Happy Birthday Alyana!

So it's Alyana's birthday tomorrow, but due to the fact that she lives in Melbourne where it is already the future (or maybe I'm just not quite understanding the concept of International time zones...) I thought I'd post this now. Plus I know that she already opened her card early! Tsk tsk!

Alyana likes counting, and paintings with grapes in, so here she is combining the two and counting grapes...

Happy Birthday Kavita!

It's my friend Kavita's birthday today. She's been studying to become a doctor for as long as I've known her (it's a long process!), so I can't imagine a more enjoyable way for her to spend her birthday than by playing a game of Operation...



This idea was actually adapted from a drawing I did last year. And just for an added treat, here's the TV advert for the game from the '80s...

Oliver Jeffers in conversation with Martin Salisbury

Yesterday I went to hear Oliver Jeffers in conversation with Martin Salisbury. It was a really interesting talk, with Oliver Jeffers talking about how he got started with producing illustrated children's books, the way he works, his influences and techniques. I found it very inspiring.

But for me, the biggest surprise was how Oliver Jeffers actually looked! You know when you have a picture of someone in your head, and then you meet them and you want to say to them "But, you don't look like that!"...

Here's a quick drawing I did in my sketchbook during the talk. That's Oliver Jeffers on the right, sporting the most amazing moustache, and facially resembling a circus strongman!



(...and I'm aware of the fact that I keep calling him Oliver Jeffers. It just somehow seems odd to refer to him as just Oliver, or Mr Jeffers...)

Happy Birthday Rishi and Geetika, and Bon Voyage Martin!

So I was busy making cards thrice this week. First up was Rishi's 30th birthday on Friday...


Also on Friday , I saw my friend Martin who is about to go off to Cameroon for 6 months to carry out some botanical research in the rain forests, collecting specimens, and (at least in my imagination) probably going completely insane and running around the woods like Rambo, which I decided to illustrate for a leaving card...


Finally, yesterday it was Geetika's birthday. Coincidentally, her housemate Aine bought her a butterfly necklace for her birthday, and I'd drawn a butterfly hairclip on her card...


The ink in my printer has run out at the moment, so I've been colouring all these cards by hand using marker pens. It's quite nice not to be using Photoshop for a bit (especially as I've been spending quite a bit of time on my laptop working on my website recently), but it means that I have to work with a more limited range of colours.

I haven't stopped drawing...honest!

I haven't updated my blog in a while. This was partly due to being sick for what seemed like forever (but was really only about two weeks), and also because I've been gradually working on a couple of other projects. The first of these is a return to the book project I started with a group of friends from my MA Illustration course. There are only a few more things that we need to work on to have this completed, and are currently focusing on getting it all wrapped up. Below is my self-portrait for my artist's profile, showing me happily sitting in a cafe doodling...



I've also been getting to grips with my website again, and hope to have an update on that very soon. I've also been drawing some more birthday cards for people and will post those up here after the respective birthdays have passed (...don't want to spoil the surprise now, do I?!).

Hopefully, I'll have some more new posts very soon...