teabelle

minibeasts

2012-02-15T04:13:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about children's books and so have been messing around with some simple ideas to get me started, like counting books about minibeasts.

Mexico

2012-02-05T11:21:00.000-08:00

A background/illustration for Catherine Warren's poem about Mexico

The Bloody Chamber

2012-01-17T06:41:00.000-08:00

My entries for the Folio Society and House of Illustration competition, based on the Angela Carter book of short stories 'The Bloody Chamber' which are retellings of traditional fairy stories.

'The Bloody Chamber'

'The Company of Wolves'

'Puss-in-boots'

and a binding layout for the cover:

2012!

2012-01-11T05:10:00.000-08:00

2012 has snuck up on me. Here are a few wintery illustrations I meant to post before Christmas and didn't quite get around to

Never never land

2011-12-15T16:04:00.000-08:00

EDIT: I thought it might be a little dark, so I lightened it up a bit, still tinkering though:

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

2011-12-13T08:59:00.000-08:00

Found these blonde ladies I'd forgotten about: a personal project & a commission for Crown Clothing. Also, some make up.

Collaboration

2011-12-04T06:13:00.001-08:00

Recently I collaborated with the lovely Lydia Fee. The theme was post, and i sent her this:

(apologies for the terrible quality pictures.)

Lydia then sent me the final product, a day in the life of a postman. It's great to see my work mixed with different style, and was lots of fun!

(click for a better size image)

Roll Up, Roll Up!

2011-11-04T04:48:00.000-07:00

Garden Parties & Lock-Ins

2011-10-17T09:26:00.000-07:00

A couple of mail out ideas - my grandparents owned a pub which inspired the pub themed illustration, and a garden party seemed like a fitting companion.

Oh Comely Issue 7

2011-09-19T03:56:00.000-07:00

Issue 7 of Oh Comely magazine is out and has more amazing stuff including beautiful photography, beetles and board games, so as always well worth a read. Also features Jack Hudson & Jacob Stead, so what more could you want really. I was asked to illustrate a favourite film or TV show so I chose a scene from 'Some Like it Hot' because I love it.

Black and White Sketches/Excavate

2011-08-31T15:24:00.000-07:00

A quick black and white illustration of a scene from 'I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive' and a few beach type things i drew on my way to cornwall.

Also from cornwall the illustrations for the Excavate exhibition:

Morgawr

2011-08-04T16:07:00.000-07:00

So today brings a small preview of my Excavate Falmouth work - this one's the Morgawr. If you're down that way you can check it out in person (kind of) and pick up an Excavate mobile art pack from the Poly. I'll post more work and info after the launch!

June/July

2011-08-01T05:44:00.000-07:00

A long overdue update - since I last posted I've had two shows so things have been busy! First was D&AD:

This was our stand, but there was lots of other great work there too.

Then we had the graduation show at Redchurch St which i somehow failed to take any photos of & I also had a really useful meeting with Paula and Louise from Walker Books. I've also been doing work for the Excavate Project down in Falmouth, so have been quite busy!

I'm also doing some new projects - illustrating covers and/or inside images for every novel i read and some other personal work, so there will be lots of new work uploads soon.

Book Covers

2011-06-23T07:02:00.000-07:00

Mock up book covers for three evelyn waugh novels

(fairly) new work!

2011-06-13T12:18:00.000-07:00

Some more shanty related stuff - this is from Fiddler's Green which is not technically a shanty but is pretty good and sea related, so counts in my book.

"Where the skies are all clear and there's never a gail

And the fish jump on board with one swish on their tail

Where you lie at your leisure, there's no work to do

And the skipper's below making tea for the crew"

"Now when you're in dock and the long trip is through

There's pubs and there's clubs and there's lassies there too

And the girls are all pretty and the beer is all free

And there's bottles of rum growing on every tree"

Problems with the Polar Post

2011-05-09T16:03:00.000-07:00

My lack of blog updates is mostly to do with the amount of work I need to do (and have been doing) , mainly on my childrens book, but also on my sea shanties project. Expect a lot more when it's all sorted but here are a few images for now! (p.s the colours are a bit desaturated by blogger for some reason)

Oh Comely Issue 5

2011-03-27T09:45:00.000-07:00

Recently i was asked to do another piece for Oh Comely magazine, which is great because they are basically amazing. The issue has lots of interesting stuff - imogen poots, porridge, tea bag squeezing, the insides of people's bags and lots of nice illustrations.

My illustration was for an article on building a coracle:

And here is some other good stuff from inside:
- emma block's illustration for a nice article about mashing tea bags:

Ellakookoo's editorial on tea leaf reading: (it is entirely coincidental that my favourite illustrations involve tea. entirely.)

I could go on and on but you should probably just buy the magazine instead.

Jasper Conran/Michael Van Der Ham

2011-03-14T04:58:00.000-07:00

A few more Amelia's Magazine fashion illustrations!

mermaids..

