British Museum Sketchbook

I'm just over half way through my ten week course run by The Prince's Drawing School 10am-5pm each Friday at The British Museum. I'm working in an A4 sketchbook and treating each double page spread as a final piece (although I don't manage to finish them all as you can see!) Although tutored, the class is very self directed and there are lots of post-grad students in the group studying for The Drawing Year. I've really missed a critical environment to make and share work since uni so this course has been wonderful. It has been a real challenge to take a full day out of the studio each week, and has led to lots of late nights and weekend working in order to complete my commissioned work - but it has definitely been worth it!


I'm currently working on a fantastic new project for Surrey Arts for their 800+ looked after young people (under 18's in children's homes or with foster parents). On Monday I was filmed in my studio drawing, painting and collaging (and generally making a mess). This footage is going to be magically transformed into three short films for the young people to watch, and then they can create artwork to enter a competition to win prizes, and take part in touring exhibition across the county throughout 2012. I will also be running four creative workshops in Surrey that can be accessed by these young people and their famillies. I'll share more about the films and the project once it has launched.


On Tuesday (yesterday) I was in Cambridge to give a lecture to BA Illustration students, they were a lovely engaged group and there was also cake so it was a fantastic day! I'm also manically working hard on two lovely new commissions, one all about foraging for BBC Wildlife Magazine and another all about Mary Portas new TV show for the Radio Times.


OK, back to work...if you live in/near London you MUST go and see the Yayoi Kusama exhibition at Tate Modern. I found it SOOOO inspiring and spent Sunday night creating sticker collages in my other sketchbook (I'll show this soon).


Have a great week! x

Strutt Parker

Here's five new drawings for Strutt Parker's magazine Land Business. It was a really lovely brief from Sunday Publishing, as plants are always my favourite subject to draw! They illustrate an article about alternative crops: echium, calenula, quinoa, mustard and christmas trees.

Last Saturday I was treated to the Lucian Freud exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, by my lovely friend Zef for my birthday. It's a really great exhibition, enormous and very inspiring. I love his early work, those huge almond eyes and obsessive detailing of hair and fabrics and it was great to see it all so close up.

Have a great week, and I'll be back next week with news of a new exciting project... x

The Times - Love Poetry

Following on from last November's poetry illustrations for The Times (see here) I recently created four new illustrations to celebrate love poetry published last Sat 11th Feb just in time for Valentines day.

It was a dreamy brief again, to select and illustrate 4 classic love poems  I've also included the first draft black and white drawings again as I like how they look against the coloured page.

SONNET 130 William Shakespeare

 LOCHINVAR Sir Walter Scott

VALENTINE Carol Ann Duffy

SCAFFOLDING Seamus Heaney

I'm really pleased with how they've turned out, particularly the Carol Ann Duffy poem Valentine, (which suggests an onion as a new symbol for love) as it was a real struggle to create a romantic and appealing image from an onion!

If you live in/ near London there are so many wonderful exhibitions on the moment! I really recommend the Quentin Blake exhibition at the Foundling Museum, such inspiring drawings especially the ones upstairs created with a bamboo pen. This Saturday I'm off to the Freud show, and Hockney's booked for the 2nd of March and I still need to buy tickets for the new Picasso show at Tate Britain and the Queen of dots Yayoi Kusama at Tate Modern HURRAH! x

Spring at the National Trust

Here's the Spring edition of The National Trust Magazine featuring lots of little spot illustrations by me. It's a really lovely magazine and makes you want to go and poke around their fantastic properties, or go for long bracing walks in the countryside!

No time for that this week for me, as it has been completely manic in the studio... I've been working on a new poetry commission for The Times, similar to an earlier commission for them to illustrate children's poems (see here for images from that) but this time love poems. Such a lovely commission, it will be published this Sat on the 11th so I'll share that next week. I've also been finishing off six plant illustrations for Pet Plan, and drawing bees and plants for Holland & Barrett's Magazine - Healthy.

Elle Spain are posting me a copy of their Feb edition featuring a commission completed for them just before Christmas, so once it arrives I can share that too!

I'm really enjoying my new drawing class at The British Museum each Friday. It feels amazing to spend a full day filling my sketchbooks with beautiful objects each week and although it is requiring lots of late nights and weekend working to spend Fridays away from the studio it is worth every minute!

Have a really lovely week and stay warm x

London Valentine

I can't believe that we're already in February! Valentines day is fast approaching so I wanted to share this little drawing of Eros at Piccadilly Circus created for a 2012 calender to celebrate London. This week has been manic (so this post will be very short!) I'm currently working on four new drawings for The Times, and two for Healthy Magazine - such lovely briefs!

Right, must get back to it, have a lovely week!...