Friday 16 December 2011

Drawing of a beautiful hummingbird




A new picture of mine, despite all the Christmas preparations I'm still managing to cram in drawing work where I am able!  Hope you enjoy, thanks for reading.

Emma x

Monday 21 November 2011

Brand-spanking new work


Hello everyone!  Sorry I've been a bit quiet online lately - I've been working away diligently behind the scenes, despite the lethargy and general aversion to early mornings that I suffer from in winter.  It's something I struggle with year after year, and I tend to find that my productiveness declines hugely towards Christmas, much to my annoyance.  I don't think of myself as a lazy person (far from it!) and not having a project to work on makes me feel miserable.  So, I've been doing my best to push through it this year, with the help of good company and a lengthy walk at the top of the day to help me catch as many rays as is available this time of year.

So it is with huge pleasure that I present to you my two newest pictures - which will also be the designs on my Christmas cards this year.  I had a bit of an inspiration visit to the various Christmas stores available in London (most have been open since september or even august - we like to get started early round here!) and found that as well as the usual holly and mistletoe, there were lots of autumnal subjects beginning to seep into the Christmas theme - items such as toadstools, acorns and turning leaves were repeatedly featured as ornaments.  I love the warm colours of autumn, with the rich reds and oranges coupled with gold and mossy green, so decided to have an autumn theme in my cards this year.


A Dunnock (formerly known as the Hedge Sparrow) rootling about in the leaf litter under a hawthorn bush.   I featured this rather unremarkable bird on my cards in honour of the little Dunnock I often see creeping about my patio and under the bench in my garden!

One of our most splendid winter visitors - Waxwings love to feed on the hips (fruit) of roses.

It was a wonderful subject to work on and there were a lot of ideas that I liked, but in the end I decided that the strongest compositions were the two above.  I could have made lots more card designs, but alas, there are other projects that require my attention!  I am hoping to design more cards next year, so that it can be a collection that is added to and updated regularly with new work.  At any rate, I hope you enjoy these two, the cards should be available to purchase in my Etsy shop by the end of the week.

As always, thanks so much for reading!

Emma x

Saturday 5 November 2011

Waxwing sketches

Evening all!  I've been hard at work the last few days working on a couple of new pictures.  I've been going for a bit of an autumnal theme... they aren't quite ready to share yet, so for now, here's some waxwings.  I hope you enjoy them!



Friday 28 October 2011

Winter is coming... autumn photographs


Hello folks! I think I mentioned online that last week I was off for a few days visiting family, which took me up to Leicestershire and Derbyshire.  It was lovely to get out of the big smoke for a little while and enjoy some idyllic countryside, which I thought that I would share with you all.

It was a good opportunity for some quality mother-and-daughter time, so me and my mum took ourselves off for a day trip to Kedlestone Hall in Derbyshire, where we enjoyed the sumptuous interior  as well as the extensive grounds (and of course, stopped off for a spot of lunch!)







On another day we headed off to Wistow Rural Centre for a spot of shopping and some lunch (though the cafe there was full to capacity - we ended up hitting the pub instead).  I picked up a couple of Christmas presents and also enjoyed having a nose around the Wistow Farm Shop.







After that we headed off for a walk down by the canal and across some fields, a perfect way to spend a sunny autumn afternoon.



       



I have a feeling that I'll come back to look at these photos a few times as winter continues to take hold, goodbye for now to the sunshine and fine weather!  I'm looking forward to spring already...

Saturday 22 October 2011

My mermaid features in Peculiar Bliss magazine!

I have some lovely news to share with you all!  A picture of mine - the lovely (yet slightly creepy) mermaid you see below - is appearing in the latest issue of Peculiar Bliss Magazine.  Themed around 'Creatures', it is the seventh issue of the magazine which features lots of stunning and innovative work.  Get your copy here!



I'm really excited to be in the issue, many thanks to everyone who has supported me.

Sunday 16 October 2011

Finished otter drawing

Good evening, hope you've all been enjoying the weekend!

I just realised that I almost forgot to share this with you - my otter drawing, finished at last!  I was quite pleased with it, and would definitely like to return to otters as a theme again to do a full colour piece.  While they are rather charming on land, I think I would like to capture their grace underwater next time!


Monday 10 October 2011

Ten Paces and Draw pictures

Hello everyone!  Sorry I was rather quiet last week, it was a very busy one for me as I was taking part in the Ten Paces and Draw challenge!  Here's what went down...

Step one: you draw a sketch based on a theme.  The theme in this case was plants, flowers and flora.  I drew this sketch of a lonely autumn scene.



Step two: send your sketch off!  The ladies at Ten Paces then mix them up and send them back out.  I received this lovely drawing from Brittany Brown.



Step three: make a final piece of work based on the sketch you received.  I loved Brittany's drawing so didn't want to change it too much, but just made it my own.



It was great fun taking part!  You can see all the pieces of work including my own over here.