2011-02-28T14:17:00.000-08:00

from an upcoming illustrated collection of sea shanties!

V Day

2011-02-14T02:49:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend i bought a paper to practice my editorial illustrating. I was hoping for something science-y or financial, but of course it being valentines day there was just loads of valentines stuff. But if you can't beat them join them, so i did this piece on finding love on your commute into work.

The Outsider

2011-02-03T14:28:00.000-08:00

I recently entered the Folio Society/House of Illustration competition based on the book 'The Outsider.' As the book's fairly strange and off kilter I wanted to give that kind of feeling in my illustrations. In REVERSe order (because apparently thats what blogger wants me to do) here are the images:

And the cover

I'm a big fan of both the House of Illustration and the Folio Society, so hopefully they'll be running more competitions together in the future.

ACOFI

2011-01-29T12:46:00.000-08:00

SO last night was was the Amelias Compendium of Fashion Illustration launch party in 123 Bethnal Green Rd. I have documented it in iphone picture form for you:

i got on the train to london:

got really lost and walked to a school, before making it to 123 Bethnal Green Rd which was VERY busy and full of people, got my amazing freebies- hello moleskine {and tatty devine necklace, dr haushka goodies etc} :

and then drank ginger beer and vodkas, danced to 6 day riot & DJing by the Pippettes and ate amazing pink cake {by Lily Vanilli}:

& generally had fun and talked to lots of lovely people!

2011 update

2011-01-12T15:40:00.000-08:00

Hello!

I've been doing lots of competition stuff which will post eventually, but here are some odds and ends! These are some childrens book type things:

and a picture i rejected for my entry to the Folio Society 'Outsider' competition:

{i didn't reject this because i didn't like it, it just had to be one of three and didn't match the others}

and a VERY ROUGH ROUGH for the cover which i decided against:

Amelia's Compendium of Fashion Illustration

2010-12-01T09:30:00.000-08:00

Hello, I have very exciting news for you. It may not have escaped your notice that I have lots of fashion illustration on this blog, and much of it is for the lovely Amelia's magazine website. Amelia is now releasing a book - "Amelia's Compendium of Fashion Illustration" which will feature my work along with many other wondrous illustrators, and combines upcoming ethical fashion with fashion illustration, all bound together in Amelia's inimitable maximalist style.

The book is out in time for christmas and can pre-ordered online {and with a discount!} here.

It's sure to be amazing, and if you like fashion or illustration or nice patterns and things, give it a go. Here is a sneak peek of my the first proofs of my work :

(Sadly the cover picture is not mine, but is courtesy of Andrea Peterson.)

Swings & Roundabouts

2010-11-18T12:45:00.000-08:00

I have been trying to get into the swing of editorial illustration and here is one of my latest efforts, on the difficulties of choosing a secondary school (from an article in the guardian a while back)

Oh Comely

2010-10-29T09:40:00.000-07:00

I have an illustration in the current edition of Oh Comely Magazine! 'Oh comely' is a very lovely magazine, full of interesting articles and art and people. Here is my illustration for the theme of 'Found':

It was a very quick turnaround so it's by no means perfect, but i'm fairly happy with it. If you want to see it in all it's glory with a bit of writing by me you can pick it up in WHSmiths! (I KNOW, exciting, yes?)

It's (almost) that time of year!

2010-10-05T12:33:00.000-07:00

CHRISTMAS! Okay this is very premature but I entered this image into the Ben Steers All I Want For Christmas Cards competition. Sadly it wasn't selected, but it's a very exciting project doing good stuff so I would recommend buying some anyway when they come out. Here is my entry which was 'all I want for christmas is a really good book'

I'm in two minds about whether to go ahead and get some printed anyway, but i'm being put off by the christmas card disaster of last year!

(Also apparently it looks like my sister, which was unintentional)

bits and bobs

2010-09-30T04:17:00.000-07:00

In my latest procrastinating file organisation session i found a few things I never posted on the blog, so here they are! Firstly some shoes i did for a best and worst purchase theme
the pencil drawings for my Tara Starlet illustrations

and a few old sketches for my sweden book (which is STILL ongoing, and still unfinished)

London Fashion Week S/S

2010-09-21T09:20:00.000-07:00

Just a few illustrations for Amelia's Magazine's lfw coverage. I was fairly short on time so they're much rougher than my previous ones but i quite like that.

Kinder Aggugini:

Triumph:

2010-09-02T03:04:00.000-07:00

Hello there poor neglected blog. It has been far too long since i updated, so here's a load of stuff! Here's some work i submitted for the Amelia's Magazine Compendium of Fashion, illustrating the clothes of Tara Starlet:

I still don't have a set 'working method' but this was quite a fun mix up of digital type work i did for lloyds and the painting stuff i do. Tara Starlet sells vintage style clothes so i tried for a pin-up type look. (Also on my screen they're looking much less saturated than the originals, not sure why).

