Glow

The idea behind this image was to show the three young girls lit by the glow of the television. They are all terrified by the movie that they are watching. 

Maybe next time they should watch a comedy!

Free printable Christmas tags!

These are possibly too late for the more organised amongst you but if you are anything like me and still have a mountain of presents left to wrap these free tags may come in handy! 

Follow the link below to download the PDF and print away to your hearts content.

Free Printable Christmas Tags

Merry Christmas!

Snow!

This weeks Illustration Friday topic is 'Snow'. I've had a root through my festive images and thought I'd share this one as it fits the bill.

I produced it a little while ago for a children's Christmas activity book along with many other festive themed images. It's a spot the difference activity deigned with young children in mind. Which reindeer is the odd one out? Can you spot it?

Lollipop!

Here's an image from my sketchbook. 

I much prefer drawing animals to people so I thought I'd make myself draw a new human character for a change. I really enjoyed creating all the patterns for her jumper!

 It's drawn using Pigma Micron pens. I haven't got round to scanning it yet but I will do some time and post the results when it's done.

Explore

 This week's Illustration Friday topic is 'Explore' so I thought I'd post an illustration that I think fits the bill. 

It's taken from a series of three Holiday themed children's activity books. I'll post them below. The covers feature the same family on holiday exploring the world in various modes of transport. I tried to keep them linked together by using a similar colour palette throughout. They were sold packaged together so needed a unified look.

The aeroplane cover was eventually changed, at the publishers request, to be a plane flying over green fields. I, however, still prefer the snowy mountains version so that's the one I'm sharing with you today!

Stretch

My entry for the Illustration Friday topic of the week, 'Stretch'.

This rather portly bird and her friends were created digitally using Adobe Illustrator.This is a brand new image created specifically with the topic 'Stretch' in mind.

Home Sweet Home

Having at last finally got my shop up and running I am now trying to come up with ways of expanding my product line. Currently I am just offering digital prints of my work but I am keen to branch out.

I've been collecting stones of varying shapes and sizes for a while now with the aim of doing something lovely and creative with them. I finally got time the other week to sit down a create something. So here is my first piece of decorated stone. Please do let me know what you think of it!

 I think I will have to try working on some smaller scale things for my shop though as postage could work out to be expensive! So this one is currently living in my lounge by the fireplace.

Home Sweet Home was inked by hand using a combination of Posca and Sakura pens and coated with a clear matte varnish to finish.

Pocket Wren Launch

After what has seemed like forever I have finally launched my shop, Pocket Wren, on Etsy! It's my excuse to create things I love, I hope you like them too!

I've been working away in my spare time for the last few months creating lots of lovely things to sell. So far I have only had chance to upload a few items to my shop but there is definitely lots more to come! I'll do my best to add lots more goodies and keep you posted. In the meantime please take a look and let me know what you think at

Pocket Wren

Whiskers

Thought this image of these two rather romantic cats complete with whiskers glinting in the moonlight would fit this weeks Illustration Friday topic.

The image was one of several images featuring cats that I created with the greetings card market in mind. I thought this one could make a nice Valentines day card. A few months early, I know, but a little bit of romance can't be a bad thing can it?

Zoom!

My entry for this weeks Illustration Friday topic 'Zoom'. 

This is a character I developed for a series of children's board books. He is the fastest baby animal on the farm and he loves nothing more than having a race with all his farmyard friends...even if some of them might need a lift!

I have taken several pages from the book and with a bit of tweaking created this single image I thought I would try and show the foal doing what he does best. So here he is zooming around the farm.

The images were coloured and refined from my original pencil sketches in Illustrator and combined and edited using Photoshop.

Pocket Wren

Thought I'd better update my blog, I have not posted for a while as I've been so busy. I seem to have a lot going on at the moment! 

One of the things that is keeping me occupied is getting things ready so I can launch my online shop. I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere. I now have a name, 'Pocket Wren' and I've created my logo design, of which there is a sneaky peek below. So I feel a step closer at least. I've still got a little way to go organising things though but I will be sure to let you know when things are up and running!

