Beautiful animated music video

Music by Sarah Blasco (you can get the MP3 for free from that link!) and directed/designed by Celeste Potter. Love the magical narrative and folksy colours, as well as the whimsical music. Mmm.

Everyone else is so busy..!

Well golly-gosh, 1 year on from leaving uni, some of my ex-classmates (and indeed tutors) have some exciting stuff going on. In no particular order:

Exhibit A:

My ex-tutor, Alan ‘Charming’ Baker, has been signed up by the managers of Green Day, and therefore featured on the BBC news, various papers, and so-on. How that works, I don’t really know, but it seem to be a big deal!

Exhibit B: Mike Hall has some work in a new exhibition at at Soup Gallery at 124 Whitechapel Road in London – further details are on his blog.

Exhibit C: Zack McLaughlin, has a book out – – The Finding of Blue Bunny

Exhibit D:
The very delightful (but, alas, website-less) Nichola Moore has an exhibition atThe Changing Room Gallery in Waltham Forest, about the emotions and experiences herself and other epileptics have had. I’ve known Nic for 12 years and her work gets better every year, so be sure to check it out if you’re in the area!

Sketchbook Update!

One of the prettiest things in my new place is my boyfriend’s chandelier, made of black cut glass and bought in an antiques shop on Portabello Road. Gives our appt a touch of drama…

Time for a sketchbook update, right??

I want this!

… and if I can’t have that, I might settle for this (with or without the pug):

When I have more books and more shelves, arranging them by colour is a truly awesome idea! Lik living inside a rainbow, but better, because books are better than a lousy pot of gold (except for the one on small business accounting).

Actually, the newest favourite thing in my space-short abode is a basic-yet-exciting chalk board that I’ve put up in the kitchen to turn it into a French cafe with an illustrated menu (unless the boyfriend is cooking, in which case it’s Chinese all the way – “The Miso Happy Rice Bowl”, hardihar). Yum!

Moving on up… or rather, out

Goodbye, east London – hello, west London!

I’ve moved into a shiny new (but old) flat in a painfully trendy postcode. At last, I can have my own, static studio space! I can draw and paint and do all that stuff from a nice, big desk in a nice, big room.

This makes me happy deep down inside.

I’m also starting work on an exiting project at a publishing company I freelance for… I don’t think I’m allowed to release the juiciest of details, but it involves bringing a cult kiddie’s TV show to book format. I’m trusted with much of the design side. Exciting stuff!

Life’s all go at the moment!

Swan Princess

My alternative Odette, with a crown of swan-bones and feathers. But still looking (too?) cute…

It doesn’t look it, but I was inspired initially by A Company of Liars. The book has several fairy-tales worked into it – one of the characters tells the tale of how he became part swan, another of how she helped a mother wolf, and so on. As per the title – and besides that the book is technically set in the medieval ‘real world’ – everyone is lying. Which adds to the fun.

I’ve had a cultural week! Aside from having a jolly good read, I visited the London Book Fair and the Kuniyoshi exhibition. His work is utterly amazing, and the exhibition has a huge range of prints and paintings. Totally worth seeing! I also want to see the Summer Exhibition and PG Waterhouse show when they roll around. I could keep the gallery running single-handed!

Budapest

Just got back from a quick holiday in Budapest. It is a beautiful place, impossible to photograph badly!

From the sky…

Yum!

Cave art inside the labyrinth under Castle Hill

& the view over the Danube

apples and teacups

Sometimes it’s good just to draw what you know…

No fiddly anatomy or anything like that!

Also, I found my lost sketchbook. It has good karma, seems to make me work better – just as well, I paid a near extortionate amount for it!

Sketchbook Update

…

Been busy! Again! Which will make my bank account much happier than it has been in awhile…

I’ve been doing some very corporate/commercial illustration work for a fairly large company via an ad agency (not to be seen by the general public, alas alack), and I’m still designing some educational/promotional materials AND a book layout for Mogzilla (I will get my name on a book! That earns me cool points, right?).

This week, though, I’ve been really quite ill at home. My diet has consisted of tiny snack-sized ‘meals’ of boiled rice and – when I feel really daring – stock cubes. Today I have graduated onto porridge with raisons. Beyond that, the rule is now ‘any food, so long as it’s beige’.

Also: doesn’t the design and general ‘look’ of the new Where The Wild Things Are poster look great?? I found the book kind of scary when I was little, so I’m glad that it doesn’t look like it’s been turned into a cutesy yuck-fest or something!

Masked sketch