down in the woods...

It seems rare at the moment that I get to sit down and indulge in illustrating my very favourite of things; wild flowers, trees, woodland birds, tiny houses, inspirational quotes from great thinkers, so I jumped leapt at the chance to exhibit with some of my favourite ladies at the Hardy Tree Gallery in London next week.

WildWood: An Illustration Exhibition brings together six illustrators from the Drawn in Bristol studio in Bristol, who have all produced work exclusively for the show based around themes of woodland and wilderness, combining painting, typography and screen printing alongside digitally and hand-crafted work to showcase some of Bristol's up-and-coming illustration talent.

The gallery can be found just outside St. Pancras station in London, and will be running from Thursday 29 November to 24 December.  I will blog the exhibition poster shortly!

This is one of my pieces, based on the beautiful quote from the brilliant JRR Tolkien, 'Not all those who wander are lost.'

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For the past few years, a very good friend of mine has kept me in regular supply of Computer Arts magazine, so I'm more than a bit excited to have been featured on their blog today as part of the 100 Houses publicity, raising money and awareness for Shelter.  You can view the post here, where you'll get to see Bristol based image maker Slumber's beautiful drawing.

Hooray!  Thanks guys!

the big house

I have recently finished illustrating this house which will be joining approximately ninety nine other houses of all shapes and sizes at the Bristol Tobacco Factory's upcoming exhibition 100 Houses on 16 November.  I am incredibly excited to be sharing wall space with so many extraordinary talents!

My house, which started life in a yurt in Wales, is based on 'The Big House' from the novel Evening is the Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan, a superb tale set in surburbian Malaysia.  The bright kingfisher blue house, the biggest on the street, and the subject of many tall tales from the prying eyes of its neighbouring homes, houses a complex and quite tragically dysfunctional family, all of whom are dreaming of escape.

Pick up a copy if you can, the writing is very compelling, intelligent and very beautiful.

a little look at LOAf

Thanks to all of those who helped LOAf magazine secure its funding for its first ever issue!  I am sort of itching to share my piece, so I've put some square snippets of it up above.

Currently enjoying:

Making this delicious berry crumble cake (go on, give it a go!)

The mesmerising imagery of Becca Stadtlander

The new Fionn Regan record (beautiful)

The new Grizzly Bear record

Jane Austen related films

Evening is the Whole Day

fourteen

I have recently finished this print for my nephew, who's just turned fourteen (fourteen?!  How did that happen?) and wanted something to put in his newly-blue room for his birthday.

Gone are the days of play-fighting and drawing pictures together, or pretending to be explorers with electric-tape-moustaches, and eventually giving in to anime videos for a brief, but blissful rest from all of the curiosity, and questions and running around.  But what a marvellous lad he has grown into (still curious, still inquisitive and as sharp as an axe).  Anyway, I hope he will like this collection of moths; one for each year we've been fortunate to have him around.  Happy birthday Aaran!

notes from the treehouse

I've really fallen for this album since producing an entry for the Creative Allies Alessi's Ark CD cover design contest.  For whatever reason, I've not been privy to 

Unbeknown to me, there were a couple of Alessi's Ark songs on the playlist in a shop that I used to work in (in a job that I didn't particularly enjoy), that used to play in a continual loop for however many hours you'd been assigned to work for the day, and at the time I think that tarnished my enjoyment of the songs.  But then this competition sprung up, and I remembered that a friend of a boyfriend used to drum for a band named Alessi's Ark, and the competition sounded like a lot of fun, so I took the opportunity to really engage with the music.  And what enchanting music it is.  I'm a bit in love with Alessi's ability to craft a lyric, and conjure a sort of magical atmosphere that embodies the band's songs and their beautiful narrative style.  That's what I hoped to achieve with this pictorial response to Notes from the Treehouse, and I hope that it does that, even slightly.

I've since picked up a copy of their Time Travel album, which has some real gems on it too!

let justice flow

I've just uploaded some images to my website (currently under construction, so please forgive its slightly unfinished appearance!) of some t-shirt designs that I produced for the lovely people at CAFOD last year for their Let Justice Flow campaign.  I had a lot of fun working on these, so I hope you will like them!