Victoria Stitch

Valentines

2012-02-15T01:55:00.000-08:00

If you are a follower of my blog then you'll know that last year for valentines day I made Henry a tiny little illustrated book. See it here!

Well this year I decided to make volume two! It if full of tiny drawings of us together and of all the things we like. On the left pages are the things that Henry likes and on the right pages are the things that I like.

In our Halloween costumes this year

Henry is a writer. I am an illustrator.

He loves reading Batman comics. I love Scary Godmother.

Us on the snow day this year.

More snow day.

....And Henry drew me this lovely card and bought me white and pink roses.

Apparently this is our future home. A swimming pool? Yes please!

Altogether a very nice Valentines day! I hope yours was too!

Love and red roses

More Exhibition

2012-02-10T09:19:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday we set up the exhibition in Foyles. It was a busy day. There was lots of painting and scraping and pinning and bluetacking to be done! Here's how my board turned out. I was lucky to get a nice big plinth so that I could display my 3d sets properly. I'm very pleased with how the whole thing turned out.

Victoria Stitch was very pleased to be on exhibition in London!


My postcards and business cards.

Last night it was the private view. I think everyone was a little nervous before hand. It was exciting to have so many people come and see our work!

When I left the private view at about nine o clock it was snowing again! I had to walk through the blizzardly weather to the tube station and then get the train from Kings Cross back to home. It was nice to look out of the window and see the snowy landscape flying by. Henry kindly came out to meet me at the station so that I wouldn't have to drive home on my own (even though he'd already put his pyjamas on!) I'm not very brave when it comes to driving in the snow.

more snow!

So that's what I've been up to this week!

There's still time to go and visit the exhibition if you want to! It's on until the 15th of Feb in Foyles bookshop in London. LINK

Have a spiffy weekend!

black frames/white snow

2012-02-07T14:49:00.000-08:00

The other day i was thinking about how to display my work for the exhibition. I came up with this great idea of having my Victoria Stitch pictures displayed in black gothicky intricate frames.

However.... easier said than done!

I looked EVERYWHERE for black gothicky ornate frames and found barely anything. I even took a trip to TKMaxx. Nothing! It was very disappointing.

So... I decided to draw frames for my pictures instead! And you can see my results above. I'm pretty pleased with them if I do say so myself. I think Victoria Stitch is too. Being framed makes her feel important.

In other news, as I'm sure you'll have noticed... It's been snowing! On Sunday Henry and I got the sledge out of the garage and went across the country to my grandparents for lunch.

Barney (the dog) came too of course. We dressed him in his reindeer outfit to keep warm. For a brief few minutes we attached his lead to the sledge so that he was pulling it along. It was funny because he was dressed as a reindeer. He didn't seem to mind.

me being pulled up the hill by Henry

After lunch we made an igloo in my grandparents garden. We only half finished it though. It got a bit cold and boring after a while.

Walking back home it was twilight. The sky was so many colours. On one side it was bright orange fading to pink and then purple and then bright blue. With the fields of snow lying underneath it really looked magical. I love the way snow glows in the half light.

I hope you had a fun snow day too!

snowman we saw

Love and Snowflakes

Exhibition Preparations

2012-01-29T14:38:00.000-08:00

Not much has changed round here at the moment. I am still just spending my time preparing for the exhibition and doing some drawing here and there. Today I spray mounted my pictures onto foam board and cut out lots of little black cats with a scalpel. I broke two scalpel blades doing it! It was a fiddly job.

Now here's a little taster of what I will be showing at the exhibition. (You may have already seen most of these images before dotted around my blog but I thought it would be nice to put them all in the same post.)

Images from my cat book:

Images from my 'Casper and Jasper' project I did last term:

Some Victoria Stitch stuff:

And more! But you'll have to come see it!

Foyles Book Shop in Charing Cross London. Top floor. 8th- 15th Feb. LINK

Apart from doing exhibition stuff I have been busy seeing friends and cooking! Henry got a new cook book for Christmas so lately we have been trying out a lot of new recipes. We've had bacon and egg pie, jam drop biscuits and hot pot recently. All good hearty meals! Tonight we had broccoli lemon chicken and pancakes for dessert. Yum.

This is the pie. It's got a cat shape on it.

At the weekend we went to my friend Emmas birthday party. We played drinking games and ate pink cake. It was fun.

Also lately, I have been getting into Pinterest. You can find me on it HERE. I love being able to create online pinboards of images that I like. I find it inspirational. I need more people to follow though!

I hope you've had a lovely weekend! Mine was filled with ginger tea drinking, salami eating, countryside walking and cat cutting out-ing to name a few.

Victoria Stitch takes a bath

2012-01-24T13:19:00.000-08:00

Victoria Stitch loves to bathe in her bat-patterned tea cup. Although it hasn't scanned very well, the grey stuff is all glitter. Victoria Stitch loves to bathe in glitter. It makes her feel euphorically happy and sparkly.

Exhibition! And other things...

2012-01-21T07:10:00.000-08:00

Here's the link to the information about our upcoming exhibition in Foyles Bookshop in London. 8th to the 15th of February! I am overawed by the amount of amazing work created by my fellow students. I'm sure you will be too!

http://www.foyles.co.uk/Children-Illustration-Ruskin

Come!

I feel in a bit of a limbo at the moment. I am basically trying to prepare and create work for the exhibition. Any extra little bits that I can. I keep flipping between drawing Victoria Stitch and doing general drawings that might look good in a portfolio!

Yesterday Henry and I went to town. I was just browsing in Waterstones when I came across the drawing I did for Egmont in one of their young fiction books. It's the picture of the guy holding up the Egmont Lucky coin. I felt rather proud I must say! It's one of my first real proper commissions. I think it's going to be in lots of their young fiction books.

Also whilst in town I went to to post office and bought some Roald Dahl/Quentin Blake stamps. They look awesome! How cool must it be to have your illustrations made into stamps! I want to frame them in tiny frames and put them in my castle. I think the Fantastic Mr Fox one is my favourite.

ALSO recently I have had a really good idea! Well, I think it's a good idea. This Christmas Eve me and my friends went round to my friend Brunos house. It's kind of a tradition for us to meet up on Christmas Eve and do Secret Santa. Anyway this year Bruno was very adamant that we all took it in turns to read 'The Night Before Christmas.' I LOVE the 'Night Before Christmas' poem and so when Bruno suggested that I illustrate it for next years reading I was like YES! I could imagine how I would do it in 3d with tiny coloured fairylights and glitter and things. For some reason it really really attracted my imagination. I think it's partly due to the fact that there are some really wonderful and evocative lines in that poem. Like:

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.

and,

He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

Anyway, THEN I thought how nice would it be if we all illustrated the poem as a personal project over the year. So I suggested it to Sian and Dave and Bruno and Erin and they all said they would try and do it too. In fact Dave has already finished his! You can see it on his blog.

So watch this space for lots of different versions of 'The Night Before Christmas' come December. (mine's going to take me all year to illustrate) And if you want to join in too drop me a comment! I'd love it if you did!

Hope you're having a nice weekend! Mine so far has been filled with walking up and down windy hills with the dog and tidying. Last night Henry made pie with a cat shape on it.

Love and Glitter

New Header!

2012-01-17T06:26:00.000-08:00

So as you can see I finally got round to making a new header for my blog. If you hadn't noticed, the one I had before was rather Christmassy themed and so I thought it was high time to change it!

Here are some photos I took whilst in the middle of making my header. Everything (apart from the glass jar of glitter) is made from paper. Oh and there are a few sequins thrown in of course!

I had great fun making all the tiny fairy sized pink envelopes and the pen pot and the two little books.

I hope you like it! Let me know what you think!

Last of the Kitty Cat book

2012-01-15T13:45:00.000-08:00

Here are the last two images from my most recent project. Little kitten and mother are... in a supermarket!

I wish this was really allowed in Tesco's...

These pictures are both created by building 3d sets from paper and then photographing them. I made all the tiny boxes and tins of food myself. Took rather a long time! Here (below) you can see them all laid out before I fixed them onto the shelves.

And these were the patterns I created and used to make all the little boxes themselves:

Cute huh? I LOVE tiny things!

In fact I thought you might be interested to see some of the images I took whilst in the halfway/quarter stages of this project.

This is the kitchen at the beginning. At this point I had only done the floor and cabinets and curtains! Looks bare doesn't it.

^but not for long!

This was the bedroom at the beginning. Bare again. That cat bed took me ages by the way. I sewed the little patchwork quilt by hand.

Also I made the wallpaper myself.

Here's the supermarket checkout in it's full glory. (that trolley was a NIGHTMARE to make!)

This was me experimenting with a sheet of rainbow colours and shining a light through it. Didn't really work how I expected though!

This is the wallpaper I made for the hallway:

And finally here are some character designs for the little girl character!

So there you go! I hope you enjoyed seeing some of the processes this project has gone through. It's been real experiment, hard at times but very enjoyable. I'm pleased with the outcome!

Also, I hope you've had a lovely weekend. Mine was spent eating Lebanese food and seeing friends in London. We went to an exhibition all about lucky charms (called Charmed Life), the National Portrait Gallery, a really good art shop (spent a bit too much in there!) and 'Foyles' the bookshop. (I love Foyles! There are always such interesting books there.)

I also had a rather dramatic Saturday morning because my mum cut her finger badly and Henry and I had to take her to hospital. But we won't go into details about that!

