Holidays Are Coming!

Are you feeling festive yet? Gosh it's taken me a while with all these deadlines but finally I am feeling the warm festive glow around me... or is that just the candle I have lit next to me...

The weather here is currently gloomy, so very typical December weather, grey clouds, grey sky, greygreygreygrey!

But Strangely that does make me think of Christmas! I guess it's my version of a twinkling snow scene! I have however been adding lots of snow to many of my recent works including the mouse illustration above!

This was a watercolour illustration done especially for my OH's parents Christmas card and it was so much fun to work on, even if I did grumble at first. Apparently I've been painting too many birds lately (is there truly such a thing?) and mammals were suddenly extremely challenging... and I dislike drawing plants in general, I am not a planty person at all. I love to look at them and help them grow but when it comes to drawing them... I feel pain!

So not that my must do Christmas illustration list is over I can finally let out a sigh of relief that I no longer HAVE to draw holly leaves! I know I don't essentially have to but there's something very festive about holly.

So I'm now completely done for Christmas cards! Or at least that's what I believe now... I'm sure there's a chance someone will buy another off me last minute.

But for now I can bask in the glory that I did it. I managed to do it all even though it felt like the impossible task.

Now I'm left with just normal illustrations to work on...

She says now just remembering she was going to design a calendar for 2016 featuring wildbirds, so maybe I can't relax just yet.

I also have plans of a book variety in the coming months if plans work out and I don't burn out. Gosh I hope I don't burn out!

I now need to go punch some holes in some birdy gift tags ready for present wrapping over the next week.

Oh December! Why are you disappearing so quickly! Well, nearly 2016!

Have a great weekend!! I'm cat sitting again!!

Christmas Commissions CLOSED

General Commissions OPEN (I will be away from the studio over the Christmas break but commissions for 2016 will still be taken) 

Find out more and contact me here

Early Festivities!

Well Autumn has finally arrived, it's now the time of year for jumpers, hot chocolate, snuggly winter boots, cosy evenings and in my case, motivation time.
With the colder darker days my motivation grows and I get millions of ideas and unlike most of the year I actually create them!

Tonight I uploaded designs to redbubble. These included a few festive designs that are originally designed as Christmas cards. So if you're looking for some festive greetings go here!

These are designs I created and used myself last year and decided to share them this year along with more designs that are currently in the making.
I've also added some non festive illustrations including a cat and Spike the adorable hedgehog!

The to do list as usual is ever growing and I have some secret projects I can't show which is actually annoying me because I'm super excited over them.

Although next on the list I will be bringing my finches to life and they will become some cute badges that should be available soon!

As always commissions are open and originals are available, leave a comment if you're interested and I will get back to you!

Catching up.

I've had this arm length to do list for a few months now... all I seemed to be doing was adding to it and this week I've finally managed to tackle it.

My bird nerd self has also been released on the world once more and they have taken over my creative life. Firstly I've been desperately trying to develop a looser style to doodle ideas with. I tend to work fast but with a lot of detail, at times this can end with what looks extremely scruffy. Of course doodles are scruffy but I wanted it to feel better and not leave me cringing every time I flicked through a sketch book. This is what happened.

A chat with my OH lead to the idea of taken a traditional scene of a blue tit on a milk bottle and replacing the bottle with a coke bottle. It was very quick and not perfect and... glass bottles are not a simple task! But I'm really pleased with the style I managed and have been keeping the feel throughout my work this week.

I also got captured by finches (one of my favourite types of bird!) It all started with the idea of making a repeat pattern involving colourful finches... that then started me off drawing many many finches... I'm now creating a flock of over 30 finches!

The first image shows the draft idea sketches I made, they ended up working so well I've had lots of trouble recreating them!

The finches featured include the zebra finch, owl finch, gouldian finch, bullfinch, goldfinch, star finch, java finch and strawberry finch, in case anyone was interested and nerdy like myself!

This is where things got tricky... I started transferring designs to watercolour paper to try painting them... I really didn't like how they were turning out and got quite grumpy at them for not following in the footsteps of there predecessors :P
So instead I got out my bristol board and began making more lineart for more finches, this time I plan to colour them with coloured pencil like the original idea.

