Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

I know it's a bit late for Christmas wishes, but I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas! Mine was lovely, even though I was quite ill for the entire weekend, spent lots of time with friends and family and ate too many chocolates as usual!

I just wanted to thank everyone for all your support and lovely comments this year, I really do appreciate every single one! I've got lots of hopes for 2012 and will be re-vamping my blog and posting much more regularly!

So all thats left to do is to wish you all a very Happy New Year! See you all in 2012 :) xx
















 




My dog in her festive outfit!

November Update!

Hello everyone!

Hope you are all well. I just wanted to thank you all for following my blog even though posts have been a bit sparse recently! I'm still working full time at the moment so I only really have my weekends when I can paint. It does get pretty frustrating, I really wish I could illustrate all day everyday...maybe soon!

I've still been working on a few bits and pieces though, including my picture book which doesn't currently have a title! It's about a surprise party, here is another sample spread...















...and a little detail...
























This picture book idea is one that has developed from a university project. My work has changed quite a bit over the last 2 years, thanks especially to my lovely agent Hannah at PP! Her advice has been invaluable!

Anyway, hopefully there will be less of a gap before I get the next post up! I'm thinking something christmassy! Enjoy the rest of the weekend! :)

A Pirate's Life For Ted!

Just a quickie post to show you this illustration I painted over the weekend. I was feeling really stuck for inspiration for most of Saturday and then had the urge to draw some pirate bears and this is the result! Ted and his friend sailing the high seas, although they aren't the most ferocious looking pirates ever!

A Very Badger Breakfast!

This is an illustration I've been working on for a children's book that's been forming in my head for a while. I'm trying to get my act together and finish up the final roughs for a dummy and a couple of finished colour spreads, which is a lengthy process when you also have a full time job! I am determined to do it though and have been working super hard! I keep meaning to do a step-by-step post of how I create my paintings too, but keep forgetting until I'm halfway through a painting! I will soon though, promise!!
































Let me know what you think! What's everyone else working on at the moment? Hope you have a lovely evening :)

Sunday Sketch - 3

Just a quick sketch to show you this Sunday eve!

Saturday update!

Hi everyone! Sorry for the long overdue blog update! I'm still working full time at the moment and squeezing illustration in the evenings and weekends. I'm still working on developing a book idea that I began working on in my 3rd year of uni. It's looking very different now! Here are a couple of snippets for you to look at, let me know what you think! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

New Website!

Sorry for the complete lack of updates recently, I've been a very bad blogger! I am currently working on lots of new things for my portfolio, but it's all going very slow trying to fit it around my day job!

I have revamped my website though. My very clever sister, Becca Boden, has re-designed it all and it's looking fab! Let me know what you think by checking it out here.

I promise I will show you some new work soon!! Thank you to all my followers for sticking with me! :) xx

New work!

Some new work in colour at last! This is just a speculative piece for a book idea I'm working on, it still needs a lot of work though!! I was going to do a blog post showing you step-by-step how I create my illustrations, but my camera battery ran out and I couldn't find the charger! So, unfortunately, I can only show you the finished image!! Maybe next time...

Sorry for the lack of posts recently! I've been really busy with my day job, but am still working very hard on my illustration!

Let me know what you think anyway, thank you for following! :)

Sunday Sketch - 2

Hello everyone!

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, my day job has taken over at the moment! I've been working really hard this week to finish a dummy book I've been working on. It's developed from one of my uni projects and it's going good at the moment! I've completed the dummy this afternoon (the sketch above is taken from one of the pages) and I'm hoping to get some of the spreads painted in colour in the next couple of weeks! Then I'll get it all printed and bound and send it out to some publishers!! I've got another story slowly being drawn out too, so hopefully I will have lots of work to show soon!

I've been thinking about joining childrensillustrators.com recently, is anyone with them? I would love to hear any good or bad experiences!

I have a new website on it's way too so watch this space..!! :)

Sunday Sketch - 1

Just a quick post to introduce a new character I've been working on recently for a picture book idea. This is Mr Mouse! He doesn't have a proper name yet, I'm thinking of just sticking with Mouse! Hopefully, I will be posting more illustrations of Mouse soon, he needs a bit of colour I think!

GradGallery Exhibition: BV Studios, Bristol

The GradGallery exhibition in Bristol has now finished! It turned out to be a great exhibition and I spent a lovely weekend in Bristol! The private view on Friday evening was very busy and lots of fun. We had live drawing, amazing live jazz and a DJ, plus lovely artwork from Liz Clayton, Philip Matthews, Vicky Jones, Amberin Huq, Sophia Bloxham, Amy Brazier and myself!

Here are a few photos...
























