New Baby Cards

Here are some more of my designs on the Marks and Spencer Personalised Cards website. The lovely thing about Print on Demand is the pretty full colour inside spread, which makes them really fun to design.

Personalised cards are so well received, especially new baby ones which become true keepsakes.

And because they are customisable, the customer is in control, so the cards can be used as greetings, invitations or thank yous.

Cutting and Sticking

I work in a variety of media; I enjoy drawing, vector illustration, digital painting, real life painting etc... but one of my styles that I developed during my degree (at Glasgow School of Art) is a collage style that I think is quite individual.

I colour and cut papers and layer them up before photographing them. My first piece was an illustration of a Ceilidh for the front cover of the Big Issue. I then had a lovely commission for The Scottish Ballet where I observed and sketched the dancers at rehearsals and studied their costumes to create several pieces of work for their calendar and exhibition.

I also have had work published in this style by Paperchase, in Elle magazine, as greetings cards, wall art, book covers and corporate illustration.

Most recently I have revisited this technique for Tigerprint, creating traditional style Christmas cards (under wraps until Xmas 2010!). Fashions come and go and a commercial artist has to evolve to be successful. I don't know whether it's because paper cutting is becoming more in demand (thanks to the likes of Mr Rob Ryan... and have you seen Jayme Mcgowan and Peter Callesen?) or whether this way of working contrasts to current trends, but it's really nice to get the ink rollers and scalpel out again!

Something for everyone?

Hello, I know, it's been a while. There's been lots going on, and then as a newbie blogger the longer I left posting the more pressure I put on myself to be interesting. Anyway, I've given up worrying and am jumping back in feet first with no particularly exciting news!

... Here are some cards have I made to order lately...

Some more clever words by my mum...

Some old ones are making a comeback...

Something for everyone, I hope?

Heading South

I'm back from my Easter break in London, which was really great. We visited family and played at being tourists with some sight seeing and shopping which, although we do visit London now and again to see friends and family, we never normally get the chance to do.

I was very excited to go to Legoland in Windsor, and it didn't disappoint. We had fun on the rides and playing with lego, but Miniland, the statues round the park, and the 2D mosiac-like pictures all made of lego were just awesome.

Mini-London was very cool as we'd seen all the places in real life too on this trip. It was nice to see the Gherkin AKA Noah's Rocket (... or Mummy's Rocket as it is known by the mini-people in our house due to my illustration for Tony Frais' books).

There was so much to see and quirky touches to spot it really was fun. I am so loving the lego tube map?! And the Minack Theatre in Cornwall was an exciting surprise as my Dad had performed there (at the real one, not the lego version!) in Arthur Miller's The Crucible last year.

The Houses of Parliament were amazing in both forms...

The lego HP, and the real HP from the London Eye - can you spot which is which!? (check out the wobbly distortion through the glass pod!)