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.