Friday 30 September 2011

Some otterly cute drawings

This week I've been working on a new piece, featuring a welcome return to British waters - that of the  European  Otter, which is at last coming back to our rivers and streams after a long absence.  I have admired otters from an early age, but due to their scarcity always assumed that I would never see one in person.  With their numbers on the increase, I now have a little hope that I might one day see one!  And with all the doom and gloom in the papers lately, some good news (however small) is much needed indeed.

As always when making a new piece, I did a lot of preparatory drawing in my sketchbook, to gather some idea of how the animal behaves and moves.  Though they look cute and cuddly on land, otters transform completely underwater; executing graceful, fluid manoeuvres.



An otter wolfs down a tasty fish supper

Sketches from a video of two otters playing in long grass




Otters swimming gracefully


A comatose otter sleeps in his holt
I hope you've enjoyed my drawings, and the lovely weather outside.  Peace!

Sunday 25 September 2011

Sketchbook self-portraits

 Hola folks! Sorry I've been quiet for the last few days, I have been hard at work making pictures but can't share them until the time is right.  So to whet your appetite, here are some previously unseen doodlings from my sketchbook.  These are actually self-portraits, though I'm not sure if you can tell...!  I hope you enjoy them.


A good cup of tea always helps.

Me in my costume at a pirate-themed party.
More tea!  Along with cakes, bunting and strawberries.

I also notice that I finally made the 100 mark on this blog, huzzah!  Thanks so much for your continued support everyone, I really appreciate it.

Thursday 15 September 2011

Weekend adventures - films, art, burgers and more!

Hello everyone, I hope you're all having a lovely week so far!  This weekend just gone I went on a bit of an adventure about town with Jo Cheung and June Chanpoomidole, catching a couple of shows before they closed.  The first was the Watch Me Move exhibition at the Barbican, which was a very expansive and broad-reaching exhibition of animation.  It covered not only animations in different mediums and from different countries/cultures, but began with reels of some of the very first animations ever recorded.  I'd seen bits and pieces of some of the most famous ones (including Gertie the Dinosaur, Little Nemo and animations by the Fleischer brothers) so it was very interesting to see these early works in full.  If you watched everything all the way through I reckon you could literally spend hours in there!  As it was, we got too hungry to manage that and decided to go hit up a Gourmet Burger Kitchen.  Yummy!

Afterwards Jo and I ventured further north to Walthamstow to catch an exhibition by Carne Griffiths at a lovely, cosy little pub called The Castle.  Having exhibited alongside Carne at Sorted London I knew his work would be excellent (which it indeed was) though for these works he'd taken a more sinister route, exploring the dualism of beauty and brutality in nature.  The artist himself was there celebrating the final night of the show, and we discovered that his exhibition at the pub was part of a wider network of events in the E17 Art Trail.  We actually hadn't heard of this particular trail before (though apparently it is the largest of a number of such events springing up all over the East end of London) so we were very excited to hear that there were so many creative things going on.  I await to next year's trail with much anticipation!








Heading back we noticed these blue plaques in the windows of the homes lining the street, all of which commemorated people that lived there in the 19th century.  Rather than celebrating famous writers, poets, and so on as the 'official' blue plaques usually do, these ones instead mentioned everyone from neck-tie makers to teachers and, as captured here, 'commercial artists'!  This was another artwork on the E17 Art Trail, devised by Danny Cope.  I imagine that for the local residents, discovering who used to live in your home before you must have been fascinating.  If we all started looking into the social history of our homes and neighbourhoods, I wonder what we might discover...?







That's all for now this time folks, I hope you've enjoyed reading.  Thank you!

Wednesday 7 September 2011

Red, yellow, orange and brown - the colours of autumn.

 I've been doing a lot of drawing in my sketchbook lately, especially as the season is now shifting from summer into autumn.  I tend to find that my work is very much reflective of what's going on outside, so as the weather gets colder I'm drawn to orange, red, brown and yellow - the warm colours of turning leaves, berries, nuts, rosehips and setting suns.


I started drawing this really cute little girl in Trafalgar Square, just a few moments before she and her mum wandered off!  So I had to make a lot of her up, which I think shows sadly.  I quite like the building in the background though.

Drawing of a dove.

Pairs of doves in different poses.


A mistle thrush and mistletoe, which is growing on an oak tree.  The bird gets its name because the mistletoe berries are one of  its favourite foods.

Well known evergreen plants - holly, ivy, mistletoe, yew and conifers.

Christmas foods - nuts and seasonal or preserved fruits are a recurring theme.

Autumnal foliage - deciduous leaves, berries, conkers, rosehips, acorns, nuts and mushrooms.





Thursday 1 September 2011

Flamingo Arts Project #1 launch night

Hello folks!  Just another quick blog post to share a couple of pictures from the launch night of the first Flamingo Arts Project.  My pal Jo took part in the project, so the Westminster gang headed along to show our support (and for a celebratory meal... since food always seems to feature heavily when we get together!)






Jo Cheung's illustration in pride of place




Sorry there aren't very many photos of the interior, it was pretty full in there so taking decent pictures was rather difficult.  It was a great show with work by some very talented people.  I'm very much looking forward to seeing what the folks at Flamingo get up to next!

Until next time!