Pha-ew!

My Christmassy Cards are now being sold in various places in Cambridge! Including Urban Larder, The Empress, The Emperor and now Etsy

I wanted to attach a little bag of tea to each one but that was going to end up being too expensive. I think they turned out quite well anyway and they're selling better than I thought they would!

The cards are handprinted from lino with water based inks and therefore each one is slightly different :)

If you fancy sending one of my cards this year (and making me very happy) my Etsy is -

O is for OWL

On another note. I recently upgraded my phone and on the hunt for some decoration i came across this site, Groovemade. 

They are a group of illustrators that make beautiful engraved cases from bamboo. Ive fallen in love with the 'Octopuses' design by Mike Lowery, and the 'Acid in Wonderland' by Patswerk is pretty cute too. Though at $109 each, i shall only dream! 

Every day is like Sunday

So the calendar from LMNOP has been released! You can buy it here
I know they've already made 2 sales from my parents haha

I got December :) The other months look so good, can't wait till it arrives. Still so chuffed that I got picked. Embarrassingly I'm the only one without a website - need to sort it out pronto!


My Christmas cards are nearly done aswell! They turned out to be abit of a nightmare to get finished, but I'll be selling them on my etsy and around Cambridge very soon.

Hope you like them!

Yo Ho ho Homie

Its that time of year again! Christmas is nearly here..
A friend recently said 'You really like cutting things don't you?!'
I'd never really thought about it before, but I guess it looks like its true.. As much as I really love drawing, I find making things really satisfying.
Ive cancelled on 2 people now, so I can stay in and start making my Christmas cards.

I don't know what I've got against Christmas but my cards will have a slightly non-Christmassy aspect again. Having to go cold turkey (ho ho ho) without tea in Thailand for a month has inspired my tea themed cards this year.
I'll do another post in a few days when they've been finished.

Just hope I've still got friends to give them to!

And listening to ('cause her voice is lovely)...

A recommended local Adventure

So! I survived the floods and got back to England!
AMAZING trip, completely fell in love with Thailand.

In summary -  Rode elephants, fell asleep on the front of a boat, learnt to ride a motorbike (sortof), snorkeled round James Bond islands, got really sick, met tigers, visited the Opium museum, spent a day in Laos getting accosted by begging children and drinking snake whiskey, got searched by the Thai police, hired a jeep car and motorbike, saw a snake show, got an ridiculous Thai massage, visited the hill tribes, swam in a thunderstorm, ate insects, wore a wig, cycled round historical parks, saw a couple of art exhibitions, sung karaoke, watched 14 yr old Thai boxers (eeek), nearly converted to Buddhism, tried fresh crab for the first time and danced on the bar with Thai prostitutes.

Thailands pretty cool!

Uploading all my pics slowly onto my flickr!

PLUS while I was out there I received an email saying that my work had been picked to be in the LMNOP calendar competition! Completely unexpected. Sent off the work just before I left to catch my plane. The actual picture didn't take me long to do at all. I really enjoyed being limited to 3 colours, which I think i'll def do again for another brief.
My biggest problems when making an image is a) distractions (obviously) and b) having too many options and ideas. I always want to try everything at once in a multitude of ways which ends in not knowing which one to use and taking ages to choose.
The calendar is out end of November. Literally cannot wait to see all the other entries and to find out which month I was given.

Thankyou very much LMNOP!

Lawndon

Just got back from London and managed to quickly see the Power of Making exhibition at the V&A. Its quite small but FULL of really innovative and impressive things including a beautiful urban picnic table and a crochetdermy bear. Def worth a visit if you're in the area! (and its free yay!)

Also came across the Mexican artist and tattooist Dr Lakra's work. Really like it -

Welcome Home

Hello! I've been wanting to make a little night-time street scene for awhile. Based on Hemingford Road where I live. You can tell our house from the left out wheelie bin and the cat waiting at the door for Stell (and Craig's turkey ham) :)

Its designed to be a card, but I thought i'd include a couple of versions

Spot Ursa Minor! xx

Pheasants

Apologies for the neglect blog!
Basically been a workaholic hermit recently. Working 2 jobs trying to save as much money as I can before I go to Thailand! Going for a month in October. I'll be taking my sketchbook of course and a couple of cameras.
Apart from working like a trooper I've been visiting Simon in Hertfordshire and helping out (well he puts up with me hanging around :) . I've been mainly on pheasant duty and helping to make 'disposable taxidermy' for films.

A Reeve's Pheasant. Its tail feathers are amazingly long, really pretty plumage

 Some of Simon's work

Lazy Sundays

Went to Field Day Festival in London yesterday. So so good. But today I'm feeling abit delicate.
Just finishing off a card for two friends of mine. This is about all I think I'll manage today, that and lots of tea drinking.

Congratulations Dave and Enas!

------

Two of my favs from Field Day. Enjoy :)

Horse's head

Busy busy busy recently. Lots has happened, though not so much on the illustration side of things. The last couple of weeks I've had a break from drawing.

This is half a horse's skull I was given by a lovely lady at Shepreth wildlife park
(it was tiger food)

I've had it in a tub of water with washing powder for the last few months trying to get it nice and clean, using a process called cold water maceration. It hasn't been the nicest job but the end is now in sight. A couple more water changes and it should be ready to bleach.

Not entirely sure whats going to happen to it yet, looks pretty gnarly right now but once its nice and white it should come out quite good!
I may just leave it white or I've been researching bone carving...

Stormy

We've been having the most dramtic weather recently. Scorching sun then torrential rain.
I was driving back to Cambridge from Newmarket last week and it was raining so hard, you couldn't see the road - Hurricane weather
Had some time to kill before work today, so made this

Story of a Bird Woman

Hello!
Its been quite awhile since I posted anything, sorry my avid readers (Hi Dad & Marg)
Been quite busy recently - trips home, reunions, goodbyes etc.
Just finished a couple of images for a short story I'm illustrating, 'Story of a Bird Woman'
(Guess which one I quickly did in a couple of days)

This was the image that I was most excited about making. The fight between the young lad and the gull guards.

The wings took a ridiculously long time to cut up and make!

Car Boot Treasures

A trip to a Car boot is now a firm Sunday tradition in my house. This week we went to Fordham, and without fail, returned with lots of treasures.

My spoils were an amazing handmade dress from the 1940s and a tea set.

Me and Stell ran off and managed to buy this tea set for our epic collection before the guys noticed. (Our house has ALOT of crockery)

Im completely in love with the little bull design

So happy with this dress. Its all been neatly stitched by hand and the fabric is lovely. Needs finishing off at the neck but I don't think it will be too hard. Only £1.50!

Sunday well spent I think!

I've never really seen the point of keeping a sketchbook, all of my work is normally done on scraps of paper and then discarded. But there are things in rough sketches that are sometimes lost in the finished picture and im kind of sad that I haven't kept everything now

So from now on I'm going to make a conscious effort to keep a sketchbook! 

(3 years and I finally get it. Phew!)

The first sketch is from page one of Angela Carter's 'Story of a Bird Girl' and the second is from page 5!

Hello!

This is my space for ideas, upcoming projects and updates on what I'm getting up to.

Fantastische Acht! from Henry Lockyer on Vimeo.

Thought I would start with a suitably hipster Super8 video of a recent trip to Berlin.

Filmed by Henry Lockyer at http://absolutelyclever.com/

Hope you like it!