As you can see here I have around 20 finches to colour! And the added flying rat with balloons... you know, because who wouldn't?

It's been an extremely hectic week with lots of the boring paperwork involved but I've also managed to get two new designs up on redbubble!!

First design is a remake of my British garden birds, I took a lot of time arranging them so they would work as a repeat design and I'm really happy with the finished design and love how it looks on all the products, this is just one of them.

You can get this design here!

The second design is something I've been playing with for a while now but I kept making them too detailed so today I decided to sit down and simplify the design and this is what happened, the moment I added the lovely purple the design came alive! Here is just one product showing the design, it's definitely a favourite of mine now.

You can get your paws on this design here!

My redbubble store gets updated monthly so please check out my designs here

To keep up to date on my creative endeavors or just the crazy life I lead check out my instagram, link to the right --->

COMMISSIONS ARE OPEN CONTACT ME HERE

ALL MY DESIGNS ARE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE THROUGH MY REDBUBBLE SHOP

Thanks for reading and for the wonderful support I recieve! I'm now off on a well needed holiday for a week (I'm still available to contact)

So have a wonderful end to your August and may the birds sing loudly for you!

BYE!!

If we could walk with the animals, talk with the animals...

Grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals.

There's nothing wrong with a dose of Dr. Doolittle ;)

So this weekend my amazing OH and I went to a Wildlife Park and got to get up close to some very amazing animals.

I can't get enough of animals, ever since I was a kid I was completely obsessed. Everything I did involved an animal, school projects, games, drawings! Always animals.

And nothing has really changed apart from I'm more nerdy with it and know more than your average freelance illustrator normally would. Of course this is helped by the animal care studies I've done because illustration is not my only passion in this life of mine!

Anyway!

Just a small handful of the moments I managed to capture. I was super excited to get so close to these animals and watch them move and behave naturally. Seeing pictures is one thing, you get an idea of colour, shape and sometimes size although size can be deceiving in images and film so as an artist who wants to draw these animals, seeing them in person is the best possible way to go.

So now, I have no excuse for an art block! Actually this weekend has left me feeling a lot more creative and ready to go crazy! 

I'm hoping to mix things up with my style and have some fun with the fauna!

Commissions are still open, head here and get in touch!

Products are also in the making right now and a slight revamp is planned over the next few weeks, so much going on, so many big things and it's super duper exciting!! Can't wait to see this project come to life at long last!!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend and wishing you a fab week ahead!

June Update

This is just a quick update, I will do my best to keep it short!

Firstly the design above is now available to buy on my redbubble shop!

It's a fun design I first came up with a year or so ago for a competition I wanted to enter. Unfortunately the competition needed three similar designs and at the time I could only come up with these guys. As a result they ended up inked and then left at the bottom of a drawer. 

I found them yesterday and decided now was their time to strut! So they got their watercolours on and got ready to strut.

I love corvids in general (the crow family) and Jackdaws have to be one of my favourites, they're so chirpy and chatty and have the most intense look on their faces as they strut around looking for food or trouble. I couldn't help but draw them. I remember at the time I almost filled up a whole sketchbook of the strutting mischiefs! That was a fun bit of research although it did lead me to learn that the internet is lacking images and videos of birds walking!

So if you're interested go take a closer look here!

The other update is that I am back open for commissions!

The only thing is I'm going to have to up my prices in the near future due to me charging too little for the work I do!

So I'm doing two last months with the prices as they are, in August the prices will rise (slightly!) 

So if you're looking for a pet portrait! Get in touch!

My current prices are as follows:-

A5 - £15

A4 - £20

A3 - £30

I work in watercolours and inks, sometimes with coloured pencils thrown in and do sizes, A5 A4 and A3. These are then posted to you.

All I need is at least one good photo of your pet (more if your pet has specific markings) and I can get to work. I will also draw any pet from a stick insect to a great big shire horse!

So if you're interested get in touch by going here!

(Examples of previous commissions below)

Hope you're all having a wonderful week! Time for me to get back to scribbling!