Gingerbread

Blimey I've been busy. I've spent the last couple of weeks shut up in the studio hunched over the light box working on the finished artwork for the next couple of books I'm illustrating. They are two brilliant young fiction stories written by the very talented Anna Maxted and I can't wait to tell you more about them but unfortunately it's all TOP SECRET at the moment but as soon as I can I will. What I will say is that the stories are action packed, very exciting and extremely funny, which makes working on them a lot of fun

Because I've been so busy my sketchbooking has been a bit neglected. However I have managed to do two new pieces which you can see above and, of course over at my flickr page.

In other exciting news, an ad campaign I worked on before Christmas has launched! It's for the charity GINGERBREAD and it was a fantastic opportunity to work in a field outside of publishing and experience a different way of working. Follow this link to see the ad in full at the campaign website.

Love!

It's been wedding crazy around here recently. Jem and I are getting married later this year so I've been busy designing our Save the date cards as well as designing invitations for a friend of mine who is getting married in June.

The above mouse picture is an illustration I did quickly the other afternoon for a wedding my parents are going to... I'm wedding-ed out for the time being, but I did hear rumours that I might be required to do some wedding cake tasting soon so I am getting myself rather excited about... can't wait!

Further Mysteries...

More sketchbook images.

The top one is of a little boy I saw last Wednesday in Scarborough Station. He was bundled up against the cold and wasn't really having a very happy time.

The second image is once again a mystery. I'm not sure where this picture came from or what is really going on. All I know is that it's called 'The Surprise Party' and that that house belongs to someone not very nice at all...

In other sketchbook news - my sketchbook has been hijacked by my four year old nephew. I left if on the table at my parent's house over the weekend only to find later that day that a few pages at the back of the book have been doodled on by The Phantom Doodler! I'll post some of his pictures soon!

Happy Birthday Mum!

It's my little Mum's birthday today. I say little Mum because she is very little - I loom over her like the butler in the Adam's Family.  In fact I tend to loom over everyone in my family... I sometimes wonder if  I was adopted by a family of Borrowers and nobody told me....

Anyway...

Happy Birthday Dolores!*

 Jem and I are looking forward to having some cake with you and Pa this weekend! 

(Just make sure it has as much chocolate in it as possible please!)

* My Mum isn't actually called Dolores. I started calling her that when I was about 15 and now no one can remember why... Anyway it's caught on and she quite happily answers to it so that's nice!

Tattoos and cake

This is a half remembered quote... but I have know idea where I heard it...

 We had a really nice weekend being new gadget geeks (Hello iPhone! Hello new camera!) and rooting around at a vintage clothes and homewares fair. I bought a framed picture featuring four  victorian ladies in their sunday best. I also had a lovely slice of raspberry sponge from these lovely people. Mmmmm...cake...