Out And About / Kindred Studios Open Day

On Sunday I took the day off and we visited the Kindred Studios open day! My illustrator friend Viktorija has an amazing studio there (you can see her desk in the last photo) and I had visited the studios before so I knew this would be amazing. 

There are over 160 artists making all sorts of work in this huge Victorian building which used to be a school. From fashion designers to fine artists, architects, graphic designers, jewellery makers, sculptors, ceramicists, photographers and more. There was so much to explore. Lots and lots of inspiring work and just as inspiring workspaces - I loved seeing the details of everyone's space and who doesn't love a huge building pretty much filled with art materials! Not to mention the beautiful lighting inside the building and great views over London! 

Bt the end of the day I felt all inspired to go and re-organise my own little home studio. If you live in or near London, I definitely recommend checking out Kindred Studios on their next open day. It's such a magical place!

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2017

Merry Christmas, everyone! 2017 has been one of the busiest, if not the busiest years I've ever had - I need to catch up on sharing my work on this blog! Maybe it will be better in 2018? I have a feeling that I always plan that for the coming year... well, fingers crossed. If you want to keep up with more new drawings, check out my Instagram. How was your year? (Is anybody still reading blogs?)

Schweizer Familie / Questions Age

I recently drew this illustration for Schweizer Familie magazine, about the age when kids start asking lots of questions. I got to draw a talking cat and so many fun details - what could be better?

Sketchbook / Mini Twin Portraits

During the past few months I filled a small-sized sketchbook (A6) with what I call 'Twin Portraits'. They're not really portraits and not quite twins, since they're imaginary and intentionally different. I'm obsessed with sketchbooks for just messing around and having fun. Usually they're not themed at all, so this was new for me. I drew most of this in the evenings while watching episodes of Gilmore Girls with James. If you're interested in seeing the whole sketchbook, click on the YouTube video I made:

Cincinnati Magazine Baby Guide / The A to Z Guide

Here are some illustrations I drew for The Baby Guide Cincinnati. You can read it online here. My favourite to draw was the scared pregnant lady with the giant calendar. I didn't know that parental leave is so different from country to county. That's one of the things I love about being an illustrator, you learn new things and interesting facts all the time while getting to draw all sorts of cute things!

Red Cap Cards / Foil Valentine's Day Cards

Last weekend a box full of Valentine's Day cards I illustrated for Red Cap Cards arrived. So exciting! Like the recent range of Christmas cards, they are foil printed and make my ink drawings look magical. I love them! I added them to my Etsy shop here. If you're interested in carrying them wholesale, they're available directly from Red Cap Cards. It may be a little too late to order them for Valentine's Day on Tuesday, but it's always good to be organised and prepared for next year! Happy Valentine's Day to you. And if you're not a fan of romance: Valentines, Schmalentines.

Good Magazine / Christmas Cover 2016

At the end of last year I illustrated my 4th Christmas cover for Good Magazine!  It's been a while since Christmas now, but Christmas illustrations are among my favourites to draw, whatever the time of year. There are many things I don't like about real-life Christmas, but I've always loved story-world Christmas. It's always so perfect and cozy! When I was little, I always re-read the Christmas chapters from my favourite books over and over at all times throughout the year. Astrid Lindgren, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Laura Ingalls Wilder - they always write about perfectly snowy, cozy Christmases. I still love it.
This cover illustration is picturing a scene of carol singers in front of the Dubai skyline. I added some of the roughs/sketches so you can see a bit of how it came together.

Frankie Magazine / Calendar 2017

I'm so thrilled to be part of this year's Frankie Magazine calendar! Above is a photo of the calendar, as usual it's huge and gorgeous and printed on wonderful paper. Underneath is a picture of my ink illustration which originally appeared in my colouring book and the coloured version I created especially for the Frankie Calendar.
The other wonderful artists in this calendar are: Esther Sandler, Joel Penkman, Miju Lee, Janet Hill, Monica Ramos, Cornelia Li, Sandra Eterovic, Ashley Ronning, Choi Mi-Kyung, Daniela Dahf and Alessandra De Cristofaro.