Love and Black Cats

p.s. I know I need to change my blog header as it's not Christmas anymore. I'm working on it!

Baby Stitch

2012-01-12T03:11:00.000-08:00

The day before yesterday was spent drawing Victoria Stitch as a baby. She was once a baby you know! A little gothling.

What do you think?

It was a strangely emotional experience. I looked at the pictures of her as a baby and then I looked at the ones of her her as a grown up/teenager and I thought MY BABY IS ALL GROWN UP!?

Les Tres Riches Heures de Mrs Mole

2012-01-11T02:06:00.000-08:00

I'm sure by now you will have heard about the death of the great illustrator Ronald Searle which happened recently on the 30th of December. I have always been a fan of his work so it was nice to see so many tributes to him on the internet. They brought to light a lot of Searles work that I have never seen before.

'Les Tres Riches Heures de Mrs Mole' was something that particularly caught my eye. (I'm sure it caught most peoples eyes so you probably know all about it already but I wanted to blog about it anyway because I found it so touching.)

'Les Tes Rches Heures de Mrs Mole,' is a book of pictures that was never intended to be published. Ronald Searle drew this pictures for his wife when she was undergoing treatment for breast cancer. Every time she had a chemotherapy session he drew her a new picture of Mrs Mole. The pictures were intended to cheer her up and also to 'invoke the blissful future ahead.'

As soon as I discovered that these pictures of Mrs Mole had been compiled into a book I got straight onto Amazon and bought it right away! It really is a beautiful little book. The pictures are 'filled with light and illuminated in glowing colours, they are a moving testimony to love, optimism and hope.'

Also what really pleased me to find out was that Searles wife survived the cancer despite being told that she had only six months to live. I'm sure this was helped by the positive influence of Mrs Mole!

Dillweeds Revenge: A Deadly Dose Of Magic

2012-01-07T02:40:00.000-08:00

Today I want to share one of the books I got for Christmas with you. It's a book that has been on my Amazon wish list for absolutely ages. I don't know why because if I'd know what a beautiful book this was before I would have snapped it up right away! There would have been no wish list involved.

The illustrations are all done in shades of brown and black with a hint of red and baby blue. I just love this colour combination! I think it works really well.

And the pictures are the kind of pictures that you want to look at and look at. I love all the little details. I especially love the little blue monster called Skorped. What a weird, cute little guy!

If you love illustration I highly recommend getting this book. Every single page is beautiful.

And the story, because I probably should mention the story, is dark and Gorey-esque. Exactly my kind of thing.

Well I'm off to go look at the pictures some more!

Chocolate coins for breakfast

2012-01-07T02:39:00.000-08:00

I really like the days after Christmas. I like that most people are off work, there are good films on tv and that it is ok to eat chocolate coins for breakfast. I'm kind of sad that these days have come to an end now.

We took our tree down yesterday. I wanted to keep it up for longer but Henry said it was bad luck.

^some of my new toys. Pink flamingo, lindt bear, moomin clock, the christmas tree headband I wore on Christmas Eve when we went to Brunos house and did secret santa and went carol singing, new perfume, new hoop earrings from Henry's mum, glow sticks from Erin, a mini chair from my sister...

Christmas this year was really nice. I saw all my family (apart from my sister who is an air hostess and had to fly- we missed her) Christmas day was spent running round the house trying to do a treasure hunt that Henry had set me to find my presents. It was an incredibly hard treasure hunt and literally took me hours! Anyhow the prize was worth it. It was the black and white shiny bag I had been wanting for ages and inside the bag was a silver box with a tiny grey seal in it that Henry had made himself! (seals are one of my favourite animals by the way)

I just love it.

Hope Santa brought you everything you wanted this year! What was your favourite present?

Even more 3d work...

2012-01-06T04:10:00.000-08:00

Here are another three images from my latest project:

All the sets are made our of paper and fabric. Everyone always asks me 'HOW did you make that tiny henry hoover in the bedroom scene?!' It was actually one of the quickest things to make. I just rolled up some paper and painted it and stuck some little beads for the wheels. The cord bit is made from a shoelace. I also designed the cat wallpaper myself.

The day before yesterday I had my final hand in for assessment. I had to pack up all these 3d sets and take them into uni. They filled up one massive bag, a big box and a wheely suitcase! I suppose it's quite a milestone, the final assessment, if I really think about it. I've been in uni for five and a half years and this is now finally the end! To be honest I'm quite glad. I cant wait to go and earn some money and start a career!

I took some photos of some of the things I handed in for assessment. A box of props. In this box you can see a tiny shopping trolley made from wire (this took me AGES. It was by far the most tedious thing I made), the cat bed from the bedroom scene, a few different versions of the mother character and a load of other random stuff.

The photo above is the front cover for my book. (Hmm this post is very orange themed!)

And here's a spread from inside (more orange!):

Now I've just got to work out which photos to display for my exhibition!

Well that's all from me today! Must go and draw some more Victoria Stitch things to put in my exhibition!

Hope everyone has a nice day

Love and orange glitter

Happy New Year!

2012-01-03T05:20:00.000-08:00

So it's that time of year again when everyone does their 'what I did in 2011' blog post. Even though they're kind of annoying I think they're a really good way of showing you all the things you have achieved during the year. It can make you feel good. Especially if you focus on the positive things!

So... better late than never, here is mine!

January

2011 started in Dubai, watching the fireworks from a boat out at sea. I went to Atlantis waterpark, watched episodes of Miranda back to back, had a games night at my friend Brunos house, ate mexican food, made star trek cakes for Daves birthday, read a lot of Tintin books and went to see Tangled at the cinema with Henry. We ate magic stars. Yum.

February
'Casper and Jasper' was born, lots of experimentation was done, I went to china town with Adam and Jane and Kayleigh and ate sushi. Valentines day came along with a bunch of pink roses and a multicoloured rabbit. I made a tiny book for Henry and also a fairy sized Victoria Stitch book. We saw the Sonic Manipulator in town and thought he was really cool. You Are Magic.

March

Henry's birthday, I made him a Zelda cake. My birthday, I dressed as Dorrie the little witch and had a fancy dress party. We finished watching Twin Peaks but were disappointed with the ending. I went to Bologna Children's Book Fair in Italy and Miniatura Dollhouse festival in Birmingham. I ate kinder egg, nutella, chocolate and pistachio gelato. Henry's Grandmother made me a lace fairy.

April

Easter in Dubai, I ate lots of lebanese food. I found out I came highly commended in the Macmillan Children's Book Prize for my Casper and Jasper book. We had a streetparty for the Royal Wedding. I caught up with some school friends, my mum bought me a galaxy dress and I went to see Disney's Cinderella at the cinema in London with Bruno and Erin.

May

I did two weeks work experience at Egmont publishing house. Henry and I made and decorated tons of gingerbread men for a fair in Baldock (we didn't actually sell any!) We went tandeming.

June
I started writing my young fiction book. Henry and I went to Wales with my family. We cycled through London. My friend Henrietta took us punting on the river in cambridge. My friend Erin turned 27 and I made her a chocolate dolphin cake, we went to a restaurant and played ring of fire. I went to the hummingbird bakery in London for the first time ever with my cousins. My grandparents had their Golden Wedding party. We went swimming in the sunshine lots.

July

I did lots and lots of writing. We had picnics in the garden. I discovered Scary Godmother by Jill Thompson.

August

I did a weeks work experience at Macmillan publishing house. Henry and I went to visit his mum in Derby and went on a ghost train. I drew lots of Victoria Stitch. I finally got my hands on 'Eg Er Ein Frosk.'

September

Met up with friends lots. Forbidden Planet. Uni started again. I had a dinner party and we played the hat game. We watched Bruno's MA film. A new picture book idea was born. My sister became an air hostess.

October

Halloween. Glamorous witch. Henry carved pumpkins. Black cat in a paper bag. I got a dalmation spotted fur coat. My grandmothers puppies were born. I played techno kitten adventure. We ate apple and strawberry crumble made from apples from the garden.

November

The pink hair came back! I made lots of miniature sets out of paper for my new project. I watched lots of episodes of Bewitched. We went to Henry's dads fireworks party and also James Mayhew's Arabian Nights concert. I saw Kayleigh, Jane and Adam in London and we went to pizza hut. Henry and I had out two year anniversary. We went to Aquasplash and had lots of walks in the countryside.

December

Lots of tree decorating and seeing family We watched Hogfather. I decorated a gingerbread house. Drank lots of bucks fizz. I made and decorated stockings with my friend Nicola. We had a swedish meal at Brunos house and ate reindeer (sorry rudolph!). We did secret santa. On Christmas day I had to run round the house doing a treasure hunt to find my present from Henry. Got some new paints and some amazing new books. Henry and I went up to Derby to visit his mother, we went to a chinese restaurant and did some bargain shopping! Sequins and glitter everywhere.

New Years Resolutions
I have TONS of resolutions this year. So many that I think maybe I wont look at them as resolutions but as just goals to aim for or general things I want to do. They include: Be more sociable, write another book, get a job(!) do more life drawing, look nice more often, etc... etc... there are plenty more!

So that just about rounds it up for 2011. I hope you too have had a wonderful year!

And here's a good motto for 2012!

'Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.'

Happy Christmas!

2011-12-23T15:28:00.000-08:00

Here's a little nativity scene for you.

