Life

Well..


after a short break focusing on developments in life I have got very itchy fingers to get back to the drawing board and get my work back on track. Developing my folio constantly so I can have something I'm proud of to show agencies and editors is my main priority.. has been for far too long and I'm beginning to wonder if being a perfectionist and very self critical means I'll never reach the position I want to be in, so I may have to accept my work as it is and stop trying to make my folio perfect in my eyes.. I don't think I'll ever manage it!

Getting things back on track comes after spending the last few months focusing on love.. that wonderful and elusive thing which I feel I am so very very lucky to have found (in the cliche most unlikely of places). Falling in love and developing the early part of a relationship certainly removes attention from being creative.. for me it does unless the creativity is connected to the person I love which isn't particularly helpful as being an illustrator is rarely about self-indulgence!

Happily the union in love is also a creative one as my nearest and dearest is a poet. I'll be keeping the blog updated with our collaboration work which will hopefully be beneficial to both of us and feed our creative urges.

Gorilla

This was one of my favorite character designs. The Gorilla appears at the end of the story as an accident and I just had this image of an enormous grinning gorilla sitting on the last page!

Fairy Queen

The Fairy Queen has quite a small part in the story itself but with the title of Queen I knew she would have to be an impressive figure. Now, you may question why I decided to try this competition when I make the next statement, I have NEVER enjoyed or been particularly good at drawing fairies. I love other peoples representations of fairies, Brian Froud being one of my favorites, but it has never been a strong point of mine when it comes to executing a picture. With that in mind I began to tackle the Fairy Queen with some trepidation. It eventually took me 3 days and 8 different designs (by which point I was almost ready to throw in the towel) none of which worked for me before I settled on the following design. After such a nightmare journey to come up with her design she has strangely ended up being my favorite design. That is unusual for me because if I struggle with something I am rarely satisfied with the outcome.

Bessy Bell

What we know about Bessy Bell is that she's a bit deaf and is obviously a bit clumsy to get stuck in a tree so I decided to make her an old lady. Bessy is also an old fashioned name. the Bell part of the name I wanted to include in her design so I made her a little bit like a bluebell, I didn't want to be a cliche as making her dress a flower so it just takes on a bell like shape. I added a few scrapes, stitches and dirt to the dress to hint that she often gets herself in trouble. The white bloomers and flower slippers were to add a bit of colour and fun to the character!

Freddie

By the text Julia Donaldson had written I felt Freddie was a regular little boy but with a bit of attitude as he makes the poor fairy cry by getting annoyed with her mistakes. Hopefully I brought out the slight moody quality with the different scenarios portrayed in the character sheet, to get the detail of the pictures I am uploading individual Freddie pictures rather than the complete character sheet.

Waterstones Competition

At the beginning of May I picked up the "Books Quarterly" published by Waterstones which was specifically celebrating the 10 year birthday of the childrens book "The Gruffalo" By Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler and general landmarks in Childrens Illustration. I was really pleased I'd made the effort to pick it up but even more pleased when I found the illustration competition inside run by Waterstones and Macmillan Publishers. Julia Donaldson had put forward her latest text "Freddie and the Fairy" and the competition was open to professional and non profession illustrators who had not been published within the childrens book market. Perfect! However, I had picked up the mag quite late and needed to get myself in gear to produce the required elements. The next 10 days were non stop to produce the 5 character sheets and full colour double page spread required for entry. I had forgotten that I was capable of producing such a large amount of work in such a short space of time, and for the first time in months I had produced something I felt pleased with. With this in mind I wanted to share the final product which was submitted but sadly missed the deadline by 12hours.

Progress

There has been a lot of work going on this last couple of months but very little time to post, so watch this space in the next few days because I'm going to upload some of the new and exciting editions to my portfolio!

Sea Witch

This is a design I have been working on for the Sea Witch in The Little Mermaid. Her inspirations come from an angler fish and a Blob fish, both of which are deep sea and look scary and weird. I tried a few different ideas out with her being thin, beautiful etc but this one I came to like the best!

Illustration Friday: Breezy

My first submission for illustration Friday!

Brown Paper

The new brown paper pad from Paperchase has really helped me keep up regular drawings, this is one of the first people drawings I have been truly happy with for a long time. I'm hoping there will be more!