Amelia's Magazine - Latitude Festival

During my absence from the blogosphere (...does anyone actually use the word "blogosphere"??) I was asked to produce some illustrations for Amelia's Magazine to accompany a couple of articles reviewing this year's Latitude festival.

The first of these was a round-up of the Thursday evening and included a scene-setting illustration of the Latitude crowds. I got sent some photos that Amelia Gregory had taken on-site, and produced a combination of characters from these photos with some background extras.



Because it was a very busy scene with a lot going on, I decided not to over-complicate it by using too many colours, and opted to use a very limited colour scheme of yellow and blue to represent the brilliant weather that weekend. Of course, whenever there's a crowd the question has to be asked: Where's Wally?

...There he is!


The second illustration I produced was for a review of Friday at the Festival, and a performance by Turner Prize winner Martin Creed accompanied by his all-female band, a ballet dancer, and projections of bums and willies. Again I received some photos for reference from Amelia of various parts of the performance and selected various elements to create my illustration. The performance used a lot of red and blue lighting, and I decided to treat the colouring in a similar way to my previous Latitude illustration.

Anita & Rishi - Just Married

Well, they were "Just Married" when I drew this, but it's been over a month now! So my friend Anita was getting married and having a party on board a boat that was sailing down the Thames. She commissioned me to draw an illustration for the front of the illustration and sent me details of what the bride and groom would be wearing, as well as some photos of her husband-to-be (as I hadn't actually met him). I worked on a few sketches and after a few emails back and forth between myself and Anita, we agreed that a portrait design would work best.

The drawing took a little while to get right – it was tricky drawing a likeness of someone from photographs alone, and my first attempts weren't entirely to the groom's liking, but after receiving some better photos for reference I was able to produce something we were both happy with. I also enjoyed working on the lettering, and particularly the ampersand (which incidentally is possibly my favourite word).



I was very pleased with the final result, as were the happy couple. I did show this illustration to a friend of mine who replied "Oh, it's just like Titanic!". Thankfully there aren't any icebergs in the Thames...

Happy Birthday To You...and You...and You etc.

A few of my friends have had birthdays in the last month (although thankfully the Summer months are a lot quieter for birthdays compared with the beginning and end of the year!), so here's a quick update on some recent birthday cards I've made...

My friend Priscilla lives in Melbourne. As such, I wasn't able to make it along to her Polka-dot themed birthday party, but I did send her this Polka-dot inspired drawing...




My dear old mother is a massive fan of Doctor Who, so I thought she would like this card of her in The Doctor's TARDIS... (she did!)




My friend Miriam came over to London from Barcelona for a few days just after her birthday, so I was able to give her this card in person! :-)



And finally, my friend Ami had a picnic and game of rounders in the park this weekend to celebrate her birthday. Despite not having played rounders since I was in Primary School, it was a lot of fun (although maybe not such a good idea to run on a full stomach...), but I think that was my exercise quota for the year...



I've recently added a section to my website with some of my previous card designs, and will be updating it soon with details of how to commission your own cards. More details soon!

Elephant Parade London: Gerald's Groupies

Okay, so I've neglected to update my blog in quite a while. But this doesn't mean that I haven't been working! Anyway, I'm now going to remedy this with a series of blog updates...

First off, an Elephant Parade update. One of the unexpected results of the recent Elephant Parade in London, was meeting with other fellow Elephant Spotters, either pounding the pavements in search of those elusive elephants, or online sharing information and tips to track down those last few Elephas Maximus.

A bunch of us formed a Facebook group to keep in touch, and met up to go and see the elephants one last time when they were on display in the grounds of the Chelsea Royal Hospital. We decided to call the group Gerald's Groupies, as for many of us Gerald was the final elephant out of the 258 that we were searching for. I was asked by Petra who started the group, and was instrumental in tracking down Gerald, if I could do an illustration to use for the Group photo, with Gerald still being hounded by those persistent Elephant Spotters...



I'm also planning to continue drawing more of the elephants from the Elephant Parade London, so watch this space...

Elephant Parade London: #181 Kubella - The Seaside Elephant

London has been experiencing insanely hot weather over the weekend. The perfect time to head to the beach with Kubella – The Seaside Elephant. Here she is enjoying an ice-cream down by the sea...



Please sign the petition to save the Asian elephant over at the Elephant Family website.

Elephant Parade London: #228 Mr Cameron, #230 Mr Brown, #257 Mr Clegg

When the final votes were cast in the Elephant Parade auction, the results of the Political Pachyderm Prizefight ended up mirroring the General Election with Mr Cameron coming out on top with £9750, Mr Brown in second place with £8270 and Mr Clegg in last place with £7400.

But just like the General Election, Mr Clegg ended up joining forces with Mr Cameron and poor old Mr Brown got the boot. Poor Mr Brown!



Don't forget to cast your vote by signing the petition to save the Asian elephant over at the Elephant Family website.

Elephant Parade London: #167 Elephish

There were a number of species-confused elephants in the Elephant Parade. One of my favourites (and among the first elephants I found) was Elephish. Is he an elephant, or is he a fish? Whatever the answer, I think he'd have some trouble staying afloat in the water...



Don't forget to sign the petition to save the Asian elephant over at the Elephant Family website!

Elephant Parade London: #9 Simply Gold, #11 Simply Silver, #40 Simply Yellow

Sign the petition to help save the Asian elephant over at the Elephant Family website.

Elephant Parade London: #53 Nana

I know some people didn't like Nana, but I thought she was rather sweet. Maybe because she reminded me of my own nan (...Because she always wore a scarf around her head when she went out, not because she looked like an elephant!).



If you haven't already, you can still sign the petition to help save the Asian elephant over at the Elephant Family website.

Elephant Parade London: #255 The City In The Elephant

So the Elephant Parade London is now officially over, but I've decided to keep on drawing members of the Elephant Parade.

The City In The Elephant is a strange one. From the outside he appears fairly mundane – a plain red elephant covered in plastic domes. But when you look through the plastic domes you discover his secret: inside is a miniature city with even more miniature elephants filling its tiny streets and buildings.

But he looks a bit like a Dalek...



Thanks to Michelle Lee for giving me the idea! And don't forget to sign the petition to help save the Asian elephant over at the Elephant Parade website...