I'm feeling very excited about Christmas right now! It can't come soon enough! I have been doing lots of Christmassy things and watching lots of Christmassy films. This year Henry and I wrote a list of films that we were going to watch in December and we managed to watch almost all of them! On our list was: Lost in Translation (I wouldn't actually class this as a Christmassy film but Henry seemed to think it was) The Hogfather (I love love love the Hogfather!) Love Actually, How the Grinch stole Christmas and more that I can't rememeber. We didn't get round to watching the tailor of Gloucester or the Snowman. But I will definitely try to watch the Snowman sometime tomorrow because its one of my very favourite christmas films and it's kind of a tradition to watch it every year.

I decorated this gingerbread house:

Can't wait to bite into that chocolate button roof!

And I've done lots of festive shopping. While I was shopping in Cambridge the other day I spotted this wonderful packaging for a Paddington Bear cup and plate. It was based on the old animations of Paddington Bear which were done using stop motion and characters drawn on cut out paper. People often say to me that my 3d illustration work reminds them of the old Paddington Bear animations.

In case you've never seen any of the old Padidngton Bear animations here are some stills from it. I absolutely love it, (it's so charming!) and want to get the dvd at some point.

Also whilst out in town the other day I came across this cute little book called 'Tat the Cat, A Winters Tale,' by Bill and Audrey Titcombe in a charity shop. I snapped it up right away. It was only 30 p! I love the characterful illustrations. Just look at the eyelashes on those duckies!

So now I am sitting by the tree and writing this and feeling too excited to go to bed. It's not even Christmas Eve yet! I don't know whats come over me. I feel like a little kid. Also there's no Henry here right now to tell me that it's late and time to go to bed. He's gone back home to see his family for a few days. I miss him.

Well I should probably wrap this up now. If I don't post again before the 25th, have a wonderful sparkling GLITTERING CHRISTMAS!

Love and Snowflakes

Nativity

2011-12-19T02:39:00.000-08:00

Last night we went to the carol service at my grandmothers church.

Every year (because she's in charge of such things) my grandmother asks me to do a different picture for the front of the carol service booklet. This is what I came up with this year:

I wanted all the little characters to have different personalities. In the middle is the enjoying-being-in-the-limelight star. To the left is the disorganised little angel with her legs crossed because she needs the toilet. Further left is the oblivious reindeer who's possibly eaten too may Christmas chocolates and is now hyper. To the right are the two sheep who seem mesmerised by the attention seeking star and further right is the reindeer who's extremely curious about what's in those wrapped up boxes.

Here we have the two shepherds. One good and one naughty.

And lastly the three kings, skipping across the stage to give their gifts to the baby jesus.

I really enjoyed doing this drawing, it was a nice break from all my uni work.

glitter, sequins and diamond baubles

2011-12-17T10:41:00.000-08:00

I've changed my blog header! For the first time ever! What do you think?

Over the past few days I have been experimenting with re-making my Christmas card design in 3d. I don't know why but whenever I do a drawing nowadays I can't resist trying it in 3d too. I'm addicted!

This is the 3d version (as seen in my new header!):

And the original version (minus glitter):

Which do you prefer?

It was the tutu skirt that swung it for me. I kept envisioning Victoria Stitch's black dress/skirt made from a load of scrunched up black netting like a tutu. I just HAD to try it. And I love it how it came out!

The white Christmas tree is made from pipe cleaners and glitter. It had little diamonds and stars stuck onto it. I also had a lot of fun making the tiny little presents and sparkly angel and striped bag. I think I am addicted to making tiny things!

I wonder what's in all those packages? I think there might be a tiny pair of glittery shoes in one of them. And the round one has to be a tin of chocolates.

While I was photographing the scene I noticed that in some of them the shadows were really long. So I took some shadow photos! I think they look pretty cool.

I've been having a lot of fun with glitter recently. And sequins! Christmas = glitter and sequins! Actually anytime = glitter and sequins for me. But I've been using them especially lately for my Christmas cards. Oh it makes me happy!

Yesterday Henry and I went into town to do some shopping. I wore my new dalmatian print coat. It's so soft and warm! I love it. It makes me feel like Cruella D'eville!

We bought some christmas presents, some food and I got some winter boots because my other ones have worn down and the heels are all wonky. Henry tried on lots of glasses in Claire's accessories. It was a nice day.

I hope you had a nice day too!

Yours glitteringly

More 3d Work

2011-12-16T01:21:00.000-08:00

A couple more images from my latest project. ^

I used Henry's dead bonsai tree for the autumnal tree outside the window. Everything else is made from paper and fabric, a few beads for the drawer knobs and some silver foil for the tap and pans.

Right now I am sitting in the sitting room with the Christmas tree and outside snowflakes are falling from the sky. Its feels very Christmassy and wintery. Henry and I might go sledging later as long as it settles properly.

And now here are a few more pictures of the puppies. I said I would post some more. They are all getting so big now and bouncing around and playing. They're all developing little personalities too. There's one whose fur sticks up at all different angles and whose really messy. My Grandmother has christened her Scruffbag. And then there's Big Boy who was the first born and who is bigger than all the others. Oh they're all so cute I want one myself! I don't think Barney would be too happy if we got a puppy though. He watches them all from a distance with a confused look on his little furry face.

In fact these photos were all taken a little while back so the pupsters are all bigger and fluffier than this now. Will probably post even more soon!

Hope you're having a nice pre-christmas time!

Christmas Cards!

2011-12-14T03:11:00.000-08:00

Victoria Stitch is writing her christmas cards!

If YOU would like a Christmas card from Victoria Stitch (and live in the UK) then just drop me an email (harrietmuncaster(at)hotmail(dot)com) with your name and address. And one will magically wing it's way to you in an envelope full of sequins!

Witches and Tinsel

2011-12-11T14:36:00.000-08:00

three more images from my book! ^ It's so satisfying to see them finished. More to come! They are all made entirely from card and bits of fabric and the occasional bit of wire to make things stand up etc. I made the rainbow panels in the door by sticking those cellophane quality street (or was it Roses? I can't remember) wrappers onto the diamond shapes. I like the pattern on the wall that it makes.

It's been a busy weekend. On Friday Henry and I went to my cousins 21st party which was a family kind of thing with party games (pass the parcel yesss!) and a cheese fondue. Yum! My Aunt made this amazing chocolate cake with two tiers and white roses:

Yum again!

On Saturday Henry and I drove up to Derby to visit his mum and put up her Christmas decorations. Baubles and tinsel galore! I really love the greeny coloured baubles. I've never really entertained the idea of green baubles on a Christmas tree before (we usually have red and gold decorations) but I think they look really nice. One day I'd like to decorate a tree with only green baubles. All different shades of green of course.

I feel very Christmassy now! Hopefully I will go and get our tree tomorrow.

Hope you had a tinselly weekend too!

New Stuff!

2011-12-09T02:02:00.000-08:00

So now it is time for me to show you what I have been up to these past nine weeks or so! This is my latest project and I have been creating it by making 3d paper models and photographing them.

So without further ado (drum roll please!) here are the first two images from my latest book!

They have both been created purely from card and bits of fabric and a tiny bit of wire and glitter here and there. I feel so relieved because I have been working on the images for this book for so long and so intensely but I finally have all the inside pictures finished. I still need to do the front cover and work on the text and facing pages in the book (someone in the crit yesterday suggested putting it into a photo album format, narrated by the little cat girl character which I may try out) but for now I am going to give it a little break. I'm going to put it aside for a couple of weeks and work on the images for my young fiction book instead. Which is about Victoria Stitch. Yay!

more pictures from this project to follow soon!

Last Crit

2011-12-08T14:35:00.000-08:00

Today I had the last crit of my MA course. It was really nice to see everyone's projects in more of a final stage. And all the work was amazing! At the end of the crit we had a little end of term party with wine and nibbles and did a secret santa type thing but instead of buying presents we made Christmas cards. I think it was a really nice idea because it means that everyone on the course can have a little memento of someone elses work. This was the card that I made:

And this was the one that I received from Katie. I was very pleased. You can see her blog here.

I can't believe that I have almost come to the end of the course. I have been in uni so long now (five and a half years) that it's going to be weird when I finally finish for good. I can't wait to start earning proper money though!

Also, on a completely unrelated note, (although maybe not so unrelated as it's still to do with cards and letters and such,) how cute is this tiny post office kit from modcloth!! I want! It's going right on my Christmas list!

Katy Perry Cupcake Doll

2011-12-04T07:59:00.000-08:00

One word: wow!

A few things...

2011-12-03T09:13:00.000-08:00

Time has been flying by so fast! I can't believe that I am almost at the end of my masters. I have been working working working these past few weeks trying to get my final project done. it't still not finished but I feel like I'm almost there! Or almost almost there at least. I've been doing more 3d stuff again. And it takes so loooong. But it's satisfying when you get a good picture at the end of it.

This picture (below) is not part of my final project, it's just a random experimental image I did of Victoria Stitch over the summer, stirring up witchy potion. I know the hands need to look more believable but I did do the whole thing very quickly.

On Monday I went to London to meet some friends. We went to Pizza Hut and the (huge and gigantic) MnM store. Seriously I have never seen so many bits of merchandise with the MnM logo on them before! It was crazy! And they had all these tubes against the walls with 22 different colours of MnM's in them. They looked yum. But anyway, apart from Pizza Hut and the MnM store, I also went to Foyles book shop to check out the children's section. I like to visit Foyles if I can when I am in London because they always have such an amazing range of children's books. And they didn't disappoint this time!

