BIG project Day 2 Feathers

Feathers...I love them! They are such beautiful things don't you think? I'm guessing readers who have been here before already know that I have a bit of a bird obsession, so it probably comes as no surprise that I love feathers too. I own quite a few pairs of earrings with feathers hanging from them and also have a collection of feathers, some of the larger ones I keep in a colored glass vase in my living room...Here's my creation for day 2 of the BIG project:

I am away for two days now so I won't be able to scan day 3 of the project until I return, I feel a bit like I 'm cheating not posting every day but I will be in the countryside without computer facilities so it can't be helped! Two more drawings coming on Sunday, I hope everyone has a great weekend!

BIG project

Okay so I've been greatly inspired by all those artists out there who are working on  daily paintings/daily art projects. I have decided to take a deep breath and to commit to something which to me feels quite serious. I am going to commit to creating an illustration a day for the next year (posting daily on this blog) and the theme is going to be 'things that I love/things that make me happy'. I am excited about this project as it gives me something to focus on and I'm also interested in how doing this will make me feel. Thinking about the things you love/or the things that make you happy on a regular basis can only be a good thing right? I'm going to start this project on July 29th 2010, here goes:

Day 1
Sea Shells

Last Christmas related post..Honest!

Thanks for putting up with these very non summery posts guys!

Spoonflower Competition

So I've finally got round to entering something in a Spoonflower competition. The competition closed yesterday on Tuesday the 27th and the theme is the desert. After much thought I decided to create a pattern based on the creatures that you don't automatically think of as living in the desert. I chose to research the Gobi desert as it is a place I have always wanted to visit. Here is the image that I created for my pattern;

so we have a bear, wolf,ox,ibex,ass and a jerboa....no camels in sight! Did you know the Gobi bear is extremely rare? They think there are only 30 adult bears in the world...The things you learn! Here's the pattern:

 

 I've also uploaded it to my Spoonflower profile and soon you will be able to view the competition entries and vote for me if you think i've done okay, I'll let you know when the voting page is up as i'm a bit unsure as to when it will be. Anyone know?!

I also now have 4 of my designs up for sale on fabric...Super cool! I can't wait to order some and get crafty :-)

hello deer

Hand drawn image, partly hand coloured then scanned and coloured/adjusted in photoshop.

Hope everyone has a good day :-)

Spoonflower fabric samples have arrived!

Woohoo! Well it's taken quite some time for the spoonflower samples I ordered to arrive. It was very exciting opening up the package, It's great to see your patterns on fabric, and although they took a really really long time to arrive I'd definitely recommend spoonflower for printing your designs as the communication was brill. (It actually took 6 weeks from ordering the samples to when they arrived).

I'm happy with 4 out of 5 of the designs, the bird and feather design hasn't come out well on fabric, I need to adjust the colours and reorder a sample. The bird is just too dark when transferred to fabric. This is one of my favorite designs so it's a shame and I'd love to order some fabric so I'll get the design sorted asap. You can view my original blog post about the bird and feather pattern here.

The patterns I ordered samples of:

And here are the samples:

See my Spoonflower profile here.

Cheers all :-)

Night Night deer and Peach Deer

Meet the Night deer and the Peach deer

Illustration Friday - Double

Another  greetings card image, this one I am entering for Illustration Friday's word of the week 'Double'. I know it's only July but I'm working on some Christmas card images!! More reindeer image's coming soon :-)

Penguin Love

A new Valentines Day Card design featuring two cute penguins! Pen drawing coloured digitally.

I've been a busy bee

Hi everyone, happy weekend to you all! I am so glad it's Friday, having weekends off work is a new thing to me and I just find it amazing! 2 whole days off work??Really??Wowza! Anyway I have a weekend of art making ahead. I have no plans except a killer gym session tomorrow then just art art art. I am a happy bunny, the only thing that would make it better would be if someone would deliver me some chocolate. I want some but I'm far to busy (lazy) to go to the shop!

