Ginny

A while ago I was asked by a friend to do a portrait of her lovely dog Ginny. This was technically my first pet portrait and I couldn't have asked for a better subject!

'Many hands make...'

'...light work!' This phrase popped into my head the other day and so did the idea for this piece. This onloy took me a few hours of an evening to do.

Cocktails

A similar idea to the ice creams but with cocktails! These were made out of a thinner paper stock so I used colour pencil for the details rather than watercolour.

Ice Creams and Ice Lollies

This is something I worked on a little while ago - ice creams and lollies made from cut paper. I'm planning to frame this soon and maybe even experiment with making a pattern out of it.

Digital Paper-Cut: Experiment

Experimented recently with how I could get a papercut effect just using Photoshop. To be honest I much prefer actually physically making my paper illustrations but it's always worth learning a digital way too. I will probably be practising it some more ^_^ I chose to re-do one of my earlier illustrations of a panda.

Original

Digital Version

Greetings Card

This is a greetings card I've been working on this week for a commission.

Safari Scene

This is a 3D paper-cut safari scene I made for a commission a couple of weeks ago.

It sat nicely in a box frame :)

And personalised too!

Love, Laugh, Live

This was a small present I made for my Mum for Mother's Day. Have yet to buy a frame for it :)

START: Walking book project

This was a project where I was asked to produce artwork for a book project called 'START Walking'. During the project I worked with START (Students and Refugees Together), Trufflehog and the Creative Writing students at Plymouth University. The book focused on the refugee communities of Plymouth and aimed to introduce them to walks within the city and the surrounding countryside. The book included nine walks each with a map, directions, interesting facts, local wildlife and interviews with members of the refugee communities.

Here are some of my initial map sketches and ideas:

Burrator Reservoir

Mt. Edgecumbe to Kingsand

The final artwork was made out of cut-paper and collaged together digitally. I made symbols that were used on each map. Here's some of the finished artwork:

Burrator Reservoir

Mt. Edgecumbe to Kingsand

Mt.Batten to Bovisand

As well as maps I also did some wildlife illustrations:

Badger

Sheep

Fallow Deer

Raven

Kingfisher

I finally received some copies of the finished item earlier this year - I will get some photos up soon :)

Morynga

This is a little piece I did autumn 2013 for the Morynga company to promote their autumn moringa tea flavours:

• moringa, hibiscus and cinnamon
• moringa and lemongrass
• moringa and ginger

Some initial sketches:

And the final artwork:

The image was displayed on the Morynga website during autumn 2013 until early 2014.

Here's a small screenshot.

Victoria Crowned Pigeon

Just love the hair 'do on this colourful bird :)

Back to blogging

Is it really that long since I posted? :O Over the next few days I will be updating this blog and my website to include all the various projects I have done since then and some new work :)

Rainforest Collage

This was the final result of my Rainforest project. It is made out of coloured paper, painted over with watercolour and layered for 3-D effect. It's A1 in size and took me a week to make.

The idea for the image came from researching how products such as coffee, tea, cocoa beans and bananas are grown and how some organisations - for example the Rainforest Alliance - are working to protect rainforests and encourage sustainable farming methods. I wanted to create an image where rainforest and farm, humans and animals are coexisting together in a harmonious way. The purpose of this image would then be, for example, an advertising or publicity campaign.   

Paper Animals

I haven't managed to post for while - the last few weeks have been a whirlwind of completing work, assessments and setting up the degree show - but now I've got some time on my hands I can post up my latest work, which has taken a slight twist.

I have recently been experimenting with cutting my drawings out of coloured paper and painting over them and it's been working well for me and I've really enjoyed it. The theme of my last project was 'Rainforest' so I spent a week or so making over 20 different Amazon rainforest animals out of paper. This is a selection of them. 

Iguana

Tapir

Giant Anteater

Marvellous Spatuletail

Black Caiman 

Red-eyed Tree Frog

Jaguar

Harpy Eagle

Hoatzin

Toco Toucan 

Stripe-Breasted Starthroat Hummingbird

Scarlet Macaw

Capuchin Monkey

Cats - Sox and Nellie

This was a little painting I did yesterday inspired by my two cats, Sox and Nellie.

... and for my next project

This is a little part of my next project... a little poison dart frog. I was experimenting with cut paper collage and watercolour and I'm liking the result so far. More to come! :)

Peacock

Really enjoying painting various colourful creatures at the moment. This is yesterday's painting of a peacock.

Life of Pi

This is a project I did to start off my Final Major Project at uni - which I have decided to break up into smaller projects.

After recently seeing the film (which is awesome by the way!) I was inspired and wanted to do some of my own artwork for it, so I decided to design a book cover.

One of the major themes in the story is Pi and the tiger Richard Parker's fight for survival strong life force. I wanted to find a subtle way to represent this and came up with the concept of a 'yin-yang' - that neither could have survived without the other. Therefore the final artwork is set into a circular composition in which the tiger (who could be seen as a representation of Pi's survival instinct) is the dominant element.

Bear

Just a little practise painting I did today. After a few weeks of writing my dissertation and then a report I felt I just needed some time to get back into drawing and painting again :)

Card Competition

This was an entry for a greetings card design competition - with kitties ^_^