I discovered these lovely books:

Clara Button and the Magical Hat Day

The High Street

And a load of Rob Ryan books. (I had not been acquainted with Rob Ryan's work before Monday but I think his cut out illustrations are beautiful)

I didn't actually buy any of them for myself but I might put a couple on my christmas list. Inspiring!

Other things that have happened lately:

1. My Grandparents dog had puppies! They are so cute! They are a lot bigger than this now (this is them at one day old) and are all bouncing around and nibbling each others ears and playing. I will post more pictures of them soon.

2. Ok so I know this is ages ago now but here's a picture of Henry and I on Halloween. I basically recycled my grad ball outfit and wore a witches hat. We had dinner at my friend Bruno's house and it was really nice. There were lots of pumpkins. In fact this was actually the same night that the puppies were born!

Other than that my life has mainly been work work work! But that's ok. I will post pictures of my new project soon!

3d illustration

2011-10-23T13:30:00.000-07:00

In my last post I promised that I would share a few of my favourite 3d illustrated books with you. So here goes.

The first is a book by an illustrator whose work I discovered whilst at Bologna Children's Book Fair. She is a Korean artist called Baek Hee-na and I find her work so inspiring. I especially love her book 'Cloud Bread' (below) which I own in french. (It's not published in English and I thought that I had a better chance of understanding it French than I would in Korean.)

The story is about a couple of little cats who go out one day and find a bit of cloud. They take the cloud home and their mother bakes it into bread for them...

...And when they eat the bread they realise that it can make them fly!

And the story goes on to show how the two little cats help their dad get to work on time by getting him out of a traffic jam and giving him some cloud bread so that he can fly to work. It's a really cute story and so cleverly done with cut out paper models and photography. I just love it!

And here below is a picture from another book by the same artist called 'Moon Sorbet.' To be honest I don't understand all of 'Moon Sorbet' because it's in Korean and I can't read it. But I kind of get the jist. I should probably try and get someone to translate it for me sometime! What I do know is that it's all to do with the moon melting and a load of creatures who live in an apartment block. Anyway the pictures are fascinating!

Second is a book illustrated by Oyvind Torseter, a Norwegian illustrator. 'Eg Er Ein Frosk.' It's so clever the way he creates all his scenes by making models and characters out of paper. This book was a nightmare to get hold of. I couldn't find it anywhere to buy on the internet from England and so in the end had to get my Finnish friend to buy it for me online and bring it over the next time she visited England. It was definitely worth it though, I have't seen anything else like it in the UK book shops. Very unusual. And how cute is the little frog girl character!

The third book I want to share with you is called 'The House That Mouse Built' and is illustrated by Maggie Rudy. I first discovered her work when she became blog of note a while back- mouseshouses.blogspot.com. I was absolutely entranced by all her little mouse world creations and so when she published a book I snapped it up straight away! I have always be fascinated by tiny things and dolls houses etc so this was right up my street.

Lastly is 'The Princess and the Pea,' by Lauren Child. You may have already heard of this book, it seems to be quite popular. Unlike all of the above books it is a mixture of both paper cut outs and real 3d dolls house furniture. It has some really charming scenes in it.

What are your thoughts on this sort of illustration?

3d Illustration

2011-09-27T09:39:00.000-07:00

These are a couple of test shots from a 3d illustration I did over the summer. I have become increasingly interested in 3d illustration recently and will do a post on some of my favourite 3d illustrated books soon!

ps. I know the bottom one is a little fuzzy, I need to get better at photography and get my hands on a better camera!

Nicholas Thomas the Naughty Kitten

2011-09-26T12:49:00.000-07:00

Nicholas Thomas the Naughty Kitten is a book that I found in my Grandmothers house. I think it was my mums when she was younger but now it is mine! This summer I kind of re discovered it and my Grandmother said I could take it home and keep it.

I just love everything about Nicholas Thomas. He is a very endearing little kitten who is always getting himself into trouble. The stories are written in a very appealing, old fashioned, comforting sort of style and the illustrations are also very appealing.

'Mrs Tilly opened her nice green door and they were all there. Everybody. The tabby kittens who lived next door (they were wrapped in red scarfs, very woolly); the little girl kittens who lived at the corner; and the kitten called Carrots, who was Sandy. They were all the kittens Nicholas knew, and their noses were cold and pinky.'

I love all the wrinkles on these cows below:

Does anyone else remember Nicholas Thomas?

Jill Thompson

2011-09-25T14:01:00.000-07:00

Hello little blog, it's been a while!

It's been a very very long summer. I broke up from uni sometime in april or may and I only just went back! I spent my time thinking about my masters project, doing work experience at publishing companies and writing a young fiction book (which I have now finished!) Over the months I discovered many wonderful books and thought that I would share some of them with you!

Firstly I want to talk about Jill Thompson. In my eyes she is AMAZING! Well actually I think anyone would think her pictures are amazing. She just seems to have such a knack with watcercolour. She makes it look so effortless.

I fist came across Jill Thompsons books in my first year of University. I was in a comic book shop with a couple of friends and suddenly my friend Adam was all like 'Ooh the Little Endless,' and pulled a picture book from off the shelf. It was called the Little Endless Storybook and it was all about Delerium and how she loses her little dog Barnabas and then finds him again.

I love all the colour! And the writing too.

'On a pistachio day, Delerium and Barnabas went out wandering . They sniffed the air and tasted the words that were particularly crispy on the tongue like twinkle and citrus.'

There is also a second Little Endless picture book called Deleriums Party. I found it a few weeks ago whilst in Nottingham with Henry. It was one of those really cool moments when I saw it in the comic book shop and was like 'wow I didn't know another one had come out!' I love it when that happens. Of course I bought it immediatley!

Whilst we were in the comic book shop I also came across another of Jill Thompsons books: Scary Godmother. I had never seen Scary Godmother before. When I got home I decided I needed to do a google search on all of this and came across all the Scary Godmother books and also a series of books about a little witch called Magic Trixie. It was a bit of a kid in a sweetshop moment.

Look at her! She's so cool in her striped tights and pointy shoes. Kind of glam goth. And of course I loved her little batwings. They reminded me of the batwings on my own character Victoria Stitch.

Ok and so now onto Magic Trixie. I think she is possibly my favourite of all Jill Thompsons characters. She is just so cute! Also I love the whole picture book comic thing. As a person who isn;t really a comic book or graphic novel reader at all these books really appeal to me. They're not too comicky but they're not just picture books either.

this image (above) is from Jill Thompsons own Magic Trixie blog magictrixie.blogspot.com/

I looove the little black cat Scratches and his bendy little legs too.

I think everyone should be introduced to Magic Trixie!

So yes, this concludes this post. I have such a lot of books I want to talk about that they are going to have to have separate posts!

giveaway winner!

2011-07-23T00:36:00.000-07:00

I meant to post this yesterday so I'm sorry about that! But the winner of the Victoria Stitch book is Polly! Please send me your address and I will post the book to you! Thanks to everyone who entered! Have a lovely Saturday.

Sugarcube Castle

2011-07-19T14:09:00.000-07:00

I know I've blogged about this before but it was a long time ago and at a time when I had hardly any followers! So I thought I'd whip it out again. I feel like it's one of my greatest achievements, making a castle out of sugar...

Also I (shamefully) have no new illustrations to post at the moment. I have taken it upon myself to try and write a book this summer (why?!) and now I'm addicted to writing it and have no time for drawing (which is bad I know as I'm in the middle of my MA course) but I keep telling myself I'll finish it soon and then do a load of drawing before september!

This castle was for a project I did on my foundation course about four years ago- wow time goes so fast! I can't even remember what the theme for the project was now but I can remember building this in the studio at uni and trying to transport it home in the car in a box with the seatbelt strapped round it. It didn't work, the whole thing fell apart and I had to re build it again at home.

There were actually a load of other photos that went with this project that had drawings of a witch having tea and a crow flying into the castle and ruining everything. That's why there's a picture of an upset teapot and cups and hundreds of thousands all over the floor. The crow did it!

So yeah, that's my sugarcube castle!

Also don't forget to enter my give away! It ends on Friday! There is a Victoria Stitch book to be won!

Giveway!

2011-07-18T01:26:00.000-07:00

So I've never actually had a giveaway before, and I thought it's about high time I did!

I'm giving away one a5 size Victoria Stitch book!

Here's idea of the artwork inside:

To be in with a chance of winning please leave a comment under this post! Also you must be a follower of this blog! If you want to double your chances of winning (I'll put your name in the hat twice) re tweet or re blog about this giveaway and let me know in the comment section!

I will draw the winner on friday.

Good Luck!

Pink Hair!

2011-07-16T16:15:00.000-07:00

I'm one of those compulsive and obsessive people who when I decide I like something I don't just like it in moderation, really REALLY like it! I was looking through some old pictures on my computer this morning, looking at old drawings etc and it reminded me of a time when I developed an obsession with having pink hair. I really really wanted pink hair, I would dream of having pink hair and envy girls on myspace who had pink hair and imagine what sort of clothes I would wear if I had pink hair but for a long time I didn't dare to do it. As a result of this any character I drew or wrote about inevitably had pink candyfloss hair instead!

(excuse the unsophisticated-ness of a lot of these drawings, some of them are even pre university!)