The Shy Monster

I tried to go for a bit of a switch round for this weeks Illustration Friday topic 'Shy' hence the rather shy monster emerging reluctantly from the little girls closet. This is a new illustration produced just for fun and was done straight into Illustrator.  

Haunted.

This weeks topic on Illustration Friday is 'Haunted'. So I thought I'd get on board with the Halloween spirit and post an entry. 

This is a combination of images taken from a pop up children's board book I did the illustrations for. In the story the ghosts are all playing hide and seek with each other, all searching for the perfect hiding place. Below is a picture of the finished book.

This series of books included 'It's party time!' and 'It's circus time!' which I also did all the artwork for.

Birds at dusk.

I've been pretty busy this week and have neglected my blog a bit so I thought I'd better take a break and post a new image. So here it is!

I really like drawing birds and I had a lot of fun filling in the patterns and details on these guys. It started life in my favourite sketch book as a black line drawing. I then did a watercolour wash for the background and combined the two in Photoshop. Then followed many hours of tweaking and tidying up. It took a few attempts over several different days to settle on the colours and get it just how I wanted it.

Surprise!

This was originally the first post on my blog but when I saw that this weeks topic on Illustration Friday was 'sky' I had to submit this.

This image was a happy accident really. I was doodling away one day and it just happened. It was worked up from a tiny sketch, a corner of paper not much bigger than a postage stamp that I happened to be scribbling on at the time, using Illustrator.

Coloured street.

This is the colour version of the line art that I posted last week. 

The original was done on a heavy weight paper using Pigma Micron pens. It has been scanned in to my computer and coloured using Photoshop. I've also added a couple of watercolour textures and softened the line a little. I have tried to keep it fairly simple and clean with a limited colour palette. I hope you like it.

I hope to go on and do some more architectural images when I have time. Possibly some famous landmarks. I was thinking maybe Big Ben or the Taj Mahal. Let me know if you have any ideas for me!

Water

My entry for this weeks illustration Friday topic of 'water'. Drawn in pen then coloured digitally.

Street

A mixed up architecture inspired ink sketch created from my imagination. Will scan it soon and have a play with it and see how it turns out. Will post the results when I'm done!

Landscape prints

I've been having another go at Lino printing. Decided to try a landscape this time. I have also been experimenting with different types of paper. Here's my results from today.

Mirror

Here is my entry for this weeks Illustration Friday topic.

It was originally a black and white illustration done for a children's colouring and activity book but I couldn't resist digging it out and tweaking it when I saw that this weeks topic is 'Mirror'. 

Wise Owl

Newest illustration, hot off the press!

Illustration Friday

Illustration for this weeks Illustration Friday topic 'Book'.

Finished Giraffes.

This is the finished image of the line art Giraffes I posted a while ago.

New lino printing skills.

I fancied a go at something new, I'm trying to get away from doing everything digitally. So I ordered the tools above which arrived the other day. Today is the first chance I've had to use them. Below are some of the results of my first lino printing session. I will definitely keep going with it and see what else I can produce.

Rialto Bridge

This is one of the illustrations I've got on the go at the moment inspired by a recent trip to Venice. It's not finished yet, I've come to a point where I don't know where to go with it at the moment so I'll probably put it on the back burner for a while and come back to it later.

Finished Zebra!

Here's my completed zebra image. I've added a watercolour wash and a few digital elements to finish him off. 

Zebra

I love drawing animals as you may have noticed. This zebra is drawn using Pigma pens. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do with it yet. But I'll scan it in and see what happens. I seem to have a lot of unfinished images at the moment and lots of ideas. My hands can't seem to keep up with my brain!

Birdcages

A new illustration just completed! No sketches this time, this was done straight onto the computer using Illustrator.

Favourites?

Here are some images that I did a while ago for a series of board books. Each square is a page of the book. Not all of them were used in the books though. I think some are more successful than others. Do you have a favourite? Let me know! 

Giraffes

A new illustration ready for scanning. I'll play around with it digitally and post the results later.

Flowers

Flowers to brighten up a rainy day!