Royal Wedding Illustrations for Sketchbook Magazine

Last week I was commissioned by the wonderful people at Sketchbook Magazine to illustrate what the royal wedding means to me. I decided that it is a day of celebration whether you are a royalist or not and the day is either a day filled of patriotic fun or time to spend with family. I have illustrated it from Kate Middelton's and the public's perspective. Hope you like it and any comments are more than welcome!

Iconic Women - Madonna

This morning I posted an updated (unfinished) image of this illustration. Well after a few hours work here is the final piece!

I chose the quote "Sometimes you have to be a bitch to get things done" because Madonna is fighter and fights for position in the pop industry hence the boxing ring scenario, so I thought the quote went well with the tough image I am trying to portray in the illustration. Let me know what you think!

Iconic Women - Madonna Update

Hello readers about a week ago I think I showed you the beginnings of my illustration of Madonna for my Iconic Women Project. Here is how it stands at the moment.

I am very happy with how it is going it almost has a graphic novel feel about it! I almost finished I just need to add the typography and finish the background and ropes. Let me know what you think so far and I will update the finished illustration soon!

Iconic Women - Madonna Working Progress

Hello I am currently extremely busy hence the lack of updates with my Iconic Women Project. I am currently sifting through a 4000 word essay and will be handing in a 3000 word essay next week! But I thought I would show my lovely readers my working progress through the Madonna Illustration. So here is what I have done so far:

So as you can see this is a very rough start to the illustration! I need to clean up the lines and add more line detail and then colour and shading. I chose this stance for Madonna because she a fighter and fights for her position in the pop industry by always re-inventing herself. I am still looking for a quote to go with the illustration....so any suggestions would be very welcome!

Iconic Women - Twiggy

Here is my fourth installment for my Iconic Women project. This is of the gorgeous twiggy in her iconic 60's look. The quote from Twiggy is really interesting she says "It's not what you'd call a figure is it?" considering that Twiggy was such a muse in the 60's for numerous fashion designers I found this quote a nice opposite to go with the iconic model image she portrays.

Iconic Women - Marilyn Monroe

I have been on a bit of whirl today and completed two illustrations out of the five Iconic Women illustrations I am currently doing. This is the third installment and it is of Marilyn Monroe a woman that men drooled over. I found this interesting quote by the lady herself and I think it contrasts well with her sensual image.

Iconic Women - Coco Chanel

Here is my second installment for my Iconic Women Project. It is of the wonderful Coco Chanel a very inspirational lady.

Iconic Women

I have recently decided to embark on a new illustration project called iconic women. I completed the first drawing to day of Audrey Hepburn who is absolutely beautiful and a true icon. I plan to do others of Coco Chanel, Marilyn Monroe, Twiggy and Madonna.

I really wanted to experiment with typography within my illustrations because this is something I usually avoid! I decided to incorporate a famous quote by Audrey Hepburn and I am very pleased with the result! Stand by for more updates!

Skins Illustration Competition

Last week I saw that the E4 website was hosting a competition that asked it's entrants to illustrate Grace's Fairytale. Although I am not really impressed with this season I thought I would give it a go. The competition doesn't have a prize but because I have been bogged down with teaching lately, I jumped at the chance to do something creative. Here is my entry:

I chose to illustrate this section of the story:

Once upon a time there was a little girl who had a dreamy pink Barbie princess castle. It had tiny little doors and tiny little windows, from which you could look into even tinier little rooms. In front of the grand entrance stood a darling porcelain doll with her arms held high above her head and one leg outstretched behind her. She wore dainty pink little ballet shoes, fastened with ribbon, that allowed her to dance on the tips of her toes. She was a tiny dancer, a prima ballerina.

Unfortunately after I uploaded my entry it was removed for being "off topic"!! Obviously I was quite frustrated because clearly the image is ON TOPIC!

Jamie's Dream School

Recently I began watching the television series Jamie's Dream School. I personally disagree with some of the comments that Jamie makes such as "if you don't get 5 A-C GCSE's you are on your knees". I found this comment incredibly irresponsible. If a teenager does not get all five there are always other options such as foundation courses and key skills, so to bark this at these young people without checking his facts is terrible. 


Another issue I have with the program is that they seem to be blaming the teenagers "failure" entirely on the school. In some cases yes maybe the school did not do the best job, but in my opinion in schools it is roughly a 50/50 mix of teaching quality and the students attitude and motivation learn. The teenagers that are on this show have been called "ferrel" even by Jamie and have no manners or concept of being quiet when someone else is speaking or listening. One student bunked off school for most of his academic career and blamed the school for not learning anything!!!


Finally the main thing that bothers me is that Jamie Oliver actually thinks he can do a better job at teaching than a trained professional and quite frankly I think that is incredibly arrogant. He has set up this dream school with some of the best academic minds in the country spending god knows how much money to do this and claiming this is how teenagers should be taught. Has he even thought how unrealistic this is?


