It's hard drawing food!

I've been illustrating some recipes for a project undertaken by Merton and Wandsworth Asylum Welcome. It's been fab to work on something that I feel can make a difference. But drawing food is hard! Here are my efforts. Enjoy the visual feast!

The Waves, the Waves are green!

I took the metaphorical plunge and coloured the image I had only pencilled in in my last post about The Waves, the Waves. Here it is looking all glossy green!

Sketching for "The Waves, the Waves"

I have a twin sister who is an absolutely awe-inspiring writer! and I am totally unbiased, so no arguing please! You may be wondering what this seemingly random piece of information has to do with anything, apart from giving me an opportunity to boast about having a talented sister. Well, I'll admit I have an ulterior motive; namely, the excuse to say that I shall be illustrating a novella she is working on at the moment. From when I was very little I always wished that there was a job that both me and my sister could do together, and here is the perfect solution. Without wanting to give too much away, I'll say that it's a story about love, time travel (think The Time Traveller's Wife rather then anything overtly sci-fi), a house on the cliffs, selkie magic, 18th century tea smugglers, wartime austerity and the waves....in fact, the working title is The Waves, the Waves (it's kind of like a combination between Virginia Woolf's The Waves and Iris Murdoch's The Sea, the Sea thereby referencing two brilliant female writers in one fell swoop! Clever, huh?). It's a project we've wanted to work on together for a while now so it's exciting and also a little nerve-racking to start on it. I wanted to share the small start I've managed to make. One is only half started and one didn't go so well but in the spirit of documenting my progress, here they are.

" Coldness filled her glass-glinting self up to the brim and life poured gratefully out. She kept falling. Arms caught her and enclosed themselves about her, cradled her through the darkness. This, she thought, is what it feels like to surrender." 

Extract from The Waves, the Waves by Abra Hunt.

I had Daniela Drescher and Warwick Goble in mind when I started applying the watercolour to this drawing. I can confidently say that I was (if I'm honest more then) a little disheartened it all went slightly awry. It's something I may go back to but at the moment it's staying in the back of my watercolour pad where I can't see it.

"It took her nearly an hour to reach the main road and the toothy outline of the village roofs. At the junction she stopped and bent down to remove her sturdy walking boots, delving deep into the depths of her bag and coming out with a catch of tan leather heels."

Extract from The Waves, the Waves by Abra Hunt.

I'm planning on using watercolour again on this illustration. I will not be defeated by the watercolour!

For Mabel

This image was a collaboration between a writer and an illustrator. That is, my sister, Abra, and me. She wrote the poem/story and I illustrated it...if you hadn't guessed that already I thought I should make it clear! I actually only ended up with a couple of hours to think of and execute the final image which made me feel like a stressed-artist-creature-person for a while but the end result of all that was something I feel reflects the tone and charm of the writing. We made it as a naming ceremony present for a darling baby girl, at the very beginning of her life and her adventures and her loves and passions. This was for Mabel.

Practice makes perfect.

I have been an intern now for three weeks and I have come home proudly baring my first book bound at Rooks Book (by me of course but with some very patient, kind and much appreciated help). The first of many I hope. Although I have done book-binding before as an A level I'm a little rusty at the moment and so I was re-learning all about sewing, glueing, end papers, rounding and backing, making board covers and covering with leather in the making of this book. Using leather is what I'm most unfamiliar with but the skill which is really the key to working at Rooks Books as that is their speciality. I'm praying that practice will make perfect! I'm going to be keeping this book all for myself but not so sure what I'll fill it with yet. There is nothing more promising then a blank book and I'm always filled with a sense of trepidation at the thought of covering those pristine pages. However, it is also good to remember that there is nothing quite so magical as a book filled from cover to cover. I'll let you know what becomes of it. For now though, here's what it looks like!

An Easter Offering

It's not long 'till Easter now and I've been getting into the spirit of things by painting an Easter hare for the Plawhatch Farm e-newsletter. (The original isn't quite as green as this upload has made it look!)

Illustrations for a Brave New World

I mentioned a couple of months back that I would be entering the House of Illustration and The Folio Society's competition to illustrate Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.....well, I got an e-mail from them the other day to say that my entry was unsuccessful. While there are possibly no words to describe how disappointed I am not to at least make it into the top 25 (and if there were it would be a little depressing to list them all anyway) over the last few days I have been trying to look at the positives: 1) They e-mailed me to let me know. There's nothing worse then having to assume it didn't go well through lack of any form of communication. 2) As clichéd as it sounds, I'm still proud of myself for entering because it wasn't the type of text I would usually have chosen to illustrate and although I struggled hugely I managed to complete it. 3) I am pleased with the work I produced. That is a big achievement for me! Even if they're not the best pieces of art ever done, I still like them and (I cringe slightly at the cheesiness but it is definitely needed in this case) that's what counts. So here, I am proud to present.....the illustrations that should have won ;)

 Cover.

 "And this," said the Director opening the door, "is the fertilizing room."

 "The on a low bed, the sheet flung back, dressed in a pair of pink one-piece zippy jamas, lay Lenina, fast asleep and so beautiful in the midst of her curls."

"I claim them all" said the Savage at last.

Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. "You're welcome," he said.

And here, for those of you interested, is The House of Illustration's chosen top 25 

Holy Cow!

Just a small offering today. Another drawing for the Plaw Hatch Farm newsletter. There isn't much to say about it except that... it's a cow! An MRI cow to be precise; named after the three main rivers in Germany (Meuse, Rhine and Issel). Enjoy :)

Once upon a time...

