Cards, prints and Monday sun

Hello,

The start of another (so far, sunny) week.  It is always nice when Monday begins with sunshine.
I hope everyone is keeping well.  Today I'm going to share a couple of recent things I've done.  The first is I've added some products to my Etsy shop.  There is now a range of cards (birthday, thank you, any occasion,) and prints on a variety of themes.  There's nature, London and wildlife.  Here's a little selection :-

Last week I also was very kindly featured on the Feast Norfolk Magazine website.  They did a little interview about me, my work and of course food! 

I'm guzzling down coffee as I write this, keeping it brief.  I hope you're all having a good start to the week and I'll be back soonish with more of my goings on. 

Waitrose food illustrations

Hello,

I know it's been an age since I last wrote a post, but I think we all know the world is a bit of strange place at the moment so I had a bit of a gap.  I'm going to try to get back on posting more regularly from now on though, let's see how it goes!
I'm not going to gabble on for too long.  I have been working away on a few different projects since I was last here and the one I'm going to share today is some illustrations I did for Waitrose food magazine.  They were for the Everyday Food section of an illustrated special and it was the the July edition which is out now.

Here are the actual spreads:-

It was great to work on this as it was a lovely big juicy commission, and it kept my mind active as we were right in the middle of the lockdown.  Also at the time it was really warm and sunny, that's definitely all disappeared at the moment.  

Ok, I'm going to leave it there today.  I will be back with more soon.  I hope if you're reading this that you're staying safe and remaining positive.  I know that can be extremely tough some days.  Please take care and be kind to yourselves xx

Food illustrations for Women's Health

Hello,

I've had a bit of a break from here, unintentionally so, but now hopefully I'll be back a little more regularly.  It's been a busy few weeks and I spent the Easter break away in the countryside which was very very nice and needed!
Today I'm sharing the illustrations I completed for the May edition of Women's Health UK. I've worked with them several times now and I always really enjoy the commissions.  This was another set of food illustrations.  Here are some of my favourite originals.

This is the finished article

I do really enjoy drawing food so if you need any food illustrations why not give me a bell (shameless plug) sharon@sharonfarrow.com :).  I hope you have a lovely rest of the week whatever you're up to.  Now it's coffee and back to work!

Festive food and drinks

Hello,

So I’m writing this from my phone as I’ve managed to damage my laptop screen and it’s in for repair :(.  Pretty annoyed with myself but it’s happened and so I have to get on with it!  It will take a few days so until then, no computer!  Thankfully at least I can keep making work in the meantime as it’s all hand drawn.
Anyway, I wanted to share the illustrations I created for this months Women’s Health UK.  It was a lovely festive commission of food and drinks.  I especially loved drawing the tree crackers and the mushrooms.

That’s it for now I hope you have a great weekend! 

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 :).  

All in the eyes

Hello,

Here's some work I created recently for the January edition of Women's Health magazine out now.  It was great to work with them again.  The article is all about eye types, I'm a hooded eye which can be quite problematic I find when using eye make up, it always ends up on the hooded bit!  This has some helpful tips to avoid this.  I had a lot of drawn, inked and painted eyes all over the place when I was working on these trying to get the colouring as I wanted, and I still find eyes all over the place.  I'm really happy with how they turned out though.

This afternoon I'm back at the desk drawing some more wintery vegetables (yes this is a bit of an obsession of mine).  It's been a snowy day here in London, which for me was pretty exciting as it's the first time since I've lived in this flat that I have seen the lovely garden covered in snow, so pretty!  I did go out in the morning and came back with very wet feet, (trainers and snow are not a good idea!)  Still, now I'm at home all warm and toasty and can appreciate the snow from the inside :), and I did have fun walking in lovely crunchy fresh snow.

Have a great week!

Travel commissions

Hello there,

I hope you're having a good weekend.  It's been a very dark and rainy day here in London in contrast with yesterday which was cold but bright :).  I decided to treat myself yesterday and headed off to the Barbican to see the Basquiat exhibition which was fantastic, (I've been really looking forward to this so it was great to finally go and well worth it!)  As I was early I also popped in to see the John Akomfrah installation which was both thought provoking and mesmerising, well worth a look I would say.  I always wish I had more time to go to more exhibitions, it's so important to see things and I am determined to find more time in future!
On another note I wanted to share some recent work I've completed for Cox and Kings Compass magazine.  I created two illustrations, one for their letters page which was about an evening cruise on the Huangpu river, and the other is for an article about travelling with a huge supply of books.  I really enjoyed drawing the Shanghai skyline, I hope you can recognise it! and I'm really happy with how the books illustration turned out.  I loved drawing the old fashioned suitcase and I'm especially happy with the shoes (based on a pair of mine :)).  The magazine is out soon and should be available on their website if you want to take a look and our not a member.

That's it for now.  I'm back to working on a Christmas illustration whilst being all wrapped up with some huge woolly socks!

Hope you have a great weekend!

November 5th

Hello!

Tomorrow is Guy Fawkes here in the UK.  When I was a child this was one of the highlights of the year!  Often we would go to see a big display somewhere which was very exciting and then at the end have a sparkler.......sparklers are the best!  I still find fireworks hugely exciting and luckily from my flat I get a really good view of lots of displays :).  Although admittedly it's not the same without a sparkler.
So, I was commissioned by The Simple Things magazine to illustrate their November identifier page and it was for, fireworks!  I had a lot of fun playing around with different media to get what I wanted.  Maybe this guide is helpful if you're watching tonight, as I think the majority of the displays will be this evening :).

Here's a few of my favourites in close up.

I hope you're having a lovely weekend and if you're watching fireworks tonight, enjoy!  I'm off to have a cup of tea and start on some roughs for a new commission :), yay! bye

Editorial Illustrations

Hello,

I thought I'd share with you some recent work I completed for Cox and Kings Compass Magazine.  These illustrations were for their spring/summer issue which will be out soon.  Both of them were lovely briefs.  One was for the letters paged inspired by Greece, and the other was based around an article about literature and the Thames.  I had a great time drawing these.  Thinking of Greece really took me back to holidays there (I must go back soon!) It also meant I got to draw a goat which can only be a good thing!  I loved working through ideas for the for the Thames piece, it was a beautiful article.  I always enjoy drawing London landmarks and I'm really happy with the colours I choose for this one and how it turned out.

It's a bank holiday weekend in the UK this weekend and for once I am actually escaping the capital and going to spend a few days away in the countryside, I can't wait!  I realised I haven't left London since Christmas! so it really is about time.  

I hope you have a lovely weekend whatever you do x