by Fritha's post, I've decided to write a list of 10 things that are making me happy at the moment. I've been feeling a little homesick and down recently, so this seemed the perfect way to perk me up. I'm grateful for many things :)


Mat coming home from work. Instant perk, kisses on the nose, cuddles and warmth. Love.

Thinking about my illustration future. I believe I can do it more than ever!

Old family photographs. And new ones, especially these (best brothers & sisters)

Lesley Barnes' illustrations. I can't wait until my purchases from her shop arrive! They're beautiful!

Phonecalls from my mum. I miss her and cannot wait until she visits in a few weeks!

My Mac is finally going to be fixed tomorrow! I will miss it but at least I'll be able to see my screen again properly!

Twitter! And all the people on there. The illustration community is so lovely!

Drinking Pepsi Max and looking through my book collection! (See previous post)

The weekend. Two whole days to relax & enjoy with the boy. Perfect!

Living somewhere so beautiful! Having so much to explore and so many new things to see! (Not to mention all the beautiful old pubs!)

 So there you are! I hope you enjoyed my list :) have a lovely weekend and I will post about Lesley's package when it arrives!

Book Case

I love our book case. The colours, the diversity, the amount of books and the inspiration. (We have no room for more, a problem that quickly needs addressing since I have my eyes on at least 3 books!) I've been looking at some of the books I got in Japan today, they're so beautiful. I feel very inspired! Just wanted to show you some photos!

Mat's books! I love how tidy they look, and the mix of black and colour. Ahh lovely.

You may already realise, but this shelf is also full of Mat's books. I love the variety we have!

One of my favourite and most inspirational books is Wall Paper. It has some beautiful designs, including the ones below.

The first is by Rachel Kelly. I love the use of colour - the subtle against the vibrant. It works so well and really drew me in.

This one is by Florence Manlik. I love the different tones and the extremely fine lines. So intricate and detailed.

I was drawn to this piece by Destroy Rockcity because of the colours (I love the limited palette) and the boldness.

 And here are a few books I am lusting after at the moment. As soon as I have more pennies, these will be mine, I promise.

Below are some of the pages from Print & Pattern 2. They look stunning, I can't wait to see the rest! Hurry up pay day!!

And I NEED this series of Penguin Cassics, illustrated by Coralie Bickford-Smith. I've had my eyes on them since I first saw them the year before last. My needs are getting greater. They are just stunning. Not only are the books themselves wonderful, but I think I'd feel so happy having these on my shelves and holding them in my hands. WISH LIST!

Photos & old work!

I'm feeling quite nostalgic this evening. I've been looking through old family photographs and illustrations (from the second year of University, I believe). Just wanted to share some of them (I'm the smallest in every picture - ehe). I love old photographs. We didn't have a digital camera, so all these have been scanned in. I do love seeing them in an album though. I need to do this, it's too easy to view them on a computer. I like to feel them and love enjoying them with others - New Years Resolution perhaps!

 (And a nice recent one - me and all my siblings)

I also found these old illustrations tonight. Yes, they're not my best but this is why I wanted to share them. I was young, working on my technique and excited about experimenting. I like that I can see how my work has developed since this. 

Updates...

Hello everybody! I hope you are all well and looking forward to the weekend! (I'm hoping the weather is sunny, even if it is cold - I really don't like rain). Firstly, you may have noticed I've made some adjustments to the blog layout and colouring. Basically, I wanted it to work well with my website. I like to have everything working together with a consistency. I also think it's a lot cleaner and sharper looking (hopefully it reflects my work more too!)

You may remember me showing you the little packs of work I was sending out a few weeks ago. Well, I was sending them to magazines, companies and a few agents that I really wanted to work with. And I now have some exciting news to share (you may have already seen this over on twitter), I have just signed an agreement with one of these agents!! Yes, I'm very excited and need to keep pinching myself. It's something I've been aiming towards for some time and I've always felt that having an agent would be the best way for me to go. Negotiations, fees & contracts make me nervous and I have no idea how to tackle them.. this along with their impressive list of clients, promotional work and international work drew me to them instantly! I'll let you know who my new agent is once all contracts are signed at their side. I hoped that having a few commissions behind me would give me an advantage, but I think in my heart I didn't believe anyone would want to sign me yet. They've given me an amazing opportunity, boosted my confident and got me excited about the future. (They may have some work in the pipeline already - one of their clients has shown interest!) I hope this is the start of something amazing! 

Apparently it was the above piece that really drew them to me. It's one of my favourites too so I'm really glad they liked it!

 I'll leave you with a little piece (in very early stages) I started the other week. I need to do more work on it and will keep you posted! Have a great weekend!