The Sketchbook Project . I keep harping on about it but I have finally completed mine for 2013! I may have been frantically filling in pages right up until the deadline (reminding me too clearly of not so distant University days!) but I did it! My over-use of exclamation points here is an indication of how pleased I am to even finish it at all! (there's another one). Let me explain. At the beginning of January (having been torn mercilessly away from my creative hub by the large, inescapable and extravagant presence of CHRISTMAS slap bang in the middle of December.......someone could have told me it was coming!) I entered two weeks of intensive illustration meltdown. I think dad must have got sick of the sight of me traipsing up and down his stairs. With two self imposed deadlines looming in the form of The Sketchbook Project and a separate competition, it was myself I felt I would be letting down if I didn't make them. There followed consecutive days of flying scraps of paper, splashes of paint and scribbled writing, cries of frustration, tears of anxiety followed by solemn silences. All in a days work for an illustrator! Especially one who doubts herself at every turn. Which is why the exclamation marks are so necessary! The theme I chose for this humble sketchbook was Narrative. Rather then developing one narrative to run through the whole sketchbook though I decided to create a book of short stories, a decision I often question in the subsequent weeks! A new story for every double page. And that is how I ended with this, a random selection of half-tales that seek to capture the magic of fairy tales in a few short lines. Maybe I managed it, maybe I didn't! The important thing, in this case, is that I finished and for that I am grateful to whatever muse decided it should be so!

It was love at first sight for the bear and the bee. And they lived happily ever after.

There was once an old man who lived in an attic. He had no friends except for the mice who lived in the sloping eaves of his little home and the sunlight that came through his one window every morning. The old man would shuffle his feet across the little patch of sunlight on his floor until they were quite warm and have a good long chat with the sunshine. The sun had seen a lot of interesting things. The old man had also done a fair bit of exploring in his day and liked to reminisce about these with the sun. "Oh Sun! How I would like to see the Pyramids of Egypt and the Taj Mahal again! But these legs won't get me very far." Why don't you come with me?" said the sun. "I see those sights every day." The old man thought that was an excellent idea so he left a note to the mice to say he might be some time and so to keep the place tidy in his absence, put on a new shirt and a good pair of shoes, climbed out the window and was never seen again.

Two little birds sitting on a line of bunting at a village fair, one named Daphne and one named Claire. They sat all day to watch the fun. Then flew away with the setting sun.

There once was a girl who could not find her way home however much she tried and so she wept. The wind was sorry to see this so it tugged at her legs and her hair and her heart and her feet until she tripped into the air, spread her wings and flew. "Thankyou wind!" she cried. "I remember now that I forgot how to use my wings and so lost my way but now I have found my way home.

Gertrude Grey was a peculiar woman. When she was nineteen she fell in love with a clock for it's cheerful disposition and married it soon after. However, it was not to end happily because she got so annoyed with it's bad time keeping that she divorced it within six months. She then turned her attention to the bookcase for it's encyclopaedic knowledge but became frustrated at it always answering back. This story does not have a happy ending. Gertrude gave up on ever finding love that met her standards and so lived alone.

It is midnight for an infinite moment. Then it is gone and time slips effortlessly onwards. But as the magic hour strikes on silent bells the blackest pitch of midnight dissolves in the luminous silver light of a low, fat, full moon. It emerges from behind a shy fringe of whispery cloud and hangs sleepy and content in the midnight sky. Below the scene that is illuminated in the wake of the fleeing shadows is the ragged edge of a forest. Like the whispery cloud before if, a shaggy fern is pushed aside, this time by a wet black nose. For the briefest moment, while midnight still hangs in the balance  it quivers alone and exposed in the light. Then the rest of a face pushes its way out from behind and the the sleek rust of a fox emerges. And as midnight slips past the moon, so does the fox.

A family portrait? Perhaps taken soon after the wedding. Perhaps not. I'd like to think it was love that made her cover his hand with her own though. Does it matter that we don't know? Is it the story we imagine that counts in the end?

Once upon a time there was a rose who wanted to be a raven. The other roses laughed at such a silly wish. "You are the most beautiful flower in all the land! Why would you want to become a dirty black raven?" The rose didn't say that she had watched the ravens flying in the sun and seen how their feathers glinted many colours in the light. A raven heard her wish and said: "But I have always wanted to be a rose!" Neither could turn into  what they wished but they became friends and so in the end saw the world through each others eyes.

Every night spent under the stars.

Once upon a time there was a young man who had been cursed by a wicked old witch to never set foot on dry land. Even if he saw land in the distance, the more he rowed toward it, the further away it would become. Living as such had taught the lad how to talk to the many animals that lived in the air and the ocean and among them he had made many friends. However, he could not banish his desire to step on solid ground. "It''s no good," he told the whale, "the more I try to get to land the further away it gets." The whale pondered this difficulty and then said: "Why don't you try rowing away from the land rather then towards it?" The young man followed this wise piece of advice and in letting go of his desire, he found his way home.

The kettle boiled with a zealous cacophony of deep throated gurgles. The hot water gushed forth in a billow of steam and found it's mark in the waiting tea cup. The liquid eddied and swirled against the china as deep amber pillowed up from the depths.

          

Sketching...

Despite the fact that I am relishing the freedom of drawing without thought of pleasing anyone but myself, I really did very little of it in Italy. Just a couple while on the beach. I think I put myself off because I didn't like what I did do. So much for this only pleasing myself thing! I am, as ever, my harshest critic and the one hardest to please. However, I'm going to post them here for the sake of honesty. We're all allowed a few mistakes, right?