The end of an era

I have spent a good few years working on getting a degree, BA Hons Graphic Design & Illustration at DMU Leicester, as a part time student and after finishing my degree show last Thursday/Friday I can't help but feel a little sad. I have met a lot of people along the way and some super talented ones at that! My tutors have been both supportive and encouraging and I would like to say a massive thank you to them all. There have been times when I thought I wouldn't make it but I soldiered on and hopefully in two weeks time my hard work will pay off. Now I am looking to the future, can I make it as a freelance illustrator? Well if I can do a part-time degree and be a full-time mum of two under 4 at the same time, then you have to believe anything is achievable!

Early Lily Sketches

Early pen sketches for my book, 'Lily and the Alien'.

Logo for LFRS part 2

A few months ago I posted a logo design that had been shortlisted for LFRS 'firebeat' project last year, well here is the second logo I submitted at the same time. I enjoyed the brief change of direction from solely children's illustration as it showed me a slightly new way of working that I could incorporate into all of my projects.

Mini monster characters

Some more character design for 'THE mini MONSTER NIGHT OLYMPICS'.

Experimental Books

An experimental book which folded out nicely into a pop up farm and then photographed from different angles. These photos were then turned into another book with added illustrations using a POD (print on demand) website. Here are three different spreads from the second book.

THE mini MONSTER NIGHT OLYMPICS

A different children's book altogether. Little monsters come out at night to hold their very own olympic games all over the house.

This is one spread which is slightly unfinished and the front cover.

Lily front cover image

Originally the front cover was a pencil rough but I wanted to display it at my degree show in colour as I wanted to make it stand out.

Lily and the Alien

I have been working on a children's book called Lily and the Alien for some time now and I am happy to say final spreads, rough spreads and dummy book are all complete. I submitted this to the Macmillan Book Prize this year as I made it my goal to do so whilst I was still a student. An earlier post on my blog shows Lily in her earlier character stages. This is how she turned out.

Inspirations

My two loves as a child were reading and drawing. The story let you get sucked into a different world and the illustrations fuelled the imagination further. I will always argue that one of the best book collaborations was between Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake. Quentin Blake is my number one inspiration. His work always seems so effortless yet as an artist you know that every line is nearly always carefully thought out bit by bit and it may actually be the 5th or 6th attempt you see because something wasn't quite right the first few times. I was very lucky a few years back to visit the Magic Pencil exhibition in London where some of Quentin Blakes original work was on display. If you think the illustrations in the books are great, seeing the originals is fantastic. You become a self appointed critic where you follow every line and analyse every mark, colour etc. Once again you find yourself sucked in and you wish you could meet the illustrator in person to ask the many questions whirling around your brain. One book I will be ordering from Amazon soon is 'Beyond the Page' by Quentin Blake himself (Sept). Here he writes about his projects since 2000, describing working processes, collaborators, his travels plus his various projects and commissions. It also states hundreds of illustrations so I can't wait and think it will be fascinating to read.