Thursday 21 November 2013

Shop! shop! shop!

Hello, i am quite excited to let you know i finally have a few things up for sale as sirjessica on Etsy,  including a selection of Christmas cards and a few of my images available as prints.



'A Woodland Tea Party' giclee print available here.

Thursday 24 October 2013

Woodland Party

Have been rather busy over the last few months, getting settled and discovering what a wonderful place Oxford is to live. Have been taking advantage of the free lunchtime lecture series at The Bodleian which have been running alongside the Magic books exhibition. Really interesting talk yesterday called Wolves and Winter: Old Norse Myth in Children's Literature which i thoroughly enjoyed and has sparked lots of thoughts and given me rather a large reading list to go seek out. 

Also been working on a few projects and commissions, so i thought i would share a sneak peek at one of this year's Christmas card designs ....



Friday 5 July 2013

Moving

Just a short post to say that things are quite quiet here at the moment because i am in the middle of moving house, finally, hurrah! I'm moving down to Oxford in a couple of weeks (though i already picked up the keys earlier this week) and am currently up to my eyebrows in boxes and paperwork. Super excited for it all to be over, and to be able settle in to my new studio which has a delicious amount of built in bookshelves and lots and lots of light!


Sunday 19 May 2013

Yes i can-can ...


Just a quick piece i did yesterday, I've been feeling a little lacking in will power over the last few weeks, so i thought maybe i should draw myself a Motivational Mascot and see where that leads me .... 

Friday 3 May 2013

Been a little quiet ...

I've been a little quiet on the internet for the last few weeks, mostly because i was working super hard, attended the FCBG conference which i still intend to write a post about and best of all was helping my sister to get everything ready for her wedding at the end of April and helping to celebrate of course!



Massive congratulations to Rebecca and Peter!! 

Friday 8 February 2013

Fairy Tales rough for Pencil Play

This month's theme for the Pencil Play collective is Fairy Tales which has made me very happy, so i thought i would get to work on it pretty much straight away, especially as i've been looking for a reason to draw more castles. I also came across this quote recently on pinterest, and it just seemed to fit with some of the thoughts i've had this week:

Once in a while, in the middle of an ordinary life, LOVE gives us a fairytale - unknown. 

Not so much because it says love, but because to me it implies being passive in your own life, that 'love' just happens and will make the mundane magical. That you don't have to go out of your ordinary way for things to happen to you. Well, i'm a bit fed up of that notion, i think you have to get out of your comfort zone and create your own adventures. So here is my rough for the fairy tale theme, the concept is that lots of bored princesses are just hanging around waiting for their 'princes' to come and rescue them, except for one ... 

Tuesday 5 February 2013

A box for Ideas

Yesterday the lovely children's illustrator Jane Porter posted a blog: A suitable repository for ideas  about being inspired by Allan Ahlberg to create an 'ideas box'. Somewhere to store all those ideas and thoughts which might have potential to become something more.



I thought this was an absolutely brilliant idea, especially as i have been revisiting old sketch books for inspiration recently, how much more convenient to have all those ideas i really like in one place without having to spend hours trawling and for them to be able to mingle and get mixed up.

Also, what a great excuse to glam up one of the zillion boxes i seem to have hoarded. I did this last night using some of the decorative papers and old photocopies which have been hanging about in my 'research' folders since university and quite a bit of PVA glue.


I've made a start by putting in some of the doodles and scribbled thoughts which have been cluttering up my desk space. I'm quite excited to see what inspiration comes out.

Tuesday 29 January 2013

An exciting box ....

 I received an exciting box in the post this morning:


 Inside, under layers of tissue paper, was another exciting box ...


Yes, i did get a little bit giddy about all the yummy packaging ... 


The arrival of my super posh new luxe business cards from Moo, don't they look spiffy?! Almost too lovely to give away ....  


A trip to Mughal India at the British Library

A few weeks ago i was spending a bit of time in London with my family, my parents were on their first visit to the UK since moving to Delhi in the summer, so it was really good to see them and hear all about their adventures. My dad was really keen to go to the Mughal India, Art, Culture and Empire exhibition at the British Library so i tagged along. I was not really sure what to expect, but it was definitely not to be as fascinated and impressed as i was for the nearly three hours we managed to spend in there. It also really added to the experience to get some of the context, both historically and geographically (i.e. I've been there!) from my dad.





I found an overwhelming wealth of inspiration. Some of the images contained entire narratives, documenting both historical events and mythical stories. The level if detail in some of the images was amazing, and I particularly loved the use of decorative pattern, both within images - fabrics, plants, the incorporation of architecture etc -  and in the ornate borders which complimented the paintings.





It was interesting how contemporary some of the images seemed, particularly the stylised portraits, and the colour palettes which were so fresh and yet rich. I could see where other illustrators i admire such as Delphine Jaquot, Aurelia Fronty and Jane Ray might have drawn inspiration from too.