Hello from Cambridge!

 Yes, I'm in Cambridge!

Ok, so I haven't been updating this blog for some time. Well I have an excuse! I was busy applying for the MA in Children's Book Illustration at Cambridge School of Art. There was a whole lot of preparation to do: visa, new accommodation arrangements, fees, and not least of all the move from London to Cambridge.

Once here, I've been getting acquainted with this lovely city. The photo on the right is of St John's College. No, this is not my college (I wish!) but one of the many colleges of University of Cambridge. I've also been busy sketching everyday for my first assignment, and once I have some decent sketches, I'll post them.

Stay tuned!

The Wild Swans

The following pieces are for the Bologna Children's Book Fair 2013. They are based on The Wild Swans, the fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen. I picked this story to illustrate as I wanted a fairytale that is not too well-known. After trying a few different techniques and materials, I settled on simple black and white pencil drawings, not unlike what I did for The Bloody Chamber.

 

 

 

 

Old Chinese Mural Painting

Right, I had painted a really simple picture with just brush and ink and I decided to scan it in and see what I can do with Photoshop. I have been learning a lot through lynda.com videos and thought maybe I could practice some of the techniques I learned (before they all go poof in a month's time). So this is the brush painting I started of with this:

 

...and ended up with this (sort of like an old chinese mural):

What big teeth you have!

I loved the wolf I created in my previous post so much that I created another one. Trying to imbue more "character" into my characters.

Little Red Riding Wolf

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

The Fall of the House of Usher

I decided to try my hand at ink illustrations, since it's supposedly still a popular form of children's book illustrations. I chose The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe to illustrate. This was a good learning experience, I never realised just how hard it is to create tone just with ink alone.