Pink-haired fairy in a teacup:

Old Victoria Stitch Character designs:

Pink-haired fairy perched on a cake:

A drawing for a friend:

Another pre-university drawing (I actually quite like the collage aspects of this one):

Pink-haired girl:

... and so they go on. (This is just a small selection!) I find it interesting to look back and remember the things that interested me at different times of my life.

Funnily enough though, the thing that cured my pink hair obsession was going ahead and actually dying it!

While I had it I loved it! it was fun and I liked the attention but after about six months I started to get a bit 'pinked out.' Every time I looked in the mirror it was pink pink pink! My clothes were pink, my make up was pink, my drawings were pink...

...And eventually the idea of having pink hair began to lose its appeal. I stopped drawing pink haired characters and stopped bothering to do my roots and after a while, dyed it back to brown again. I felt like I'd had my fill of candy coloured locks!

Since then the pink-haired characters have become few and far between (apart from Countess Amelia Buttonsponge of course) I still draw them occasionally, but much more in moderation now!

(Though hot pink is still one of my favourite colours!)

So yes, this might seem like a bit of a random post but that was what was going through my head as I was looking through all my old drawings this morning! Thought I'd share!

Oh and for the record I still love looking at other peoples pink hair! It was just too much seeing it on my own head every day! (plus I hated the maintenance, I'm lazy)

Happy Midnight! (it's midnight here right now!)
x

Picnic time

2011-06-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

Today was such a hot day. I almost melted. Victoria Stitch had a picnic in the garden with Pink Rabbit. She was a little greedy with the cakes.

Wales

2011-06-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

I just got back from being in Wales for two weeks. Henry and I actually cycled down there. We had to take two trains and cycle across London from Kings Cross to Paddington. I've never cycled in London before that. It got a little bit hairy in parts but I survived!

Wales was so beautiful. We saw sheep and lots and lots of cows. We did surfing, canoeing (scary), sailing, cliff walking, kite flying, rock rool dabbling and lots and lots of chocolate eating! My favourite thing we did was go on a boat trip round an island to see the puffins. I'm not too bothered about puffins but I love seals! And we saw plenty of those. I also love boat trips. After we did that we had a picnic on the headland and it was seriously one of the nicest, most picturesque places I have ever had the fortune to eat a picnic!

My dog was in heaven! He's already tried to run away twice since we got back home. Don't think he's too happy about being back. Will have to give him lots of walks to compensate!

As you can probably tell, absolutely no drawing got done whatsoever these past two weeks but I did write over 4000 words of my new book. So I wasn't completely lazy.

Have a wonderful weekend!

X

Patterns

2011-06-24T13:58:00.000-07:00

I did these patterns a couple of weeks ago. I think the food ones would look fancy as wallpaper in a bakery. Or maybe in Countess Amelia Buttonsponge's house. The black cats would suit the Addams family I think. Maybe they could have it as their bathroom wallpaper. That would look cool. Actually I would quite like it in my own bathroom. I love black cats. They are magic.

Chocolate Bats and Furry Dolphins

2011-06-08T08:49:00.000-07:00

I love drawing bats, I love their wings and their little furry faces. And I wish I had a bat costume like this one^ Or a unicorn costume like the one my little cousin has with wings and a horn. And a pet bat and bat wallpaper and bat patterned clothes and some bat hairclips.

Actually in real real life I don't think they are quite this adorable but in my head they are.

Also I want to show off about his cake I made for my friend at the weekend. She loves dolphins and so I thought what could be better than chocolate dolphins dipping and diving into a chocolate pool? I made the dolphins by making dolphin shaped biscuits using a template I drew and then covering them in chocolate with silver balls for their eyes. She loved it.

Dorrie the Little Witch

2011-06-08T08:46:00.000-07:00

Last week I did a guest post on Vintage Kids' Books My Kid Loves about my absolute favourite ever books ever! I've blogged about them here before but never in much detail so I thought I would post what I wrote here as well. Because let's face it, who doesn't like books about little witches and magic potions. I'll warn you now though, this post is long. Here goes...

The Dorrie Books by Patricia Coombs

'This is Dorrie. She is witch. A little witch. Her hat is always on crooked and her stockings never match.'

When I was younger my mum would often take us to the library to get picture books out and it was there that I first discovered Dorrie. I just remember, as a young child being totally drawn into Dorrie’s world. I loved the spooky town of Witchville, the sparkly looking magic potions, the eerie silhouettes of witches flying across the sky and the ominous feeling that there was a bad witch lurking somewhere in the story.

I think also that the Dorrie books stood out from other books with their black and white illustrations, often offset by just one or two colours. They seem so different now from the brightly coloured and commercial illustrations that grace the covers of most children’s books today. Thinking back, it was probably quite unusual that my local library actually stocked them. To this day I have never met another person in real life who has heard of the Dorrie books, which makes me think that they must not have been very well known, or at least not in England.

The two Dorrie books that my library had were ‘Dorrie’s Play,’ and ‘Dorrie and the Birthday Eggs,’ so these are the ones I remember from my childhood. There was one time I was reading ‘Dorrie and the Birthday Eggs’ for the first time in bed and my parents were having a dinner party downstairs. I turned the page and this face leered up at me:

At the time it gave me such a shock that I remember jumping right out of bed and running downstairs to show it to my parents in the middle of their party! It still freaks me out a little bit today.

The stories are all set in Witchville, the town where Dorrie and her mother the Big Witch live. They live in a house with a tall tower where the Big Witch makes her potions and magic. They also live with Cook, an ogreish, bossy but good at heart type of character and Dorrie’s black cat Gink who follows her everywhere.

Dorrie and Gink are forever getting into scrapes and getting involved in things that they shouldn’t. In ‘Dorrie and the Weather Box,’ they creep into the Big Witch’s secret magic room and try to make a spell to change the weather.

Of course nothing goes to plan and Dorrie and Gink end up causing it to rain and thunder inside the house. Eventually the Big Witch comes home and sorts it all out. Well kind of. She makes a mistake too and it starts snowing orange snow instead!

I just love the visuals for this story. The image of the orange snowman is so striking. It’s such a great idea. And so quirky!

‘Cook climbed out of the oven. She fixed tea and sandwiches and they all sat round the snowman in the hall and watched it melt.’

Little fact for you: Later on , after having collected almost all of the books (to great dismay of my bank balance) the style of the illustrations changes somewhat over the series.

The first books in the series are a lot more graphic looking. The pictures are blacker with more block-like colours.

Halfway through the series the illustrations become much more subtly drawn. They seem as though they might have been created with some sort of soft pencil. In fact some of the lines are so faint that they almost fade into the page.

And then at the end of the series Patricia Coombs starts using full colour.

The other thing I find interesting is that Dorrie seems to grow up over the course of the books. In the earlier ones such as ‘Dorrie and the Weather Box,’ and ‘Dorrie and the Wizards Spell,’ she looks very young.

Later on in ‘Dorrie and the Witchville Fair,’ for example, she becomes much taller and older looking

Another interesting little fact that I noticed is that the drawings on her bedroom wall (pictures above and below) also improve over the course of the books! So I’m guessing that it was Patricia Coomb’s intention that Dorrie gets noticeably older. Or maybe it could have been something to do with the fact that Dorrie was based on Patricia Coombs daughter. Maybe Dorrie grew up at the same time as her daughter. Who knows!

I think what I love most of all about the Dorrie books is the slightly creepy but comforting atmosphere. I have never seen books like them before! Having a penchant for slightly-spooky-but-not-too-scary things they really encompass everything I would want out of a children’s book!

I am really grateful that I was lucky enough to come across the Dorrie books as a child. Now at twenty three and studying to become a children’s book illustrator myself, I can see how unique they are and how much of an inspiration they have been to me.

I have lots of favourite children’s book characters but none of them quite tops Dorrie. She is my very very favourite and takes pride of place in my bookshelf! I can’t get enough of that little witch!

p.s. now, amazingly, they have started to re print a few of the Dorrie books using a print on demand service on Amazon. So if you also love Dorrie, remember her from your own childhood, or get inspired by this post and don’t have any of the books then some of them are now a bit easier to get hold of.

Yesterday

2011-06-04T13:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was beautiful. It was so sunny. Victoria Stitch and Pink Rabbit took a little boat ride among the duckweed on the pond...

...and Henry and I went cycling in the countryside.

Reach for the Stars!

2011-06-02T00:14:00.000-07:00

I love Siamese cats and I wish I had one. I love the way they look so elegant with their little creamy bodies which look like their ears and tail and paws have been dipped in chocolate. Miaow~!

p.s *This illustration might look a bit confusing at the moment with the newspaper cut out star with random writing on it, but it's unfinished right now and all will be explained soon!*

Child Characters Vs Adult Characters

2011-06-01T02:15:00.000-07:00

Was drawing more children yesterday. I really need to practice at it! Being able to draw kids might be kinda useful if I want to be a children's book illustrator.

For some reason they all came out looking like ballet dancers...

I was thinking though, how necessary is it for the characters in a children book to be children? Do you think children respond more to characters of their own age?

Personally I think using an adult character in a children's picture book can be just as successful as using a child character.