Amazing live drawing from Dave Bain and Henry St Leger, you can check out a time lapse video of this by clicking here!











































































































































If you want to find out more about the collective GradGallery, please check out our website by clicking here.

And the winner is...

The winner of my illustration giveaway is (drum roll please) ...

Charlotte Cooke

Congrats Charlotte! I hope you and the little one like the print! If you could message me your address details then I will get the goodies in the post to you! :-)

Mini Giveaway!

Hello! Hope everyone has had a lovely Monday. I've decided to do a mini giveaway this week! It's just a bit of fun to say thank you to all my lovely followers for following me!
























I'm giving away a signed print (I think it's 8 x 10, but I will double check that!) of one of my original paintings and a collection of greetings cards, postcards, stickers and some other bits and pieces!

All you need to do to enter is to be a follower of my blog and leave a comment under this post. The giveaway ends at midday on Monday 25th April.

Good luck to everyone!

:-)

BV Studios Exhibition 21st April – 24th April 2011

Hello everyone! Sorry about the lack of updates recently. I've been really busy with the day job and it's kind of taking over at the moment. I'm working on some new things though and I'm writing a new picture book story so I will hopefully have some new illustrations to post soon.

Coming up in a couple of weeks I am taking part in another GradGallery exhibition, this time in Bristol! The exhibition is taking place at Motorcade/Flash Parade, BV Studios from Thursday 21st April to Sunday 24th April. Please come along if you live locally, it's going to be a great show! If you want to find out more about the GradGallery collective please click here.














That's all for now! Hope you are enjoying the sunny weather! :-)

New illustrations...

Hello everyone! Hope everyone's having a good week so far and enjoying the lovely sunshine we've been getting. I spent this past weekend working on some spec work for my portfolio and for my agents at Plum Pud to take to Bologna. I've been working on this project for a while and am so glad I finally got round to finishing some illustrations!

Here's a "before and after" of the second spread...




























(P.S. Please check out my Folksy store! Free postcards and stickers to be included on the first few orders!)

Folksy Makeover!

I've finally got round to updating my Folksy shop! My cards, postcards and prints sold really well at the recent GradGallery exhibition, which gave me the kick I needed to makeover my Folksy. I've added new cards, postcards and magnets and taken lots of pretty photos of them (I experimented with lots of different backgrounds, but the blue spotted fabric won in the end!) I'm going to add some 8x10 Limited Edition prints of various illos soon as well. Please check out my newly made-over shop here.

GradGallery's first exhibition!

Here are a few photos from the recent GradGallery exhibition in Cheltenham, which I was a part of! There were six illustrators exhibiting in total and everyone who came in (we counted over 500!) were so positive about our work. Lot's of people commented that they loved how different the exhibition was and that it was a refreshing change to a fine art show!

This is some of my work:




















Work by Sophia Bloxham:




















Work by Liz Clayton (check out her blog here):




















Work by Rachel Wilson:




















Work by Philip Matthews:



















And finally a photo from our private view! The yummy cakes and pencil biscuits were made by Liz!

Tea party time!

This is the most recent illustration that I have been working on. It's so nice to have time off from the day job and be able to spend a whole day painting! Let me know what you think!





















































PS. Don't forget to come and check out the GradGallery exhibition in Cheltenham this week! It runs from Wednesday 2nd March - Tuesday 8th March (10am - 5pm) and everyone is welcome. Check out the Facebook event page here.

New Illustration Sample...

Happy Friday! I've had a busy day today painting and finished off the above illustration! I'm hoping to get it mounted and framed so I can hang it in the GradGallery exhibition, which starts on March 2nd! I'm going to try and get another illustration finished off over the weekend too, fingers crossed. Still got lots to sort out, need to organise my prints and cards and price them up!

I just took a short break from painting to make some chocolate brownies! They are currently cooling in the kitchen and smell yummy! Hope you have a lovely weekend :)

Watch this!

The Making of "The Gruffalo" animation! Absolutely love this book and these guys did a fantastic job!

Illustration Friday: Layer

This is my illustration for this weeks IF prompt "Layer". You can't beat a many layered sponge cake with pink icing! Yum.

Also with optional green background...

Illustration Friday: Sweater

Here's my take on this weeks IF. I've been having trouble with the white background, which is frustrating me! The badgers head doesn't look right on the white background, he just blends in too much. I've tried dropping in various colour backgrounds, but nothing seems to be working. Grumble.
















































Hope everyone has had a lovely weekend!

A few cute photos...

Just couldn't resist posting these cuties! Our naughty Jack Russell and cat playing in the snow before Christmas last year! They get up to such mischief together, always causing trouble! I should probably write a children's book about them...!