Samsung

I was recently commisioned (alongside another 99 up and coming artists) by Samsung GALAXY Love Note to create an image/or use an already created image of love: be that of love for your friends, family, partner, pet etc. I chose to use my image of the bear and fox having a hot drink together! My image can be chosen by anyone to create a postcard and send it for free to their loved one! So if you fancy using my image(or anyone else's) or just having a nosey, have a looksee here on the Samsung Galaxy LoveNote website!

We're going to the Zoo, zoo, zoo...

...How about you,you,you? I got that song stuck in my head every time we discussed going to the zoo!

Here are some of my favourite photos from Chester Zoo. I love animals!!!

The Gathering...

I have two days off work...

First day off: ate A LOT and painted this double page spread for my Lionel story.
Hoping to do a few more spreads tomorrow. I'm almost at an idea/personal project...feeling inspired by B Movie songs and zombies...and Ryan Gosling.

I recently watched Drive, which was awesome. I now have the need to watch every film with Ryan Gosling in! and a lovely friend of mine pointed out that he's in a band called Dead Man's Bones -he is a very talented fellow indeed! This is one of my favourites: Name In Stone.

Lionel in Colour.

I finally started painting some spreads for my Lionel story. Here are two of them, both have been edited slightly...may have to ask the public which they think looks best as i'm rather indecisive!







I'm feeling really good about this project, now that it's getting somewhere. My lovely friend is giving me tips on how to improve and i'm keeping at it. Hoping to get it printed a few times when done; either by myself or a proper printers. Then i'm going to send it off to some publishers... really nervous but excited. Hope they like Lionel as much as I (and the public) do!

Lionel felt terrible.

This is Lionel at his saddest, most vulnerable moment...and I LOVE him!
I am so proud of myself for creating this character. I'll probably hate him in a week/day/hour/5 minutes! But i'm enjoying every second of loving him! So excited to get my other characters and spreads done!

Smaug.

Yesterday I decided to draw and paint Smaug (from the Hobbit). I'm rather pleased with this, though it's a bit dark and even though i've tried to edit it, it just stays dark! So i'm going to give it another go. I may even try and attempt a front cover for the Hobbit. I can't wait for the film to come out! I remember going to see Lord of the Rings at the cinema! Good times! Still working on my Lionel story...more to come soon!

Lovely Things...

a)

b)

c)

a) This week I was very lucky to get a wonderful package in the post from the lovely Zoe from Ladybird Likes. The package contained a lovely hand written card, a pretty flowery mirror, the most adorable strawberry and bee tape measure and a wonderful mixtape CD! She best be looking out for what i'm going to send her!:)

b) I got home from work to see that my lovely boyfriend had bought me some rainbow drawers and some roses!!! I've already filled my drawers with art supplies, envelopes, inks, stapler and games and books! and the roses and eucalyptus smell gorgeous!

c) We munched on raspberry cupcakes after James made some home made meatloaf.

Just One Of Those Days.

Lionel looking sad...i've decided he needs to look a bit messier: hair and such...he needs some bogies aswell...

Lionel discovering he's not well. His mouth needs to be wider...I painted this first and then added the linework...I like how the colour isn't perfectly in the lines.

This is my entry for a talenthouse competition to illustrate one of Stoffel De Roover's smoke photographs. You can support and vote for me here! Thankyou!

I am a Lion.

Today I drew on my face so I looked a bit like a lion. It kept me in a cheery mood and I also turned my boyfriend into a lion. I also made another dummy book and i'm playing about with wording and layout.

Lionel Dummy Book.

Last night I decided that it was time to stop dilly-dallying and make a dummy book! So I did! I put my headphones on and listened to 80's inspiration rock music and got it done. Here are a few of my favourite spreads. It still needs a lot of working but i'm feeling more confident in it now.

My third post of the day!

Holly the Hippo watercolour.

The Owl and the Pussycat for an art swap. Not too happy with it yet but hoping I will be when it's complete. I'm now off to get a dummy book made!

Picture This! Exhibition!

Helen Stephen's beautiful work welcoming us!
Sorry about my reflection in the picture.
I LOVE THE DRAGON...Kazuno Kohara.

Helen Stephen's beautiful work.
A is for Anteater by Katie Viggers.
I'm in love with the jellyfish that she illustrated. No photo unfortunatley.
Beautiful spreads by Kazuno Kohara!
Mine (Bear) and Grace's
(Duck bottom) exquisite corpse.

James put the crocodile in the UK! Ha!
Not part of the Picture this!
Exhibition but really beautiful.

I forgot to check who the artist

was! I was too excited to stop

and look at names!

I'm turning into the Hulk!!!
(Inside the scarily large lift).
Very blurry, sneaky photo of Kevin Waldron's work.

Sneaky photo of the lovely Katie Cleminson's work.

I recently read on Helen Stephen's blog that her work (and other amazing illustrators work) was being exhibited at the Picture This! Exhibition! As soon as I heard about it I had to go! I adore children's books and illustration and aspire to become a Children's book illustrator. I thought it would also give me some inspiration as i've been feeling a bit rubbish about my work.

It didn't take long to get there, but the gallery itself was a bit confusing. Once we found the gallery I went all jelly legged from excitement and started snapping up some pictures of the beautiful work - without flash as i'm respectful - but the lady working there told me not to take any more as it was not allowed...but I had to prove I had seen gorgeous work...I wanted to be able to look back at the photos and feel excited and inspired! If the lady saw this blog she probably wouldn't be very happy.

(..if any of the artists' whose work I have published on this blog are not happy with the fact I took the photos then I will gladly take the photos down as I respect my fellow artist.)

I had so much fun though! It was fantastic to look through rough sketches and character designs. It was so inspiring and made me excited to be an illusthttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifrator. It also reassured the fact that I want to be a Children's Book Illustrator...I hope to have my work exhibited alongside such amazing artists one day.

I'm sorry if you found this boring...I had a lot to say! I also bought a couple of books and postcards:

Books: There Are Cats in this Book by Viviane Scwarz and Little Wizard by Kazuno Kohara.

Such Characters.

Here are a few character designs of Holly the Hippo and Charlie the Chimp. I tried to make a "Mike the Monkey" but I couldn't choose between the vast amount of different monkey species...so Charlie will have to do for now.
The last illustration is a quick drawing of the friends all together: (From Left to Righ:) Steve Sloth, Holly Hippo, Lionel Lion, Charlie Chimp and Terry Toucan. It's not my best drawing but I thought it was a fun way of loosening up for the beginning of my new sketchbook.