So Here It Is

The festive season for this year is both slowing down and just beginning for me. Sales for Christmas goodies are of course beginning to slow down as the sparkly day draws near and the break for me is just beginning because of that. This is going to be my first real break in quite a while and even though I absolutely love what I do... I'm also very excited to get to have a guilt free break for a few days!

It is however a time where I can relax and do some non work related art and I've been loving it. The wolf below was done on the paper found in the middle of a roll of Christmas wrapping paper. What can I say, I love to recycle! 

I'd also like to point out that this wolf was done completely with basic art supplies, don't believe the art shops that tell you quality art needs quality supplies! If you feel like drawing something, grab a pen and piece of paper and have fun!

So I'm going to be on my Christmas break from tomorrow until the new year which means that I will be going slightly quiet on here. Of course I will still be active on Instagram and you can still email me any enquiries. I'm not gonna disappear completely!

I just won't be officially working.

My Redbubble shop will of course still be open and taking orders! 

I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has bought any of my designs this year, it has been just amazing and when I talk about it I can't truly put my joy in to words. 

If you celebrate Christmas, Holidays or nothing at all I wish you a wonderful couple of weeks filled with lots of happiness, love and laughter.

Thank you! :)

Little Roan Rat

Little Roan Rat

It's always interesting to see which of my designs prove popular at various moments throughout the year. I've only been selling through Redbubble since April this year! (Gosh it feels like it's been much longer!) but in that time I've seen some of my designs catch the hearts of some people. 

It has mostly revolved around Mama Bear and Foxy Naps but this little guy has managed to wriggle his way in.

I love my rats, whether it's the pets I've owned or the doodles I create, the little fuzzers will always have a special place in my heart even though I am unfortunately highly allergic now. So when somebody likes any of my rat designs it fills me with a different kind of joy than my other designs.

Lately Little Roan Rat, pictured above or as he was better known as 'Rufus' has become popular and seeing that little sales email saying another one of these guys has been loved and is off to a new home fills me with so much happiness!

What people may not know is that all of my rat designs are based on my own or my partners rats. Between us we've owned a good many who we adored. 

I've spent the last ten years sharing my life with these gorgeous creatures, there were ups and downs and many veterinary lessons but I don't regret a moment.

So I thought I would take the time to feature the little guy who inspired the ratty doodles and the rat featured above. I'd like to introduce Rufus.

Rufus was a rather chubby, extremely lazy, food loving Husky/Roan rat who loved his cuddles with mummy... that would be me. 

He was originally my partners rat and lived with him throughout his baby rathood until my partner had to move to a place that unfortunately didn't allow pets. So Rufus and his brother Ghost came to live with me. Amusingly whilst he lived with my partner he hated me. If I held him he'd desperately scrabble to get away from me and was always desperate to get back to his cage or at least my partner.

So when he suddenly became a big softy and became besotted with me I can honestly say I was shocked... but loved every moment. I'm not going to lie, sure I felt a bit bad at kind of stealing my partners pet but... having rat cuddles made the bad feelings disappear.

He was our special boy who bumbled around his cage, perching and wobbling on precarious platforms, eating his way through any fruit, veg or chocolate he could get his paws on, leaving little puddles and snuggling up on our laps. He was also an impressive boggler...

To anyone who doesn't know rats, Boggling is basically... rats bouncing their eyeballs when they get super happy... It sounds horrible but it's actually quite adorable.

Unfortunately we lost Rufus a couple of weeks ago and it's still fairly painful. People think rats are just a pet in a cage in the room, something that eats, pees and needs cleaning. In reality rats are much more like a cat or dog. They are extremely interactive and love attention and in the case of males they just want cuddles and food.

I still find myself going to where his cage was to get him out for cuddles, I didn't realise just how much I loved that rat and how much of an impact he had on my life. My mental state hasn't adjusted just yet.

But I don't want to be morbid and grim. He was a wonderful rat and brought lots of joy and happiness along with much laughter to most people who met him.

So now when I see people liking the Rufus doodle I smile knowing that even now he's still making people smile.

It's also lovely to see how many rat fans are out there. I can't stress more over what amazing creatures they truly are.

I've also found myself wanting to draw more rat designs and maybe focus on them early next year... alongside every other project I have going on! So maybe the rats will take over in January. There's also a ratty project that's ongoing with my partner that is going to be happening soon! Once I get my head in gear and out of birds!

Gosh it's been a crazy December.

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!!

Smile!

The sun is shining, the birds are singing!

And we went to the woods. It's a very rare occasion when I get to take my big flump of a pup to the woods which is awful given how much he loves it. No matter how bad you feel, seeing your dog light up with pure joy is one of the best feelings! 

So we took to the road and found his favorite woods and had a good long walk surrounded by nature and laughs. Trust me, when you spend time with my dog you realise that life is for laughing at!

So after the most refreshing walk and flumps splash around in a pond it was time for home and work!

Well, at least work for me... the flump got to be lazy and sunbathe for the rest of the day when he wasn't clambering on to my lap for hugs and kisses. I love it when he comes to distract me :P Who could resist the huge teddy bear! 

Anyway! 

I had the idea for a sunny summer idea for a set of three designs. I had the first idea of a bear as I seem to be having a bit of a bear moment lately and then added a wolf to the mix... the OH then convinced me that a mountain lion would be an amusing addition to the mix!

So of course, I wanted to draw these guys wearing sun glasses... cos who wouldn't want a grinning wolf in sunnies?

The original plan was to have the three linearts completed by Friday... what happened was I sat down at my desk for a good few productive hours and now as the picture below explains have all three linearts completed!

This is obviously a huge bonus to me and means that I can have them digitised and coloured by the end of the week instead which then in turn lightens my mega work load!

Seriously the to-do list is constantly growing and never shrinking (I secretly love this)

I'm also very glad that I was convinced to do the mountain lion, she may be my favorite of the bunch... although the grinning wolf is close...

I just had to do something cheerful and bright, the constellation series is of course colourful but lacks the brightness I'm after so this is an extra addition.

Once these are scanned and coloured they will have a whole new life and I can't wait, it's taking all of my will power not to pull an all nighter to do it! 

Just have to remember, sleep is good... Family will also kill me if I burn out :P

The sunnies designs will be available through my redbubble shop by the end of the week and during May something big will be happening.

I'm going to be expanding and if all goes to plan will be offering signed prints of my work so if you're interested keep an eye out!

I am also considering some limited addition prints with something extra... all shall be revealed soon!

So if you want to get your paws on my designs keep a look out in May when shiny sparkly things will be happening!

Have a beautiful week and make your own happy! :)