London love

Hello again,

I'm back once more with all things London (again).  I love creating maps of anywhere really but it's always special when you feel you know the place.  I also really enjoy drawing London's iconic buildings and places.  I've drawn a lot of the ones shown here over and over again, and I never get tired of them.
For this illustration I was really strict with my colouring.  I wanted something really vibrant, and I'm really happy with the colour choices and the reduced palette.  Tombow and micron pens have become some of my favourite materials to work with alongside paints.  Tombows have amazing colours and coverage and microns give a lovely line and don't bleed which is perfect for my way of working.
I definitely want to make more maps.  They're challenging but so enjoyable to work on.

Right back to work, lots to do this week as I've got a couple of days break at the end in the countryside, so lots of lovely long walks in nature.  I can't wait :).

London

Hello,

This week I want to share some London themed work I've been doing recently (I love drawing London things!)  The first is an illustration of an area of Carnaby Street and around.  It's an area I feel I know quite well.  I wanted to stick to a particular colour range and include places and items that have stuck out to me as I've walked around.  I do enjoy drawing the Liberty building, it's so iconic and beautiful, and I really enjoyed selecting what else to draw for my kind of map.

The second illustration I created after reading a book I received for Christmas called 'Underground Tales for London'.  It contains twelve stories from twelve different authors all inspired by, yep, the Underground.  I created an image for each story and then centred them around an image of a tube train.  I had fun creating this little project for myself and it also encouraged me to draw more figures which is something I haven't done that much of recently.

I hope you're having a good week.  It's pouring with rain where I am at the moment but I'm happy that now it's staying lighter longer at night, I'm always excited to see that change.  Right, back to the desk with a cuppa for some more drawing :).

Have a great weekend.

London

Hello,

I hope January is going well for you.  I know it can feel like a long month although I have to say so far personally I've been really enjoying it.
This week I'm sharing some London themed illustrations I've worked on recently.  I always love to draw London buildings and areas and it's something I intend to continue with.  Actually, I'm working on a London themed illustration now quite by chance.

Right, back to the desk with a cup of tea :).  Have a lovely toasty weekend!

Happy New Year!

Hello and Happy New Year!

I hope you've had a good break if you've had one.  I had a lovely Christmas with my family and have come back feeling relaxed and refreshed.  It was lovely to spend some time in the countryside and go for some nice long walks.  I created the illustration below following a walk around Dunwich.  It's known for suffering badly with erosion over the years, so a lot of old buildings have ended up in the sea.  It is told that on stormy nights you can hear the bells of old churches ringing from the sea....

Just before Christmas I also visited Blickling Hall.  For Christmas they light up the gardens and house and I've wanted to go for a while now.  This year I finally made it.  It was very cold but worth the wait, it was so pretty, (luckily I had some mulled wine and a gingerbread tree to help warm me up, of course! yum) 

It felt really Christmassy.  It all feels like a long time ago now though.  I'm really excited for the year ahead though, I've come back full of new ideas and I'm excited to be back to the table drawing!
I hope you thoroughly enjoyed your break if you had one, and that Santa bought you all you hoped for!  I'll be back soon with more new work :).

Golders Hill Park

Hello,

This week I'm sharing an illustrated map of Golders Hill Park, a lovely park not too far from where I live.  It's attached to Hampstead Heath which (if you're not aware) is a huge heath in London.  I wanted to illustrate Golders Hill Park because it has so many different elements to draw and it's the perfect time of year to be outdoors.
I always enjoy projects like this where I can research a place and pick out aspects of it that I think are important and that will be of interest to the viewer.  I loved drawing all the animals especially.  I visited a couple of times and was completely spoiled because the weather was so lovely!

I also took loads of photos, so here's a selection.

Today I'm back at my desk working on some nature themed illustrations so hopefully it will be a lovely drawing/painting day (well that's the plan anyway).  I hope you have a lovely weekend and it's sunny where you are :).

Regents park map

Hello,

This week I thought I'd share a map I've created of Regents Park.  I love making illustrated maps, figuring out what landmarks or items to include and arranging it all.  I especially enjoy drawing places I know quite well (although it has been a while since I've been to this park, I must go back!)
I start work like this by making very detailed pencil sketches of the various components  I'm going to include, at a larger scale, then simplifying them so they're not too complicated when I reduce them in scale and pull everything together for the final.  Anyway enough waffle, here's the map

I knew I wanted to include a penguin for the zoo and I loved drawing that and the parrot especially.  Who doesn't love a penguin?

Today I've spent playing around with inks in preparation for some new work, I have a lot of drawing planned for the weekend :).  I hope you've had a great week and I'll be back soon.

Women's Health Food Illustrations

Hello,

I am pleased to report that my cold is almost gone, hooray!  This means that I'm back to working as normal again.  It still amazes me how a cold can knock you out sometimes, but it did mean I spent some time fiddling around with some collages which has been something I've been wanting to do for a while, a way of using up some old pieces of work, and working on my colour.  I'll come back to that another time, but today I wanted to share some commissioned work from this months Women's Health UK magazine.  The article is all about food in the UK and was a pretty perfect commission for me because it included a map and food!  Things I love to draw!  The food map was also my first double page so it was immensely exciting for me.  Altogether there were five illustrations included in the article.  I've worked with Women's Health a few times now and they're always great to work with. Here are the original illustrations shown below

Here's the spreads from the magazine

I really enjoyed working on these and it's great to see the final product.  

This week I've been working on another map.  It's almost complete and has been a lot of fun to create, that's what I'm going to get back to now along with a nice cup of coffee.  Have a lovely weekend :).  

Walking and mapping at Ickworth

Hello there,

I hope you're having a lovely weekend.  This week I've been working on another lovely commission for Women's Health magazine which I'll share once it's published.  In the meantime I thought I'd share this Ickworth Park walking map that I created purely because I wanted to.
A couple of posts ago I talked about a visit I took to Ickworth Park whilst I was at home visiting family.  It was a gorgeous sunny day and I loved wandering around.  I really enjoy visiting properties like this and spending time in the gardens.  The map is created based on the walk around it that I did. There were some beautiful Dahlias in flower when I went and I'd like to see the wildflower garden when it's in full bloom in the summer.
As it's autumn I really wanted an autumnal palette, and I have been really inspired by the colours I've been seeing out and about on and off the trees.  I adore those gorgeous rich colours and they are gone so soon!

I really enjoy making work like this, figuring out the most important aspects and working out how to combine them all to make sense as an image, but also as a walk that you can follow with a bit of imagination.  If you've been I hope you recognise some of the sights here.

Right, back to work, I need to start sketching for this years Christmas card (I'll say that very quietly!) Ta ra!

 

Hello,

It's been a nice sunny weekend here, hopefully this will continue for a little longer!
I've been busy drawing a Southbank map.  The Southbank here in London is a lovely place to go and walk around I think and there are plenty of things to do, places to stop, eat, drink and people watch.  It's been somewhere I've always enjoyed going to since I've lived here.
I always find maps challenging which I like.  I make a lot of sketches of everything before I put it all together trying to make sure everything is roughly where it should be, a lot of sticking and photocopying of all the sketches takes place before I work on the final.  I drew the Tate several times trying to get the texture I wanted!  I really love that building.  I do love London :).

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I hope you've had a good weekend, I'll be back soon :)