Greetings Cards

I have been working on some greetings card designs for a while now. I find it a good way of developing illustration ideas into themes. When I first moved into my studio space a year ago I thought I'd start with a small project to develop some characters and little ideas I had into suitable card images. I often make my illustration work into stories so it was good to do a project which was less ambitious than a story book project but with different and specific challenges of it's own.

I decided to dip my toe into the online shop world and am selling some of my printed efforts on Etsy. My shop is here:

I have made a Christmas collection with gingerbread character designs:

and a Birthday collection based on characters from my Monsters work:

I am curious to see which designs are popular and what online traffic I can attract to my shop and website.

Fun in the park

Here are some sketches of little people I encountered in the local park the other day.

Mermaid & Dragon

Another image for Essex Council from the series - The Giants are Coming! 

This image will be used as a flyer (with additional information overlaid) by libraries, to promote workshops for children featuring mermaids and dragons.

Big delivery & Clementine Reading

Here is a picture inspired by my love of stamps.  Let's hope stamps stick around for at least a while longer.  Poor postman.

And another recent picture in tribute to my friend's daughter Clementine. At the moment Clementine is not even 1yr old so this is assuming she will one day love reading and not be into riding bikes and eating worms instead.

Here is a sketch I did recently of the actual Clementine:
(can you see the ghostly image of King George VI in the background that was drawn on the next page of my sketchbook?)

Plush Monster!

I made this little chap with my own fair hands.  He is based on my Monster characters and is my first foray into sewing for a long time!  I've seen lots of plush toys around and thought I'd have a go.  I'm pleased with the results.  All that remains is to give him a name.  Any suggestions?

Monsters react to Puffin Digital Prize win

I won this year's Puffin Digital Prize 2011 with a submission called Monsterology featuring some of the monsters already featured on this blog. I'm so thrilled to have the opportunity to make an e-book with Puffin! It's a dream come true. Here is what Puffin thought of my entry and the 4 other shortlisted projects;

http://www.puffindigitalprize.co.uk/