Happy June!
Drawing and design side-projects can be a welcome distraction from a busy life. Sometimes they have surprising results and consequences.
sketch
Thinking Outside the Sketchbook
Let’s talk about finding inspiration to create. It can come from unlikely places and it can be difficult to find at all. Sometimes it’s easier to not go looking for it.
Wondering how to get started with drawing?
Drawing exercises can be a great way to get started with drawing. Sometimes the ideas that come from fun and doodling can be surprising.
Central Character Energy
Getting to know the central character of a picture book, their clothes and props, is a huge leap forward in developing a picture book.
New book on the way!
Tomorrow is the publication day for this lovely picture book celebrating some of the heroes of the catastrophic bush fires that took place in Australia early in 2020. I’m really proud to have illustrated this book, especially as it’s so local. It was a super fast deadline but fortunately there were no compromises and the …
It’s all new
New Year The start of a new year immediately makes you look at the past one. It’s not very pretty this year though is it? Personally it was ok for us. Australia hasn’t been hard it by Covid 19 like other countries. But then we were in lockdown for what seemed like an eternity, so …
Digital fun
Yesterday I had the absolute joy of experimenting and getting to grips with photoshop. I was motivated to reproduce a pop-up piece I did for The 52 Week Illustration Challenge last year. It came together surprisingly quickly.
New book on the way
This week I’ve been working on Naomi Hunter‘s new book. If you know her first picture book you’ll know that she doesn’t shy away from tackling the big issues. This one is about parenting and depression. Which sounds very sad, but it’s a book full of hope. It’s beautifully written and I really hope the pictures …
Sketchbook Project time again.
Two years ago I had heaps of fun putting together a pop-up sketchbook. This year I went through a bunch of fancy ideas involving the Shark cull cause and then taking sentences from a novel. But it was all too hard and I wasn’t getting on with it. So I’ve gone with the self-indulgent theme …
Happy Halloween
I’m not going to have my annual rant about this ridiculous American borrowed custom that makes absolutely no sense at the start of the Australian summer! Whoops. The kids love it and creatively its juicy inspiration.
Book on the Telly!!
Last year I illustrated a book named ‘A Secret Safe to Tell’. I must admit it was a confronting a difficult book to illustrate but it felt like the right thing to do. Since the book was published earlier this year I have had the pleasure of getting to know the author and now consider …
Drawing Life
At the beginning of the year I made a plan to get out and draw in public on Tuesdays. Every Tuesday. But things didn’t go according to plan. Drawing in public proved to be too much of challenge and I just wasn’t motivated to do it. But I found something so much more rewarding to …