Also i promised a process post for the dog pictures and completely failed - i'll do a proper process post for something else, but for now here's a load of sketches of dogs! As you can see it took me a while to get to grips with them!

After doing loads of these I made tiny thumbnails of the layouts and then scanned in and blew up the ones i was happy with and drew over them more neatly. I then traced these again to paint on them, and then scanned them in and worked into them digitally. This is not the most time efficient method, and could probably have involved far less tracing and scanning, but we live and learn.

Book Spreads.2

2010-05-20T12:44:00.000-07:00

Some more book spreads! The pages i have yet to do are roughed out, so you can pretty much get the story hopefully. Also i have an illustration up over on ameliasmagazine.com, which i'll upload at some point with some other fashion illustrations i think i forgot!

Book spreads

2010-05-18T10:36:00.000-07:00

SO finally an update with some book spreads! Sadly i haven't finished the whole book in time for my project hand in, so it looks like I'll be finishing it over summer. I'm about..70% happy with what i've got so far so here are a few of the opening pages:

There will be more soon, and hopefully lots of exciting other stuff too!

Villages

2010-04-29T14:20:00.000-07:00

I have been producing work for my book, but struggling with approach and materials, resulting in lots of nearly identical paintings- very frustrating. So here are two possible villages for you - i'm still not sure which one i prefer!

The Light Which Can Be Heard

2010-04-17T08:50:00.000-07:00

So, I have lots to do and have spent lots of time not doing it. However i have come up with a working title for my book which is 'The Light Which Can Be Heard' - a translation of the Sami term for the Northern Lights. I still haven't 100% finished a single page yet (aaaaa) but here is half a spread! This is worked up from the earlier character sketch i posted, painted in acrylics and stuff and then scanned in and changed around a bit on photoshop.

Lloyds Art of Nurture .2

2010-04-16T10:17:00.000-07:00

So last tuesday I went down to the Saatchi gallery for the final of the Lloyds Art of Nurture competition. I didn't win anything but there was free champagne and a nice hotel so I'm happy with that! Also had a tour of the gallery which was interesting if a bit odd (obv). I didn't take any pictures but my sister's-boyfriend's-friend did so I may be able to post some at some point! Anyway here is the work I submitted, I'm a bit sick of the sight of it really:

Lloyds Art of Nurture

2010-03-30T16:40:00.000-07:00

Just a mini post because I found out today I got through to the Nationals of the Lloyds Art of Nurture competition!! I was completely gobsmacked cos there was lots of great work there but I'm v happy. There should be a picture with this post but i was too excited and forgot to take them, I even forgot to steal the exciting regional winner rosette they put on my picture which i really wanted for my wall.

Never fear though they took lots of scary posed pictures which i'm sure will surface soon enough (grim times.)

I will actually upload some work soon, it will definitely happen

Sketches

2010-03-18T17:37:00.000-07:00

So it's been a strange fortnight and i haven't got a great deal done. But I am now forging ahead with my Sweden-inspired childrens book and also another children's book with an author friend, which is very exciting. So hopefully there will be lots of finished work soon, but for now here are some sketches for my sweden book project:

This is the three goddesses of the lavvu rising from the fire smoke ( a lavvu being a Sami tent type thing). The goddesses are called Sarahkka Uksahkka and Juksahkka, and do all sorts of helpful stuff but also can make baby reindeers blind. There are lots of rules and customs to do with the goddesses and the lavvu, and lots of coffee traditions which I want to explore a bit, maybe as end papers.

This is my little character who is off on her slightly cold and miserable adventure!

I also have some more fashion week stuff left to post but that's for another day I think

Sweden

2010-03-02T09:35:00.000-08:00

So, after lots of fun illustrating for Amelia's Magazine it's time to start my new project! I'm aiming (i think) to make a childrens book, the inspiration for which will be sweden. I recently went to sweden and it was amaaazing, i love everything there (seriously -trees, houses, snow, lavvos, samis, husky dogs, reindeer, northern lights -amazing.)

Here's a small taster, i could upload about a million but that might get dull for you...

I originally wanted to produce some screen prints of my favourite imagery, but the thought of the overcrowded print rooms makes me very afraid so instead I turned my screen printing prep into a more finished illustration. I don't think I'll be using this style for the book, and I may still do some printing but it was fun to experiment with!

Amelia's Magazine/LFW part 3!

2010-02-24T09:36:00.000-08:00

Aaand here's my illustrations for the Julian J Smith catwalk and Camilla Sampson's lovely article (also to be found here)

Amelia's Magazine/LFW part 2!

2010-02-22T02:10:00.001-08:00

Well it's been hectic! Here are some of my illustrations so far, you can see them over at the Amelia's Magazine blog in some of the great catwalk reviews.

Marchesa!

2010-02-18T14:20:00.000-08:00

I was so excited i had to have a little practise! This is from the Marchesa A/W 2010, yum

xxx