Prints on paper

I came home yesterday and my order of beautiful paper prints had arrived- a day early! Normally I'm stressing that they won't arrive on time because I always manage to leave it to the last minute to order them. It meant I could get started bright and early on cutting mounts and getting them ready for the market on Sunday. I'm going to start selling them unframed in addition to the framed prints I make. The illustrations are printed onto 310gsm BFK Rives fine art paper which is slightly textured and the colours are just perfect. They are so close to the original artworks so I'm really happy with them! I will eventually be selling them in my online shop when I get it up and running but until then, if you're in Sydney come by the market on Sunday and check them out!

Mr Tea loves Mrs Toast

I thought this an appropriate illustration to post today for Valentine's Day. Whilst not wholly supportive of this over commercialised day, I do support doing nice things for your beloved! And I do support the giving of greeting cards any day of the year, as long as they are well chosen and made with love so I guess I should get on board with it. I just think it should be about the little things, like a perfectly chosen card, a freshly baked cake, even a well needed cup of tea that you don't have to ask for, it just gets brought to you. That's where the idea for this illustration came about. For me what better way to show someone you love them than to make them breakfast! When I was drawing this, and deciding who was going to be gazing adoringly at who I started to feel like all the objects in the kitchen had little faces and were making eyes at each other! I think the knife and fork are particularly cute.

Let's Dance

Well hello 2012! I know I am just a little late in wishing you all a happy new year. I have been fairly well ensconced in holiday mode until being dragged out of it last Sunday for the first Eveleigh Artisans' Market of the year. Thanks to everyone who came by, it was lovely to see you all and great to be back at the market. It seems a lot of people had Valentine's Day on their mind and this illustration was a big hit in the card department. It's called 'Let's Dance' and was inspired by the M. Ward version of Bowie's song of the same name. The original version is of course very cool but M. Ward's take on the song is just so beautiful and I love the way he sings it. It's very romantic and the line "sway through the crowd to an empty space" is where this illustration began. I didn't always envisage a bear and a panda dancing, that just seemed to be an obvious progression as I worked on the idea!

Custom illustration

Hello again. I hadn't realised it had been so long since my last post, I'm going to have to get better at this blogging thing! Things have been pretty busy lately. I've just finished an illustration commissioned by a lovely customer of mine. It's a portrait set in the Costa Rican jungle for a custom greeting card. It's one of the most detailed pieces I've done I think. It's done in watercolour, coloured pencil and pen & ink.

Interview on Inner West Lifestyle blog

I was interviewed recently by the lovely Nadine from Inner West Lifestyle, a fantastic blog about the inner west of Sydney and all the great things the area has to offer- food, coffee, shopping, art & design and more. A big thanks to Nadine for the interview and for writing such a lovely introduction. You can check it out here.

Chaos in cookie land

Well things have been pretty busy lately with Christmas not too far away. I had a very exciting delivery today- my new Christmas cards and gift tags arrived from the printer! I get very anxious about having things printed as it's so difficult to get the printed colours to look like your original artwork and I find it quite stressful. Thankfully I have a great printer and they have done an amazing job, they look great! I'll post some photos of the cards and tags soon. In the meantime this the newest addition to my Christmas card range "Chaos in cookie land".

Dog Squadron

Hello and welcome to my blog! This is one of my newest illustrations "Dog Squadron". I wanted to do an illustration for a birthday card and I got this image in my head of dogs flying planes across the sky delivering cupcakes to everyone having a birthday. My favourite part is the way the dogs ears are flapping in the wind! This was painted in acrylic on illustration board. I've been using watercolour so much over the last few years, it was nice to get the acrylic paints out again. I felt like I'd forgotten how to paint with them at first but it all came back soon enough.