A few good things

Since I handed in the roughs for my book, I have been up to my neck in home renovation land. I am soooo happy to say that it is almost done! The last few weeks have been a blur of plasterboard, insulation and power tools. (how different to paper & pencils!) But by Monday, the walls and ceiling of our 3rd bedroom and new pantry will be ready to paint. Very exciting!

In the mean time, here are some good things:

spring blooms

tomatoes, spring onions, olives and haloumi with cumin.

I then cracked a few eggs into this and it was so yummy!

My blueberry plant has blueberries on it! Apparently you're supposed to take them off the first year so that the plant puts its energy into growing, not into the fruit, but I can't help myself - I want some homegrown blueberries! (and that's my little puddycat again, Whiskey)

Cuteness.

I got a lovely little present in the mail yesterday from the lovely Monica. I am the lucky recipient of Monica's first giveaway - a totally cute little puddytat.

Thanks Monica! I will give him a very good home here :)

And speaking of cats, sometimes I find it very hard to work, I'm not sure why...

Phew!

I am excited to report that I have finished the rough sketches/layouts for my current book. Just some scanning and a bit of touching up, then they will be off on Monday!

I have to say that I am having the BEST TIME with this book. It has been so much fun, so free. It's just sublime to interpret and bring my ideas to a text that isn't completely straight forward, and allows some room for humour and interesting perspectives.

Once I've 'officially' sent off the roughs I'll post some more about my process of illustrating this book (without giving anything away of course!) Until then if you were curious you can check out some posts (starting here) that I did when illustrating my previous book Surprise!

more soon...

Tips for getting started as a children's book illustrator

The lovely Paige from Fox in Socks has posted several illustrators' tips for plunging into the wide world of children's illustration. Some good stuff there-- Thanks Paige!!

9 x 5 = 20

The Illustrators Australia annual 9 x 5 exhibition opened this past Friday with the theme of "20" as it is our 20th anniversary this year. It was part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival and it was a fun time had by all! We had lots of people through, lots of food and drink consumed, and lots of artwork sold (including mine, hooray!)

I had a very good night. Lots of good conversations with fellow illustrators which is always such a treat! We are such a solitary bunch aren't we? so good to talk shop once in a while.

Annd, because my artwork sold, I always like to share the love... so I bought Penny Lovelock's piece, who, besides having the best name in the world, is also one talented painter!! See for yourself:

Cute eh? I love the humorous blackbirds. I'd like to frame this and hang it in my kitchen!

I have so many posts about different things that I want to do... children's books I have acquired, the process of illustrating my current book, but I am still working hard at the moment. but soon.... very soon..... I will have a bit more time on my hands, so stay tuned sports fans.

bread and butter

For the past 6 weeks I have been working on an educational book about handwriting which needed a lot of illustrations - 140 of them! It was a change of gears for me because they wanted digital illos (in Illustrator) which I don't really do anymore. (I worked on a similar project with this publisher a few years ago when I worked only digitally, and they wanted the same style)

It was pretty fun to do, but all I wanted was to work on my Christmas book! But educational work is often the bread and butter that helps you support the more fun illustration projects.

So now I am back to the book and absolutely 100% loving it! I am having sooo much fun doing the roughs - an especially good sketching night tonight :) I will post more about that soon. Until then, here are 3 of the 140 illos I completed recently...

winking wombat

old ostrich

coughing camel

I-F: Pattern

There are a lot of different patterns going on here - and I suppose 2 by 2 is a pattern too!

This is my submission for Illustrators Australia's annual 9x5 exhibition, where artists paint a piece of wood 9x5 inches in dimension. I used watercolours and coloured pencils for this -- I've never painted w/c on wood before so that was quite interesting!

The theme this year was "20" seeing as it is IA's 20th year anniversary. Mine is entitled '2 x 10'.

All pieces are for sale. You can go have a gander at them here, and bid! Or better yet, come along on the night if you are in Melbourne - Friday October 9th. Not long now!