A Football Lover's Piece

Another lovely commission to share with you all!  A birthday present for a football loving Dad from my client, the daughter.  I love it when the brief has been thought out and there is room to use a bit of creative licence.

This isn't quite how the actual building looks, more like, all of it's best bits combined for this sweet little memento!  I also included the number gates that the Dad always goes through for an extra personalisation.

An Amsterdam Home

Many of you are familiar with my Amsterdam screen prints, lets be honest, they are one of my favourite pieces and I do tend to use the illustration on quite a few bits...screen prints, cushions, greeting cards, pocket mirrors...the list goes on!

This request, was for a thank you present.  I'm a huge fan of a bit of travelling, the odd holiday etc (well who isn't?), and this client had stayed with a friends parents whilst in Amsterdam and commissioned me to illustrate their home as a thank you for having her and a few friends stay.  Such a lovely, thoughtful idea for a gift!

Onwards and Upwards with Untapped Cities in 2013

September 2012 marked my start at illustrating every two weeks for Untapped Cities.  And so far so good!  I'm really enjoying illustrating buildings that I've been happy to come across and it's also helping me push myself.  Having 2 deadlines a month really helps get stuff done and I'm enjoying seeing my illustrated building collection get to a nice size.

If you're interested then all illustrations are available to buy as prints, cushions, cards, canvases, phone cases/skins etc in the Untapped Cities 'Society6' shop, here.  AND you can now buy A5 prints of a selection of the illustrated buildings in my 'Etsy' shop, here.  Can't see what you're after?  Just get in touch, I'll be happy to help.

You can follow my progress with my illustrated buildings via my 'down your street' blog here.  It's where I keep all of my illustrated buildings so you'll also find illustrations for '30 Days of Creativity' as well as those I've done for 'The Sketchbook Projects 2011, 2012 & Limited Edition'.

Twickenham

Inspired by my 'London Town' map I illustrated for 'They Draw and Travel' at the beginning of the year, I had a couple approach me with a commission to illustrate Twickenham for them.  This is the town where their son and daughter-in-law met I do believe!  The brief was to include both flats and pretty much all the quirky little bits in-between, that they love about the area.

First up, a day trip to Twickenham :-) I took my lovely boyfriend and we had a great day out.  I'd been supplied with a little tour almost, so that I wouldn't miss seeing particular bits, buildings and streets.  With this to hand we had plenty of stops for coffee, snacks, food, viewing points, etc.  I can't say I'd actually been before, so it was nice exploring the area, and part of the commission was for me to include those little bits that might otherwise be forgotten (but would be missed if not included)!

I then came home with initial sketches, photographs, cards and memories and started work on the rough draft.  Showing a rough draft often doesn't get us anywhere.  Luckily, my clients have a lot of faith in me and know that as long as I'm happy with how it's going, they know that they'll love it when it's coming together a bit more with colour and detail.

Once I have the initial sketch down on the paper (big, clean, white, lovely sheet) I find it a lot easier to get going, with more detail, then to add colour and finally to add finishing detail to bring out certain points for the viewer.

TA DA!

Untapped Cities

A very exciting announcement!

I have started illustrating for Untapped Cities (WOOHOO!), you'll be able to see new work from me every two weeks on their site www.untappedcities.com under '(Art)chitecture' which will be my column.  I'll share a new building illustration and write a few words to go with it each time.  Go straight to my column here.

It gets better -

Untapped Cities has just opened a shop!  You'll be able to buy prints of my illustrations in their 'Society6' shop and other works which will also be for sale in their 'Etsy' shop too.

Marvellous no?

pssst... You'll also find work by The Downtown Doodler on Untapped Cities who I recently did a collaboration with :-) You can read about that here.