227 Plus Magazine / Die Geschichte eines Weihnachtsgeschenks

At the end of last year I drew this illustration for Sal. Oppenheim's 227 Plus magazine. It's always a joy to work with them and their magazine is beautifully designed! This was for a story about a tablefootball game given to refugees as a Christmas present.

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2016

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you have a restful Christmas break and joyful celebrations! Thank you for continuing to read my blog, following me on social media, watching my YouTube videos and buying my illustrated wares! You make this all worthwhile. Drawing is fun, but it wouldn't be the same without you. I'm hoping that 2017 will be a little less crazy than 2016 has been, in many ways. Wishing all of you only the best, lots of happiness and inspiration. See you next year!

Shop / 2017 Wall Calendar

The last time I made a wall calendar with my illustrations was back in 2012 and I thought it was about time to do another one! Inktober (a drawing challenge where you do an ink drawing every day of Inktober) is always fun for me because I love doing black and white work. Last October I took this opportunity to put together my colouring book, and this year I decided to make this calender which you can colour! You can also leave it black and white, I think that's pretty, too!

I got it printed on the same wonderful paper as the colouring book, which is smooth and beautiful and most importantly handles both felt tip pens and coloured pencils well without bleeding or looking funny. (Believe me, it was very hard to find a paper with these qualities!) I'm so pleased with how it turned out, and I hope you will love it, too!

It's available here from my Etsy shop (and if you prefer Dawanda, I've made it available there for a limited time, too).

Red Cap Cards / Gold Foil Christmas Cards

 Christmas cards already? I hate to break it to you, but Christmas is only 9 weeks away. Aaaaaaaah! It's freaking me out a little but at the same time I'm excited to share these gold foil Christmas cards with you. The lovely Carrie of Red Cap Cards had the genius idea to turn my black and white illustrations into gold foild cards and they turned out so pretty! And they're even nicer in real life since they're so beautiful and shiny that they are tricky to photograph.

If you want to be organised and get some cards early, I've just added them to my Etsy shop here. Or if you want to carry these cards in your own shop, buy them wholesale directly from Red Cap Cards!

Shop / Anne Of Green Gables

I was originally commissioned to re-imagine the cover of 'Anne Of Green Gables' by Frankie Magazine last year, and it turned out to be one of my favourite illustrations I've ever done. Anne is one of my favourite characters ever and I know I'm not the only one - so I've made this illustration available as a giclee print. It's available here in my Etsy shop! Who are your favourite literary characters?

Shop / A Short Colouring Book Of Nearly Everything

My colouring book! I added it to my Etsy shop a while ago but I haven't blogged about it yet!

Maybe you remember that I drew all the ink illustrations as my  Inktober  project last October. Every single day in October I sat down and made an illustration for this project. I documented the process of inking the drawings as time lapse videos, which you can see here on my YouTube channel!

The reason it took months to get to the finished booklet was that I wanted to get the printing perfect. This was quite a challenge, not many printers seemed to have paper suitable for a colouring book - a paper you can draw on with both colouring pencils and felt tip pens without smudging too much or looking weird. After testing a lot of papers, I finally found the perfect one. Then there were problems with my files not printing correctly and I had to put everything together from scratch a few times. Phew! To be honest, there were several times where I just wanted to give up but I'm glad I didn't. I'm so happy with how it turned out. It's available here in my Etsy shop!

So this is the story of why everything took so long, but I think it was worth it and I hope you will enjoy colouring this book! I made a video where you can see some of the inside pages being coloured, it's on my YouTube channel. If you get the book I would love to see how you colour it! Post a picture if you like!

MATS Bootcamp / Vicuñas

I've been taking part in the MATS Bootcamp class over the last five months, because it's always fun to learn new things! For June's assignment we were asked to develop a children's book character that is a vicuña, a relative of the llama which lives in the Andes. It's adorable! To make it my own I took this vicuña out of the Andes and brought it into my own world, where it instantly made friends with cats, ducks and happy children. I ended up with quite a few little illustrations so I'm sharing them here. How has your summer been so far (or winter, if you're on the other side of the globe)?