I remember LOVING Princess Smartypants by Babette Cole when I was little:

well, I still love Princess Smartypants actually. And Winnie the Witch by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul:

and Tinkerbell:

and Raymond Briggs Father Christmas:

and Emma Thompson's Felicity Wishes:

and then of course there are all the traditional fairytales who have adult characters in them such as Snow White and Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and The Princess and the Pea:

These are just a few obviously successful children's story characters. And they are all adults. Or at least teenagers! In fact most of the characters mentioned above are from stories with no children in at all! But children still love them. Maybe they look up to them rather than identifying with them? But maybe that's just as important?

What are your thoughts on this subject? I'd be interested to know. It's something I find very interesting.

Have a nice day! x

Black Cats and Cut-out Characters

2011-05-29T11:44:00.000-07:00

Howdy!

Ok so first some delighting news. I found out a couple of weeks ago that I got highly commended in the Macmillan Children's Book prize competition for my 'Casper and Jasper'/Rainbow Dad entry! So I was extremely chuffed about that and got to go to the private view of the highly commended and winners work in Foyles in London which was exciting if a little daunting. So thanks Cas and Jas! You did me proud! Still, I'm kind of glad all that's over now and they can (finally) take a back seat. I feel it's time to work on something else.

bye bye Casper and Jasper!

Now these past couple of weeks I have been doing work experience at Egmont publishing house in London. I felt like a proper business person getting up at half six and hopping on the commuter train along with all the other business people. It almost made me want to get an office job. Almost. The commute at the end of the day was not fun though. Forty five minutes on the tube crammed into the carriage like a sardine in a tin was something I could have quite happily bypassed. Sometimes, actually quite often, I wish I could apparate like in Harry Potter.

Anywho the work experience was worth the tube train ride. It was very interesting and fun and they were all so nice there! I mainly worked with the design team and I loved seeing how children's books are created from a publishers point of view. There are so many things that go into making books that I had never realised before!

Also lately I have been practicing more with 3d illustrations, making little figures and putting them in places. I havn't done a lot, most of my time has been spent doing work experience of course, but here are a few little random snapshots, nothing finished or anything, just pictures of the models really.

I like working this way. I find it very absorbing but then I've always had a fascination for making tiny things. This is also me working in a looser style with a dip pen, kind of similar to the way in which I did Casper and Jasper. It's also me practising drawing children. I don't really know where my work's going at the moment to be honest. It seems to be going down a road of it's own!

I like the bat boy best.

Also I finally have an etsy shop! Though it is completely empty at the moment! I need to work out how to actually list things on there. I shall let you know when it is open for business should you have a penchant for paintings of fairy cakes or magical black cats...

To all my readers, I hope you have had a wonderful weekend and here's to a sparkling and glittertastic week starting tomorrow!

'Til next time x

Mucky Puppy

2011-05-11T10:39:00.000-07:00

Rainbow Dad

2011-05-05T15:34:00.000-07:00

So a few weeks ago I realised that it was almost that time of year again when the Macmillan Prize comes around. Being on my MA and still technically a student I thought I may as well give it a go seeing as it's probably my last chance.

So the past couple of weeks or so I have been working on creating some final images for the book I posted about a while ago about the little boy and his eccentric father.

I'm not terribly passionate about the story to be honest and I was quite ready to leave this project behind a good four weeks ago and concentrate on my dissertation but for some reason it sticks to me like a magnet and I find myself spending all my time working on it and tweaking it. Such is life.

So anyway, I just about have four spreads ready for the Macmillan Prize now and I'm pretty pleased with them if I say so myself. And by now I'll admit that I have grown quite fond of the characters after all this time! An awful lot of work went into them. I know the little boy still needs some work (drawing kids is not my strength) but I really like how the Dad came out!

This is my second time using the 3d cut out paper technique. I enjoy it so much. I get really absorbed in making all the little sets. The only problem is that I don't have a great camera to take the photos with however I was lucky because a man called David Austin who does have a great camera came and photographed them for me.

The other thing about these illustrations is that because I had so little time to make them in I had to be not too neat about the drawings. Usually I am quite laborious in the way that I draw but this time I really had to make myself loosen up. I found using a dip pen helped with this. You can't be too neat with a dip pen because the line is so unreliable. I actually quite like this looser style of drawing. (and I also like that it took half the time!)

Doing the night scenes was fun because I loved making the sparkly star effect using lamps. None of these illustrations are photoshopped or digitally enhanced by the way. (well apart from where the writing is put on)

I think forcing myself to illustrate this story has been a real learning curve. I hope so anyway! I definitely feel as though I've progressed in some way, or at least taken a direction that I don't think I would have otherwise.

So that's what I've been working hard on these past weeks! Also my dissertation which I can not WAIT to finish!

Other things that have occupied me this month have been the Royal Wedding, which was majestic and beautiful. We watched it on the television and then had a street party which my mum made the bunting for. It was such a nice day.

These (above) are some of my tiny miniature crowns that I have. I love them and thought the Royal Wedding merited a photograph of them. I like to put them on my fingertips and wiggle them around but soon (when I finally get around to completing it) they will be displayed in my castle.

Also something which I forgot to mention before was that I went to the Bologna Children's book fair in March/April which was a really eye opening experience. So. Many. Books! It was nice to see the european children's book market which was not nearly so commercialised as the English one. The whole thing was just crazy! And huuuge! And I got to speak to publishers which was great.

So that's about all for now. I need to get on with this dastardly dissertation haha. x

Tartan Houses

2011-05-02T01:32:00.000-07:00

This is old, I did it about a year ago (I think it was supposed to represent edinburgh.) I had forgotten about it because I didn't think it was very good. I recently found it buried somewhere on my computer and second time round thought it didn't look as bad as I thought. Why does that happen?

Anyway, I would genuinely love to live in a tartan house. And if I did I'd wear tartan clothes every day. Apparently when the Queen is at Balmoral she 'goes native' and wears tartan and even has tartan wallpaper!

Fairy Potions and Miniatura

2011-03-21T13:37:00.000-07:00

This weekend I did a lot of driving! Henry and I went up to Birmingham to see the Miniatura exhibition for business research (but mainly because I wanted to go and get some stuff for my castle.) And we also went to and from both Nottingham and Derby to see his family. So a lot of hours in the car were spent. It was alright because we had mini eggs and a moomin audiobook.

Here are a few of the things I bought at Miniatura...

Firstly was this pumpkin tea set. It was love at first sight! The tiny spout even has a proper spout hole! They're totally hand made, the only problem is that I don't know who made them! There were so many stalls and I got given so many cards that I'm afraid I can't remember at all! If I did I would credit them.

Secondly, these tiny bottles of potions. Actually the only thing I bought at Miniature here was the crystal ball and again I can't remember from who. (sorry!) However I do know that the poison ivy, blue glass bottle and hemlock were made by Thimblemins and that the poison with the skull and crossbones I found at Claires accessories surprisingly enough! They were originally earrings.

This was one of my favourite things- the poisoned mushrooms in the glass jar. All these things were bought at Miniatura (and I'm really sorry but I don't remember who from yet again!)

All these potions are going to be put in the potion room in my castle. Well, when I finally get round to making and decorating it properly!

I'm quite proud of my photography skills in these photos. I specifically tried to make them look good with an interesting background. I spent the morning in the garden, crouched down making a table out of leaves. I'm always envious of people who are able to take really good photographs to showcase things they've bought/seen/made.

So yes, Miniatura was good. Afterwards we drove to Nottingham to visit Henry's Gran and I was finally able to take home the fairy that she had started making for me last summer.

It's amazing because she has made all the clothes and the wings herself out of lace. What I mean to say is that she has actually made the lace! I watched some of it being done and it was quite confusing. Millions of bobbins and bits of thread all being folded across each other in different combinations and pins stuck in everywhere.

The fairy looks a lot better in real life, the photograph does not do her justice. She's a lot more shiny and glittery. I especially like her face because it reminds me of Little My from the Moomins. She looks kind of cross and mischievous.

I have hung her above my bed.

So anyway, that was my weekend. It was a good one! I hope yours was too!

lots of things!

2011-03-18T02:37:00.000-07:00

I mentioned before that I was attempting to illustrate a book that was completely different from any kind of thing I had done before. There was to be NO pink cupcakes and NO pink rabbits and definitely NO glitter! The story is about a father and his son who live in a normal house in London. There was no room for any swirly twirly houses made from sweets or Victoria Stitch-ness.

This was fine. I saw it as fine because the whole idea was to experiment and to stretch myself. I didn't want to feel too attached to the story so that I wouldn't mind making loads of mistakes and in a way not caring so much about the outcome.

And you know what, I think I have learnt more about illustrating in these last six weeks than I have in a whole year! When I look back at the first drawings I did for this project just over six weeks ago I can see how much I have improved and how much freer my work has become. And yes I've missed the glitter and I don't really feel passionate about the story at all but I'm hoping I will be able to apply some of the things I've discovered to future work.

The first hurdle to overcome was drawing children. I want to be a children's book illustrator but I realised that I never actually draw children! I don't particularly enjoy drawing children if I'm completely honest, I find adult characters much more interesting. But anyway, I had to do it. I tried many many versions of the little boy, I filled up five sketchbooks with character designs. I still feel like he could be improved.

I found this technique of painting the shape of the boy first with a watercolour wash and then drawing the outline over the top. It seemed to work well.

This one (below) has a more realistic looking face. I tried some with really realistic looking faces too and although my tutor liked them I think they look a bit scary and unappealing.

Rougher version-

And this is one of my favourite drawings of the boy that I did. (The wings got cut off in the scanner.) I love his happy expression.

