My Messy Art Desk

I tend to leave out projects that I'm working on, as if I tidy things away they often end up never being finished! However, the sheer volume of competing projects I've reached over the last month definitely requires a bit of a Spring Clean!

Full disclosure? I clearly tidied this up slightly to take a photo, as normally stuff is just piled on top of other stuff!

I'm aiming to finish off some of these projects over the next week, so that I can bring a bit more focus to my creating in April.

Another coloured pencil study

I've been working on this little study of a Wren in coloured pencil in short bursts for quite a few weeks, as I find otherwise I just don't have the patience for this level of detail!

I treated myself to some Derwent procolour pencils in a range of greys and browns, to supplement my Artful coloured pencil range. And then my husband bought me a Derwent electronic eraser - best gift ever! (He knows me so well!) It allows you to take out tiny highlights in a way that looks like feathers and I’m loving it. (As a bonus, it comes with a USB cable and is endlessly rechargeable).

I’m excited to see how she looks once I'm finished - although this started out as a 'just for fun' project, it might make it into my product range at some point, or even as an original artwork for sale (which I hardly ever do!)

Map-making

I've been wanting to draw more maps this year as it is something I really enjoy.

I follow Kevin Sheehan on Instagram and he is the absolute Master of Maps (check out the detail on his Moon map)! He ran a challenge through March to draw a map by hand, breaking down the various elements so that you could do a little bit every day.

I'm way behind (have you seen all the things on my art desk?!) but I'm pleased with how this little fantasy map is developing so far. Actually, the trickiest part is coming up with all the place names from scratch, rather than being able to reference real places! My northern territory (Nordholt) has Scandinavian-inspired names, whilst my southern territory (Ostarow) has more Spanish-inspired names!

This definitely falls into the 'just for fun' category, as this map is waaaaaaaay too busy - I've just been enjoying practicing all the different elements you might find on a map!

Tideline Treasures

Earlier this month I completed another pattern for a Spoonflower design challenge. The prompt was for 'A trip to the beach' and I decided to do a design inspired by things you find at the tideline.

I really enjoyed painting all of these things, mostly from my own collection of beach treasures that I have lined up in jars on my windowsill!

You can now purchase fabric, home decor items and wallpaper in this design from my Spoonflower shop, if you're looking for a coastal-inspired sewing or home design project.

Designing a Book Cover

In the mess on my desk you can just make out some calligraphy reference books and a sketchbook with roughs - this was for a lettering project I was working on for my portfolio.

The brief was to design a book cover with a title to the format of: 'Travels in [insert name of a country/city/region beginning with the same letter as your name]... searching for [insert name of an animal/fruit starting with the same first letter]'

I knew almost immediately I wanted to do apples and a bit of research uncovered the helpful fact that apples originated in Central Asia, specifically in the Alatau region of Kazakhstan and 'Alma-Ata' is the original name for the city of Almaty, which is still surrounded by wild apple forests.

I wanted to incorporate the beautiful Kazakh traditional pattern - the 'koshkar-muiz' (ram's horn) - as part of my cover and ended up wrapping it across the top and bottom of the cover with some gold texture.

If you look closely at my decorated lettering, you can see that the flourishes are all related to either apples (leaves, pips, apples) or to elements of the koshkar-muiz, or the sunburst symbol on the Kazakh flag.

Then the mountain image on the reverse is the Tian Shan range, where Almaty is situated. My cover lettering, apple tree and apple illustrations are all hand-drawn then scanned into #affinitydesigner whilst I created the koshkar-muiz and Tian Shan mountains as vector drawings in the programme.

The @penguinukbooks template is available from their website as part of their Cover Design Awards resources. And I created my book mock-ups using a .psd file from @mockupsdesign