Under the sea

Hello,

I hope you're having a good week.  Today I'm sharing another sea-themed work (I think I really need a coastal visit!).  I had a very specific colour palette in mind when I started this and I'm really happy with how it turned out.  Drawing all the creatures for this was such fun and I hope it conveys as sense of the movement of the sea.  

Below is one of my work in progress sketches.

Also I picked up a copy of Uppercase Magazine which features an illustration of mine.  The illustration was for a They Draw and Cook challenge.  The theme was 'Food Geometry' so I created a food pattern.  I was delighted when it was one of the entries picked to appear in the magazine.  

Ok that's it for now, keep warm!

Beyond the sea

Hello,

Today I'm going to share a personal piece I finished this week.  I've been thinking about the idea for a while now, ever since I took a trip out to the Suffolk coast back in September.  The area is full of folk tales and I get really caught up in those when I'm out wandering there.  I love going for long walks in the countryside possibly because I live in a big busy city so I really appreciate nature when I get out in it, and also because I grew up in the countryside so I feel the need to get back to it when I can.  This particular illustration is inspired by an old tale that when fishermen die they become seagulls.  I read it whilst looking in a local museum and it began conjuring up ideas in my head.  They've had to stay there for a while whilst I was completing other work but I had time to work on it this week.  I really enjoyed drawing all the sea creatures and I'm now sketching out ideas for some new work on that theme.  I love how one thing can lead to another!

Here are a few photographs from the trip.  If you are interested the place I visited is called Dunwich.  It has suffered heavily with erosion in the past, and there are many tales of the sound of bells ringing from sunken churches on dark windy nights ;).  The gravestone shown is the last remaining from one of the churchyards that have fallen into the sea and the photo below shows the ruins are from an old monastery.

I'm hoping over Christmas I can get out and do some brisk winter walking in the countryside.  I can't wait!  

I hope you've had a good week, are wrapping up warm and enjoying the cosy time of year! :). 

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 :).

A little break

Hello,

I've had a lovely week.  I finally took a proper few days off and incredibly picked the week with the best weather so far :D!  I went to visit my family back in Norfolk and spent time in the countryside, and by the coast, in what was permanent sunshine, I really could not believe my luck.  As the weather was so good it was also the perfect excuse to try several varieties of delicious ice cream, yum.  Below are some pictures of my time there.

I really enjoyed getting away, I've come back full of new ideas, and got to work on some new illustrations inspired by my travels.  I love creating work in this way.
In honour of the sun (which is not with me today :(, it has been a day of rain) here's a recent sunny Illustration I created all about bees.  I wanted a really limited sunny warm toned palette for this one.

I hope you've had a great week and enjoyed the sunshine if it was around where you were :). 

New Year, home and away

Hello,

Happy New Year!  I hope 2018 will be a great one for all of us, personally I'm pretty excited to see what it will bring.  I hope if you had a break over Christmas and New Year it was a lovely one and you're all feeling well fed and happy! (I was sent back with a food parcel and I still have some left!)

I had a lovely break, I went to see my family and it was good to have a few days off, I think I needed to wind down a bit.  I got back before New Year and have been working hard since then.  When I do have a break, I find I always come back full of energy and ready to get on.  I also find a change of scene really helps my work and gives me inspiration for some new creations.  I was particularly looking forward to walking out in the countryside and by the coast.  Living in London I really appreciate being able to do this whenever I go home.  I often visit places I went to when I was a child so they feel very familiar.  This time I went walking near Cromer and then went onto the beach (I am sea obsessed, I always need to get close to it).  When I got back here I created some work inspired by the famous Cromer crab.

Here's a couple of photos from the beach, it's quite rocky but the colours of the stones are so pretty and there was some beautifully coloured seaweed.  Nature has such amazing colours.  It was pretty cold by the way, but I am a weed in the cold!

I hope you had a lovely start to the year and here's hoping 2018 will be a great one for us all! :)

A day at the beach

Hello,

A few weeks back I took a little trip back to Norfolk and visited what is possibly my favourite beach there.  As a child I used to go regularly to Wells-next-the-sea so I have a lot of happy memories from that time.  It's great to go when the it's a lovely hot day and you can paddle.  The tide goes out a long way but leaves little pools behind so you have warmish water to swim and paddle in, I love it!  The beach is huge so even if it's busy you can walk and walk and get away from it all.  There's a pine forest behind the beach huts which you can also wander through.  I've been when it's hot, when it's cold and windy too, it's just a lovely place to go to whatever the weather.
So after that little visit I made a piece of work based on it.  I spent ages working on the colours for the huts.  In reality they're all a variety of colours but I wanted them all to relate to each other and share the colouring.
Here's the finished piece

Here's some of the work in progress colour sketches.  I tend to make a lot so I can really sort colours and have all sorts of scraps with marks and textures which I then keep as they are so helpful for future work.  Then I piece it all together before working on the final.

Here's some photos of the beach, ahh it's a lovely hot day today and it would be great to be there!

I hope you're having a lovely weekend, I'm gazing out at a lovely blue sky and looking forward to another sunny day tomorrow :)