So tonight I have been working on finishing up some bits and bobs that I want to start to show to you. Here's a new pattern that I finished tonight, I just love this bird, amazing legs! I've called the pattern 'ZBirds' as the way he's walking reminds me of a zombie bird...Zombie birds..I actually have never thought about Zombie animals before. There must be some Zombie films out there featuring a Zombie dog/cat or birds right?? Let me know if there is, I'm going to have to search on utube now aren't I... :-)

Before I run off to utube to hunt for Zombie animals I also wanted to show you some card designs that I've been working on. My card design portfolio is pretty weak and these past few days I've had, and still have card designs on the brain. Here's some I've got finished:

This image was created with Easter cards in mind. It is a hare, not a rabbit but I think it still counts as an Easter image. Next come the Valentines designs, naturally featuring lots of birds!

So this is where I've got to, there are a couple of other designs in my sketchbook and Photoshop that I'm going to try to finish this weekend. Feel free to let me know what you think of these, comments are always welcome :-)

Illustration Friday - Breakfast

Here's my entry for Illustration Fridays word of the week 'Breakfast'. As I mentioned recently on this blog I am trying to loosen my style  up a bit and so this is what I was keeping in mind when creating this piece.  I didn't look up reference material except to remember the colours on the marmite label, and tried not to get to wound out about the perspectives being off....Boiled eggs and marmite soldiers is definitely one of my fave breakfasts although I rarely have it..That would require too much thought too early in the morning!

Paisley Parrot pattern and holidays!

Hi all, I have just got home from 9 days away in the sunshine in Crete. I had a wonderful time and it was a bit depressing to come home to a gray city where I have to have the lights on in my flat..in July!! Anyway to brighten things up here's the other parrot pattern I was working on, I like it, and guess what? the suns come out a bit :-)

When I was away I took lots of photos that will definitely inspire artwork and patterns. Its always nice to travel to new places even if they aren't as far away as Crete. I wanted to share some photographs that I took whilst on a trek we did through the Samaria Gorge.The gorge walk begins at 1227m above sea level and is 16km long it took us roughly 5 hours to complete. We were a bit competitive though and didn't take many rest breaks! Half way down into the gorge I began to really suffer. I wasn't suitably dressed at all...wearing canvas daps and a dress!!! My shoes went into the bin at the end as the soles had worn through and cracked! I had the most painful feet for the rest of the hol..you live you learn right?! at the end of the walk you come to an amazing beach at the shores of the Libyan sea. The south of Crete had the best beaches...The water was just so so clear.

At the start of our walk, 1227m above sea level;

Unreal right? These images look like they came right out of a book, then further down the gorge we started to come across abandoned villages. These really were in the middle of nowhere, and in winter the people who lived there wouldn't be able to get out at all due to the river which apparently rises so high that it's impossible to cross.

There were lots of churches along the route, tiny little places, this one was my favorite. I love how  it's nestled against the cliff and the church bell was strung from the tree in front. It really was a beautiful place.

And here I am, inappropriate trekking clothing and all I really enjoyed it! At least I remembered the drinking water! So some Crete inspired patterns coming soon, I have a huge list to add to my other huge list of pattern ideas, which is always a good thing, bye for now :-)

Sqwark!

Parrot's and paisley...I LOVE my new pattern design :-)

More paisley parrots coming soon!

Illustration Friday 'Satellite' -Unfinished sketch

Hi all, I ran out of time for this weeks IF topic, I have decided to post my unfinished image anyway and here it is. Coming up with this image really got me thinking, sometimes I spend SO long working on an image as I want it to be perfect that it sort of loses something..For this weeks topic I was also worrying that I wouldn't have time to 'get it right'....Then I felt annoyed at myself for thinking that way, so now I'm posting what I've done anyway! All this worrying isn't good!!

So here's my sketch for 'satellite':

I started playing around with sections from this image and I think it has some interesting parts to it:

I want to make an effort to create more without thinking too much about it all, I'm also really feeling the need to get my paints out...I need more texture in my life! watch this space..! :-)