short days, long nights

I've been exploring colour!

I want to make pictures using colours I don't get to use in my commissioned work for children's books. Maybe it's the cold grey windy days and long dark nights affecting me...

I'm also enjoying exploring shapes, collage and layers.

Inspiration!

It's been a while since I last posted something...

I've been looking at lots of things for inspiration!

I recently visited The Museum of Everything, a great museum in North London, crammed full of everything! It's a brilliant space, with lots to look at and interesting background information on all the artists. I loved it and hope to visit again soon.

I love this little creature made by Mary Fedden!

I've been enjoying wool and knitting.

Loop, a beautiful yarn shop in Islington.

I buy lots of wool, but sadly all I do is look at them. Maybe one day I will knit myself a great big woolly jumper :)

All these lovely colours makes me want to experiment with a different colour palette to my picture book work.

This is a (very badly taken at night) picture of some work in progress, a personal project inspired by "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.

Trick or treat!

Another new entry for Gemma's Flickr group What I wore today.

Treats

I've been enjoying a bit of time off lately...a rare treat! It's a little strange at first to have all this free time after being chased by deadlines for so long, so I'm trying to keep myself busy and stimulated by feeding my mind and eyes with lots of treats :)

I watched a couple of great films recently at the London Film Festival:

The Wind Journeys

Milk of Sorrow

Both films were full of beautiful imagery, landscapes, music and colour, really really inspiring!

Another film I watched recently full of beautiful imagery is Beau Travail by Claire Denis.

I also LOVE this animation by Jonathan Klassen and Daniel Rodrigues, called "An eye for Annai".

With all this inspiration and free time, it's the perfect chance to start creating some personal pieces of work, and think about what to do for my exhibition in Japan next Spring.

I missed the Bologna Illustrators' exhibition this year as it coincided with a big deadline (I was really disappointed with myself, as I try to enter something every year), but I'm entering these 3 pieces for Ilustrarte 2009 instead, an exhibition of children's book illustrations which takes place every 2 years in Lisbon, Portugal.

Even more outfits

Here's a couple of new pieces for Gemma's Flickr group.

With my latest project completed, I suddenly have lots of time on my hands. It's amazing how quickly the hours and days disappear doing nothing much in particular. As much as I love this free time watching films and mooching about, I now need to be really disciplined, resist the comfy sofa and TV, and get on with some personal work I've been meaning to do for ages!

I've been invited by a gallery in Osaka, Japan to exhibit some work for next Spring, so am starting to think of pieces for that. I'm very very excited!! (and a little bit nervous too).

Rubbish, rejects and bits

I find leftovers and rejects quite interesting. I once gathered some bits of paper from the floor, and instead of throwing them away in the bin, I stuck them down and this is what happened (above).

Here are some bits I found going through the mess on my desk.

I can cut really tiny circles! I'm sure it will be much easier to draw or paint eyes for my characters, but no, I have to do it the ridiculously fiddly way.

There are also some glasses, boy's hair, a ponytail and a bird's leg.

With each project, there are always lots of bits that don't make the picture. I sometimes use these rejects to create a totally new picture.

One of my Bologna pieces from last year evolved from all the rejected paper mice heads from a previous picture book project. Can you spot them?

Palette and papers

At last, the light at the end of a very long tunnel! I'm free!! I feel like a mole stepping out into the world - everything is so bright and colourful! It feels good to walk, and be part of the outside world :)

After a good 10 days or so of locking myself in the studio and working non-stop, I've finally finished the artworks for the Lion Hudson book.

I can't show the finished spreads yet, so here are pictures of the mess left behind...

Things get very messy during projects - there's bits of paper all over the desk and floor, which get stuck to my socks and travel all around the house. Sometimes I find miniature paper trousers in the bathroom and tree branches in the kitchen.