Johnny and the Bomb - Educational Music Book

Hello!

I've been working on some black and white commissions for the past few months. This one was from A&C Black and required producing some illustrations for  a musical adaption of - Johnny and the Bomb, A novel by Terry Pratchett. This would be designed for kids between 10-13 so upper primary school or lower secondary school. I think there was a TV adaption of the novel too, I'm sure it's floating around on Youtube somewhere.

This was an interesting one as I had to draw lots of illustrations with a stage with various characters standing in position (stage left, stage right, down-stage centre, etc.) I had to remember that the directions were from the actors point of view...not the audience, so recalled those fun/nerve-racking school plays I did, so it wasn't too bad. Any way, my favourite pieces are the costume ideas and they liked the job I did, yay! Oh! and I got to draw people of various colours, which is always a bonus.

Unicorn In Uniform

Hello!


Song by Colour Me Wednesday. Drawing by me.

The Wolf Sisters

I've been feeling ill lately and wanted to distract myself. I was working on this, on and off, in between a couple of commissions. I also watched The Grey… I don’t think that the wolves were given any credit! I just wanted to make them look less vicious and snarly, like they’re always drawn.

Just Atmospheric Silhouette Stuff

Very very sunny!

Here are some illustrations I did...indoors. 

I quite enjoy creating silhouetty-like stuff, You can create very eerie atmospheric art by simply layering shapes and receding colour (very very easily!). The piece right at the  bottom was experimental, just having fun. It was inspired by a print I saw somewhere. It was of a painting of one of those kitsch rural scenes of countryside, lakes and trees. I wanted to include a Fox somewhere, (and text) but it just wouldn't fit into the composition so I made a whole new one - The Fox Mum. It's quite a nostalgic piece as it reminds me of a cartoon I used to watch called 'Farthing Woods', with a family of foxes and other woodsy animals like badgers and Wolves. 

Playing in the Sand

Hello,

It’s so sunny now! Makes me feel so happy. Here’s an illustration of a brown boy playing in the sand with a white girl… I should draw more people of colour.

Petrify (Wired Up series)

Hello!

Just recieved a copy of Petrify (Wired Up series) from the publisher. I might be getting another commission from them for another in the series but for a slightly younger audience and with more illustrations! Petrify is written by Beth Chambers.


This series by A & C Black is designed for teens and younger children who struggle with literacy, encouraging them to read. I've also seen a few books at my library designed for dyslexic young readers. The paper was quite yellowy (easy on the eye?) and the page layout consisted of wide line-spacing or leading. We should have more of these at the library. Need to look into this.  

Dick Whittington Activity Book

Hello,

Oxford University Press is revamping a series of activity books entitled Incredible English. The activities are based on different fairytales from around the world. They’ve kindly commissioned me to do a spread for them. These books have been designed for those kids who are generally ahead of their class.  Apparently they’re popular in Turkey, Spain Argentina and Poland!

All the artworks were tiny panels of varying sizes; here are some of my favourites.

Ink Sketch - Lana Del Rey

Hello,

I woke up this morning really wanting to draw something. I was still in a silly dreamy mood and spent around 45 minutes on this inky sketch of Lana Del Rey, (I must find the source of the wonderful photograph I used for reference), before I ran to work and got there in the nick of time. I’m enjoying how people are finding it so difficult to define her.

Animals 'n Stuff

Hello,
these are some ink drawings I did a while back. I scanned them in and played around with them on PS. I'm currently working on some panels for an educational book commissioned by OUP. It's just a few pages but  I'm working on the story of Dick Whittington and his wonderful cat.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Wahey!

Received my copy of Snow White from the publisher. So that’s the two Classic Tales commissions done. They’re really hard to find on the net. Well they’re not even up on the publisher site yet, and they’re actually for schools. Bleh.

Booooks

I'm trying to do more reading and less interwebs. It's not working. Oh and Habibi was awesome, have I mentioned already? It's a signed copy! Bought it from Forbidden Planet, London.

Dee Dee

Hello,

developed that ink drawing of Dee Dee from Dum Dum Girls.