The main thing I learnt about drawing children is how big their heads are proportionately compared to adults.

And THEN I had the dad to draw! I found this a bit easier because someone on my course kindly offered to model for me and as he has a very distinct look, it was a lot easier to translate that onto paper. And more fun! I used to whole painting with wash and then outlining over the top method for a lot of these again.

These were the ones (below) that the tutors really liked. I tried and tried to re create these but they never came out quite the same second time round. It's because I initially drew them so spontaneously. Ah well!

He's a bit of an eccentric the Dad. Likes his multicolours!

And then I drew some really really quick ones which came out like this:

and which I actually quite like.

So now I basically have five books full of character design! Just gotta choose which ones to use now.

And here's a few more concept ideas/sketches for pages in the book:

School playground scene:

(secretly I'm looking forward to finishing this project now. It's been a love hate relationship) I give myself one more week!

In other news it was both mine and Henry's birthday at the beginning of march so there were a lot of festivities going on. I made Henry this Zelda cake.

And he got me two teeny tiny royal crowns for my castle. Haha we are so geeky.

I had a party which was a 'dress as your favourite children's book character party and I went as Dorrie the little witch. We had light up balloons and glitter cannons and played pass the parcel

Henry came as Charlie Brown and we also had a Where's Wally, a flower fairy, Arthur, Shaggy and an amazing Scooby Doo in a full bodysuit and dog head! It was brilliant!

It's been a great month! I hope your has too!

tiny books

2011-02-14T04:47:00.000-08:00

The day before yesterday I had the sudden urge to create a miniature version of Victoria Stitch. The right size for Victoria Stitch herself! So I printed all the spreads out at about a twelfth of the actual size and stuck them all together as neat as I could to make this tiny hardback book. I have to say, I am quite pleased with the result. The only thing I can think of to make it better would be to print it at a higher resolution/on a better printer so that the smallest writing in the book is actually readable.

Anyhow, I think it's cute and it will take pride of place on the bookshelf inside my castle when it is finished. I might even try and sell some on etsy if I can make them to a professional enough standard.

Now, if you're anti valentines day don't read any further. I want to show you what I made for Henry. Again, enter tiny book number two. In fact this book is about half the size of the Victoria Stitch one. It's really titchy, smaller than a ten pence coin!

I enjoyed making it so much that I'm going to make more! I love drawing tiny. I really need to set up an etsy shop one of these days!

And Henry totally surprised me this morning with pink roses and the multicoloured rabbit I was coveting. It was amazing. I did not see it coming at all! :)

Well anyway, I guess this leaves me to say, Happy Valentines Day! for all of you who celebrate it today and Happy Monday for those of you that don't!

Ducky

2011-02-07T09:07:00.000-08:00

I've been painting a few ducks and chickens lately. They're nice to paint and researching 'duckling' on the internet can't fail to make you feel happy! I'm hoping to sell them!

ah they look so sweet all flip flopping along behind mama duck.

In other news, I haven't posted up a lot of stuff lately because everything I've done this past month seems to be quite rough or experimental. Hopefully I'll have something good soon though!

Things I've been busy doing are:

-Attempting to illustrate a picture book which has nothing to do with castles or princesses or cupcakes or glitter. (my usual forte) So trying to work out how to go about it... watch this space.

-Gradually continuing with my castle project. I've wallpapered all of the front and painted some turrets now. I might do a post on it at a later date.

-doll making. I briefly thought about using 3d figures in my illustrations so bought some fimo and made some! Think the eyes are a little starey on this one but she was my favourite (I imagine her to be Cinderella):

(I don't think I am going to use 3d figures in any of my illustrations anytime soon, but I definitely want to experiment with more papercut illustration this year)

And that's about all I can think of!

So happy monday and see you again soon!

quack quack!

Goodbye 2010!

2010-12-31T05:43:00.000-08:00

January...

... seems a lifetime ago now. It began with a snowman called Whitey Jefferson, long boots, a Tinkerbell dissertation, a new diet, some rubbish hypnotherapy, swinging in the moonlit snow, slipping all over the ice and a visit to Walsingham.

Feburary...

...still snow, glittery and crunchy, creepy creaky swings, sparkly bat and moon and star tutu, The beginnings of Victoria Stitch...

...camomile tea, evensong at the Cathederal, a critical crit, tiara buying, Princess Terribelle and a tetris card for Valentines day.

March...

...meditation, my birthday, watching Rome, a haircut, going out for the first time in ages, cupcakes with edible glitter that I couldn't eat, princess icing set, the amazing Butler and Wilson necklace I coveted for ages...

... more Victoria Stitch, pineapple rings and intense painting sessions.

April...

...painting, drawing, painting, Easter in Oxford, a visit to Yarmouth beach and an interview offer for my MA.

May...

...a dream about a a castle made of cake. It was white and I could taste the sugar in my mouth. I got onto my MA course! backgammon playing...

...final major project hand in, picnics in Norwich plantation gardens and Victoria Stitch completed!

June...

...wanting a siamese cat, dog drawing for a competition...

...pastel coloured poodles, sunshine, frisbee playing...

...a visit to Lowestoft, leaving uni forever! graduation...

...the exhibition, and the grad ball!

July...

home, holiday, sunshine, room decorating, the misadventures of Victoria Stitch...

August...

Dubai, Pegsdon hill...

reading the moomins, duty free, Dior addict, arabic perfume smelling of marzipan...

tiny rugs, The Palace Hotel in Adu Dhabi and its amazing little cakes and puddings...

September...

Istanbul, Turkey, seeing the eighty six carat diamond, a box of emeralds, black cats, drawing Castles and Palaces...

Starting the MA course, Henry moving in and the sugarplum fairy dance from fantasia.

This inspires me to buld a glitterbomb, which will rain down on the entire city. For the rest of your lives you sniffs will be sparkly.

October

...more castles and palaces, a castle dollhouse, 'Ottoline at sea,' a mini halloween party, Little My, starting a creative writing course and crafting fairies from glue and glitter and ribbons...

November

cycling to the station, getting up at 6am, creating a paper palace...

...finding a book of snowflake photographs, knitting a long multicoloured scarf for Henry and having a chocolate tea at the Hilton in London...

December

feeling Christmassy, walking Barney in the snow, blue porridge and cinnamon, a baby dragon in my stocking...

...sledging in the dark, shopping with my little cousin, essay writing and seeing best friends on Christmas Eve...

All in all I think it's been a pretty good year! I hope yours has too! I've made a few New Years resolutions which I am going to try my best to stick to as well.

1- Go to church every Sunday
2- Pray every night
3- Write ten positive things each day
4- Go to yoga every week
5- Do two hours of life drawing every week

Let's see how long they'll last!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy Christmas!

2010-12-24T12:05:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling extremely Christmassy this year. Today I iced the cakes and sprinkled edible glitter all over them. I saw my friends and we did Secret Santa and played silly games. Erin and I stopped off at Sainsburys so she could get some chocolates for her mum and all the Christmas stuff was half price so I got some reindeer earrings.

Last night I watched this version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer which was really cute actually. I love the design of the Reindeers, especially the girl one with the spotty bow.

This month I've made mince pies with Henry (he made most of them but I helped spoon some mince meat into the pastry) we went to a carol service and watched the Tailor of Gloucester. I'd never seen it before but it has a very Christmassy vibe. I am a fan!

The other day I created marzipan figures for the Christmas cake.

I decorated the tree.

And Henrys mothers and Grandmothers tree too!

This is my favourite decoration from our tree. My mum made it, I think before I was born:

It snowed and we went sledging in the dark.

Tonight I still want to watch the Hogfather at some point. It's my favourite Christmas film. Not sure I'll have time though.

All in all it's been a very Christmassy December! (I'm making up for last year)

So all that's left for me to say is

Happy Christmas!

Have a sparkling glittertastic one!

I will leave you with this picture I drew yesterday of my Grandparents dog, Millie. It's their Christmas present and as my blog is supposed to be about my own artwork I feel it is reasonably fitting.

and of course I also mustn't forget to say,

Happy Birthday Baby Jesus!

The Twelve Children's Books of Christmas (post no. 5)

2010-12-24T11:28:00.000-08:00

Last post! Finally! Here we go...

The tenth children's book of Christmas:

The Grinch

One of my all time favourite stories. I love the Who's! Especially in the film. In fact I can't quite decide whether I prefer the film or the book. Martha May Whovier is my favourite. I love the scene where she gets the gun and fires fairylights all over her house!

But anyway, the book. I'm sure you all know the story so I won't bother explaining it but just feast your eyes on the illustrations. Dr Seuss is a genuis with his energetic and quirky drawings and funny rhyme. I think so anyway.

'I know just what to do!' The Grinch laughed in his throat.

And he made a quick Santa Claus hat and a coat.

And he chuckled and clucked, 'What a great Grinchy trick!

'With this coat and this hat, I look just like Saint Nick!'

The eleventh children's book of Christmas:

Betty Bib's Fairy Christmas

Now here's a book I really really love. I can look at it for hours and always find something new! The first time I read it i was just mesmerised. There are a nice mix of paintings and photographs of crafted fairies which work together really well. It's just so quirky and charming!

Included in the book is information about festive fairy food, how to make home made cards and presents and gingerbread wings and wands and wreaths, the snow queen fairy, fairy games, the christmas fairies, and any other snippet of information you could care to know about how fairies celebrate Christmas.