Anyway on a brighter note I absolutely love the illustrations that appear in the opening sequence of the program. They were done by Hanne berkaak

Here is an advert for the programme:

Jamie's Dream School from Hanne berkaak on Vimeo.

Illustrations for sale

Hello readers I thought I would let everyone know that I am selling my illustrations on on Big Cartel here and through my Facebook group here. These are the illustrations that are available and some that are coming soon.

Coming Soon

Fashion Illustrations

Recently I have been inspired many fashion illustrators, so I thought I would have a go. The images below are not completed. I am planning to sew on red sequins to the illustration with the red dress and I am going to make feathers out of paper and glue them on for the blue illustration. I will keep you posted with updated images.

Pass the sick bag

Not everyone in the UK is looking forward to the upcoming nuptials of William and Kate (apart from the days off, of course). Illustrator Lydia Leith has an essential Royal Wedding accessory.

Leith's screenprinted souvenir sick bags (under the punning brand name Throne Up) are available from her website at £3 each. As they say on the front, non-Royalists may want to keep them handy on April 29.

Little white Lies Magazine - Black Swan Cover

I recently had the pleasure of watching the film The Black Swan and I thought it was fantastic! It is a step away from the usual dance film, instead of an unprivileged youth making something of themselves through the medium of dance, the director opted for a wonderful psychological thriller! The film focuses on the theme of under studies and what it takes to stay on top. It is in cinemas now so GO WATCH!


Anyway this post is in regard to the magazine Little White Lies and their special on the film. I was particularly taken with the front cover which features the beautiful Natalie Portman in illustration form. I later found out that the illustration was sent to David Carson himself to do the type treatment WOW! The result sees some black foiled type spread over the whole cover; an unusual take for the magazine, where the 'issue' title usually plays second to the main illustration. I like the fact that with a portrait of a face as obviously magazine-friendly as Portman's, the type directly subverts the image, and the ruffled feathers echo the psychological state of Portman's character in the film.

New from Nobrow

These lovely new publications are from Nobrow. Each little book contains a story that is accompanied by beautiful illustrations.

First up is The Wolf's Whistle by Bjorn Rune Lie - a 32 page hardback which represents Nobrow's first foray into children's books. The book tells the story of a young Wolf called Albert who grows up with a dream of working for his favourite comic book publishers. Albert grows up and fulfils his dreams but is heartbroken when his three best friends from school suffer at the hands of local gangsters, the Honeyroast brothers.

The book ends with Albert on the cusp of reaping sweet revenge (in the name of justice, of course) as he reaches under his bed for the costume of the superhero he's been drawing all his life: Lone Wolf... This is surely the first of a series that charts the heroics of Albert / Lone Wolf as he does battle with the forces of evil and the dastardly Honeyroast brothers. Here are some spreads:

The Wolf's Whistle, £12 from nobrow.net

The Bento Bestiary is illustrated by Ben Newman and written by Scott Donaldson. This is an updated, hardback version which features no less than 14 illustrated  Yokai - a particular type of ancient Japanese beast and demon that were the forefathers of such famous Kaiju as Godzilla or Mothra. Each beast is accompanied by a description of what the beast is like, and also the consequences of eating it...

You probably wouldn't guess it from perusing Hildafolk – the latest in Nobrow's 17x23 series of illustrated short story publications – but its author, Luke Pearson, only graduated this year. This is a really accomplished comic story of a young girl that goes exploring the mountain on which she lives, discovering trolls and giants along the way...

I think I'm correct in the assumption that this is Nobrow's heftiest volume to date at 24.5cm x 19cm with 176 pages and a hardback cover and a rather nice cloth spine..

A Graphic Cosmogony is an anthology of comic stories about the "creation of everything". The 24 artists whose work features in it are thus: Stuart Kolakovic, Mikkel Sommers, Brecht Vandenbroucke, Luke Best, Rob Hunter, Jon McNaught, Ben Newman, Andrew Rae, Luke Pearson, Jack Teagle, Jon Boam, Jakob Hindrichs, Clayton Junior, Daniel Locke, Isabel Greenberg, Mike Bertino, Nick White, Rui Tenreiro, Sean Hudson, Luc Melanson, Katia Fouquet, Yeji Yun, Matthew Lyons, and Liesbeth De Stercke.

A Graphic Cosmogony, £24 from nobrow.net

And last but not least is Nobrow 4 - the latest issue of Nobrow's regular, 60 page, oversize A4, compendium of artwork by various artists on a particular theme. This ssue's theme is Night and Day and the cover (above) is by mcbess. Here are some spreads:

Nobrow 4 has been printed in an edition of 3000. £11 from nobrow.net