The Aesthetic Anteater

I did this for a "facebook drawing club thing" that I was doing with some friends who are animators. The theme was the "Aesthetic Anteater" (chosen by me). As I've been feeling sad for anteaters ever since I learnt they were nomadic as I'm sure there are a few that would like a beautiful home to call their own. That's Heals window he is looking in....or maybe the Conran Shop.

Anthropologie/Front Row Society Scarf Design Competition

These are close ups of a piece I designed last autumn for a Front Row Society competition in collaboration with Anthropologie (a shop I adore!) The brief was to design a scarf 200cm x 65cm based on one of the four elements.

I chose Earth as it’s definitely the element I most connect with. I don’t think I’ve ever designed anything so big before! I called mine “Gone to Earth” – partly after the animals that live and seek refuge underground, the idea of returning to nature and after one of my favourite films with that name by Powell and Pressburger.

Rhode Island magazine - Spring

 This was for Rhode Island Magazine to illustrate a piece by Ann Hood. It's was a very reflective and poignant piece of writing about Spring from early childhood memories of Easter celebrations with snow still on the ground surrounded by her extended Italian family through to the loss of family members and how it affected  her ability to notice or appreciate seasonal changes through to the springtime adoption of one of her children.

I've also included how the illustrations looked in the magazine layout - I really like how the designer laid out the pages, the text and the flowers against the clean white pages.

Decorating Eggs

I illustrated this book by Deborah Schneebeli-Morrell  a few years ago but thought of it again today. 

When small in Scotland on Easter Friday - my brother and I would paint hard boiled eggs or colour them with felt tip pens and then roll them down a hill, chasing after them until they smashed, then eat them as part of a picnic  - often the whites of the egg were very stained with colour from the shell! I never really understood why I was doing it - but it was to symbolise the rock rolling from Jesus's tomb. It's been pointed out to me that my family were three days early in celebrating this!

Inspired Times Magazine

I was asked to write a bit about creativity and staying inspired for Issue 15 of the online magazine Inspired Times

http://issuu.com/inspiringnews/docs/inspired_times_issue_15/17

Map of Great Britain

I created this for Pedlars Product of the Month Competition. The theme was to create a piece of Wall Art on the theme of Great Britain. I think this is quite a nostalgic view of Great Britain – our industries have declined, our buses and Jaguars aren’t so beautiful now and our hedgerows don’t seem so full of flowers! Though we do still have lots of deer and puffins.

Work for Illustrated Ape Magazine

In the autumn I was asked to contribute a double page illustration for a special issue of Illustrated Ape  - and my fourteen year younger self was super excited - I can still remember the thrill of seeing the first issue of the magazine in 1998 and feeling like it was a sign of a new emerging illustration "scene". The fact they asked me to contribute to a comic themed issue, printed in red and black and to illustrate a section of a really dark torch song seemed like a slip up - don't they know I mostly draw dogs in clothes and flowers?! However I loved the challenge as so often having a colour palette that isn't a natural choice to me or subject matter I wouldn't normally be asked to tackle are the types of things that move my work on.