In fact this book is tying with 'The Snowman' for my absolute favourite Christmas book of all time. I love it! Looking through it now makes me feel even more Christmassy!

And so now, finally we come to the twelfth and last book of all. It just had to be...

The Snowman

Beautiful book. Beautiful film. I love the drawings, the music, the atmosphere. It's perfect.

Fin!

Christmas Elf

2010-12-23T06:07:00.000-08:00

As you know if you read my blog, I made a a lot of little fairy Christmas tree decorations this year, all gold and silver and glittery and sparkly. Well someone requested that I make a boy one. I kind of improvised seeing as I hadn't made a boy one before but I am very pleased with how he turned out! And I was quite sad to see him go this morning. I think I might make some more!

The Twelve Children's Books of Christmas (post no. 4)

2010-12-22T03:35:00.000-08:00

The eighth children's book of Christmas:

Angelina's Christmas

I remember loving this book when i was younger. I was a definite Angelina Ballerina fan! I think I still am! Angelina at Christmas is a charming story about loneliness and giving at christmas time.

Mr Bell is an old retired postman mouse who lives on his own. One day, whilst walking home, Angelina peeps into his window and sees him all alon huddled over his fire.

Angelina being the kind hearted little mouse that she is, decides to bake some biscuits for him as a surprise. Henry (Angelina's little cousin) decides he would like to make some biscuits too, so he proudly makes a big Father Christmas shaped biscuit. He wants to give his biscuit to Father Christmas! Angelina tells him not to be silly and Henry bursts into tears.

The next day the mice all go to Mr Bells house with the biscuits and some other presents for him. Henry is still upset and lags behind. Mr Bell is delighted to see them. Then, 'Wait here a moment,' he says and disappears up the stairs.

When he comes down he is dressed just like Father Christmas! Henry is astonished and immediately perks up. Mr Bell explains that one year he had to wear the costume at the village Christmas party when Father Christmas needed someone to take his place.

At the end of the visit, Henry gives Mr Bell the special father christmas shaped biscuit that he made. Mr Bell is delighted and says that it is the best present he has ever received. He then agrees to come to Angelinas school show in his Father Christmas costume.

Of course there is a happy ending and Mr Bell is never lonely at Christmas again because every year after that he is invited to come to Angelinas show dressed as Father Christmas!

The ninth children's book of Christmas is:

The Oxford Christmas Storybook

Now this book, (mine actually has a slightly different cover to this one here) is one of my top top favourite chrildren's books at Christmas time! It really really gets you into the festive mood. 'Stories about robins, trees, bells, cakes, puddings, presents, snowmen, goblins, carol singers, Brer Rabbit, the Wise Men, Father Christmas (and his dog)- they're all here!'

My two favourite stories from the whole collection are 'Gifts' by Adele Geras and The christmas cake by John Gordon.

I like 'Gifts' becasue it really captures that magical feeling you get on Christmas Eve. It's about a girl called Rachel who's ornaments come to life and start talking to her. 'All animals, even ones made of wood and clay and metal can speak on Christmas Eve.' The animals persuade Rachel to give a christmas gift to her friend Rukshana even though Rukshana does not celebrate Christmas. 'Gifts at Christmas tiem are lovely.'

Rachel decided to give Rukshana her beautiful snowstorm. And this is the reason why I love this story so much. Just look at the picture of the snowstorm! It's magical!

'The Christmas Cake,' is another story which really captures the atmosphere of Christmas. 'Nisha had nothing to do. She had played with all her toys, christmas dinner was over, and now it was dark outside and everyone in the house seemed to be asleep.'

You can really hear the silence in this story. 'It was so quiet she could very nearly hear the tinsel glittering.'

Nisha wanders into the room where the table is all set for tea. She peers into a cracker and sees a little man inside singing carols. Suddenly she finds herself inside the cracker too! She follows the little man (called Crackerjack) out of the other side of the cracker and across the table to the Christmas cake.

Then follows an adventure on top of the Christmas cake which to Nisha has now become a huge white snowy sugary expanse! I think this is a wonderful concept for a story!

Christmas in a biscuit tin

2010-12-21T00:53:00.000-08:00

These are drawings for an idea I had recently about a tiny character who lives inside a biscuit tin on the kitchen dresser. The story follows her as she gets ready for Christmas. This came before I started doing all the cut out stuff and in a way is the original story!

dreaming of sugarplums...

Waking up. Oh it's Christmas Eve!

yes definitely Christmas Eve, it says so on the calendar...

Better get dressed then...

And stick some candycanes and a teacup in my hair...

Porridge for breakfast?

Now what's on the to do list for today?

Then the story continues with the character leaving her biscuit tin house and exploring the dresser, finding things to help her with her preperation for Chistmas. If you look carefully at this picture, you can spot her walking along...

The Twelve Children's Books of Christmas (post no. 3)

2010-12-19T03:04:00.000-08:00

The sixth Children's book of Christmas:

Ernest et Celestine ont Perdu Simeon

Another well beloved book from my childhood. The thing I love most about the ernest and Celestine books is the way that gabrielle Vincent manages to get such life and feeling into her characters. And the characters themselves are so appealing and drawn so beautifully that you really identify with them

The story is about a little mouse, Celestine, who has this stuffed toy bird called Simeon. Celestine loves Simeon and takes him everywhere with her until one day she accidentally loses him in the snow whilst out on a walk with Ernest.

Celestine is devastated and she blames Ernest. Kindly Ernest however promises to go out and look for Simeon. So he takes his lantern out in the snow and searches until he finds the toy. Sadly though, Simeon is ruined.

Ernest, not knowing what else to do, goes out and buys Celestine lots of new toys. But there is not one quite like Simeon and Celestine is not cheered up.

Ernest then has another idea. He tells Celestine to draw lots of pictures of Simeon, and then whilst she isn't looking, he uses the pictures to sew a new Simeon exactly the same as the one before.

Look how happy Celestine is when she discovers the new Simeon hanging on the tree! and all the new toys that Ernest bought do not go to waste. They are put on the tree and all Celestines little mouse friends come over for a Christmas party and get to pick one.

This really is such a sweet story, and about something that I'm sure most of us can relate to. I remember the feeling of losing that favourite toy when I was little and it's nice to see that in Celestines case, there was a happy ending!

The seventh children's book of Christmas:

Father Christmas

Raymond Briggs is a genius! I love all his books! I think in fact he is one of my favourite favourite illustrators of all time. Just look at the humour and attention detail in his pictures. I could look at them for hours. I also like the way that he works often in a comic strip kind of way. So it is possible to really follow the characters through the story and see what they are doing every step of the way.

I love grumpy old Father Christmas here, packing his sleigh away after a long night. He's a comical but believable character who obviously appreciates the simple things in life. I also love the soft way in which everything is drawn and coloured. I think it gives a really nice effect.

In case you don't know, the story follows Father Christmas before, after and during his trip round the world delivering presents on Christmas Eve. It's simple but wonderful. So yes, I simply had to include 'Father Christmas' in my list. Christmas wouldn't be the same without it!

The Twelve Children's Books of Christmas (post no. 2)

2010-12-17T14:06:00.000-08:00

So continuing with my Twelve children's books of Christmas...

The fifth children's book of christmas:

Pookie Believes in Santa Claus

Pookie again! I've blogged about him so many times but that's because he really is one of my favourite children's book characters ever! So there was no way I could not include him in my christmas book list! And he's going to get a post all to himself! Pookie Believes in Santa Claus is a warm, sweet and atmospheric christmas story about a little white rabbit with wings who suddenly finds himself doubting his belief in the round jolly bearded fellow.

Pookie lives with Belinda the woodcutters daughter in a forest full of elves, fairies, goblins and animals who talk. It is Christmas Eve and Pookie is having tea by the fire with Belinda when he starts worrying.

''Do you think... Do you really believe in Santa Claus?'

'Why of course I believe in Santa Claus! At least i think I do... Yes I'm sure I do.' replies Belinda

Pookie is not convinced by her answer and continues to ask all his other friends the same question. They all give the same awkward answers.

Pookie feels very sad about this and so on Christmas Eve he doesn't sleep. 'Alone under the stars, he kept watch. 'If Santa Claus Comes then i'll see him!' Then, in the distance, he hears the sound of sleigh bells. 'The drumming of hooves on the snow and the thundering rush of a sleigh!'

It is of course the man himself! Santa Claus! But there is something wrong. Santa is unhappy that no one is believing in him anymore. So Pookie begins on a mission to make everyone believe again!

Pookie Belives in Santa Claus is a totally charming Christmas story which is sure to make you feel festive this season!

Christmas Tree Fairies

2010-12-16T13:03:00.000-08:00

I attached some string to my christmas fairies heads and hung them on the tree! I think they like being there amongst all the lights.

This one is the sugar plum fairy from the Nutcracker Suite. She has a pink tutu and roses in her hair.

This one is a Santa's helper fairy. She is holding a string of mini fairylights and lives in Lapland.

This one is the candycane fairy. She lives in the land of Christmas sweets along with the gingerbread men and sugar mice.

This one is the snowflake fairy, she makes sure that there is always snow at Christmas time. She has glitter snowflake patterns on her skirt and silver skeleton leaf wings.

And last but not least is Emmeline the toy-maker fairy. She sprinkles the fairydust over the toys that Santas Elves make every year.