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.

Wedding Invitation

Recently some friends asked me to design their wedding invitation. They had seen some examples they liked, so had quite a specific idea in mind. It was to be fully illustrated - they requested cartoon versions of themselves outside the venue with hand rendered type for the information. Here is the printed result:

It is a double sided A5 card:

The Order of Service is designed along the same theme.

Artificial Things

In 2012 I created a resource pack (35 illustrations and layout) for Stopgap Dance Company - click here for more information.
This year they asked me to create flyers and a brochure for their current touring production called Artificial Things. I made A4, A5 flyers and an A2 poster with cast and production information on the reverse side that folds into an A5 brochure, see below:

(The photographs are by Chris Parkes as Christography)

Click here for a trailer for the show.

I visited the show at Sadler's Wells last night and it was a wonderful performance. A visual and visceral treat. I definitely recommend it. They are touring the UK with this show into the autumn - for more information click here: Stopgap Dance or visit stopgapdance.com

Face

Last summer I was commissioned to create a large scale graphic image. My client had found a pop art style black and white picture they liked and wanted a similar image for their living room.
The original image was very small - 6 x 4 cm but my client wanted it on a large canvas sized 5 x 4 feet (152.4 x 121.92 cm):

I created a version of a face image in Illustrator as a vector file so that I could blow up the scale without losing any information. I then tile printed it on many sheets of A4 paper. If I'd had an overhead projector that would have been a quicker process but I didn't so instead cut out the shapes I wanted to paint in black and drew around them to transfer the image onto the canvas:

I then coloured it in with block colour.

The actual painting process was fairly quick. The most time was spent on preparation.
It was a fun project to take on.

Here is the result:

My client was very happy with the final result and once we found a big enough car to transport it in took it home!

Baking calamities & triumphs

Sometimes sitting with my sketchbook it can feel as though my brain is somewhat distracted:

So with that in mind I began drawing biscuits and other baking items sprang into view:

Inspired by the popular TV show The Great British Bake Off,  I came across these unfortunate casualties of bad baking:

Let's hope for plenty of successful baking in the new series (though perhaps that is not as entertaining as the calamities).

New Studio!

 

I have recently moved into a shared studio space. It is wonderful to be surrounded by talented, friendly and inspiring artists and great to have a space outside of home in which to work.

Among the items that surround me are - my old dynamite box full of (non-explosive) materials. This was heavy to carry on the tube but at least the word explosives is written in very small type so no arrests, evacuations or controlled explosions were necessary on my way in. That would have been embarrassing.

Some letterpress letters, paper and brushes from Hong Kong, a mug for tea:

A cushion I made:

And a mango slowly ripening. Surely all good ingredients for inspiration.

I have often drawn with a stubbed out pencil dipped in ink, which you can see in the image below. It creates a nice erratic line. Whether I will draw more on my computer tablet instead is something I often think about. It saves so much time not having to clean up scanned work. Perhaps I will use a mixture. There is something so pleasing about real, spontaneous, inky work. There's only one way to find out...

And so to begin...

shelleyrevill.com

Lions and Dragons dancing

During the two weeks of Chinese New Year (until the lantern festival at the end) there are plenty of opportunities to catch a Lion and Dragon dance in Hong Kong. At any time of day you may be out and about and the sound of crashing cymbals and beating drums will travel through the air as a nearby troupe burst into action. The Lion has two performers inside and leaps and prowls at the crowds that eagerly await the spectacle. Businesses will offer the Lion something - often a lettuce or foodstuff hanging at the door. The Lion, it's roars represented by the loud bashing of cymbals and drums, scares away the bad luck from the previous year. Mandarins are thrown to the crowd to represent gold and good fortune.

A Dragon often accompanies the Lion to offer good luck in the coming year. The Dragon is carried high on sticks by lots of performers, their number depending on its' length. It weaves around and looks spectacular!