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!

I’ve been participating in the #birbruary challenge hosted by Amanda Pearson of Winging It Drawing to draw a songbird found in the British Isles every day throughout the month of February, in support of the charity Songbird Survival.

I started by writing down the phrase that I wanted to letter: “When life gives you lemons, squeeze them on pancakes” and then sketched some rough thumbnails for how I might compose the piece, thinking about the hierarchy, size and style of the lettering I might use and placing this into various shaped blocks…

As the winter chill stretches endlessly before us, now is the perfect time to cosy up your space with some artistic warmth. And what better way to do that than with my Mid-Winter Art Print Sale?!

There are quite a few ‘easy wins’ that I’ve already made to try to ensure that the making of my art is having a minimal impact on the environment, including around the sketchbooks I use as well as my media. I’m planning to make 2024 the year I pay even more attention to my supplies and materials and I’m hoping to start experimenting with making my own botanical inks and pigments.

Hi! I’m Ali and I’m an Illustrator and Surface Designer living in north Northumberland. I thought you might be interested to find out about what I get up to in a day running my small creative business, Coostie Illustration and Design.

I’m so excited to finally be able to talk about a project I’ve been working on for the charity Equal Arts to illustrate two singing Christmas cards developed and performed by a group at Grange Lea care home and Birch Grove assisted living in Tyneside.

I’ve worked hard to identify suppliers that share my values around environmental responsibility; all of the companies I work with are based in the UK and take sustainability seriously. I’ve tried to keep to a small range of either beautiful or functional (or both!) items like mugs, tea towels, coasters, cards and prints.

I really love giving people presents - both bought and handmade. In fact, I used to spend hours and hours on Christmas boxes for people, trying to create the perfect mix of handmade goodies (usually edible, but sometimes sewn or knitted) and little things I’d bought over a period of months. By gifting in this way, I could also be 100% sure of what something was made from and it also meant that I could reduce the environmental impact of the gifts themselves, as well as the wrapping and packing. A couple of big life events have made spending that much time on Christmas gifting unfeasible over the last few years. So I thought I’d share some of the things I’ve been doing more recently to try to ensure that my Christmas gifting continues to be as eco-friendly and sustainable as possible.

I really enjoy the run up to Christmas, as I’m a natural list-maker and organiser. I love getting cosy at home with the wood burner on and the smells of Christmas baking and cooking, or venturing out into town or to local events with twinkling lights and good company.

Old trees always seem eternal, like sentinels to history that stand in the landscape. It can be awe-inspiring to stand beneath the canopy of a tree that is hundreds of years old and consider who planted it and how different the world was then.

Regularly spotting so many coastal birds is the inspiration behind my newest collection, celebrating seven species that can often be seen here. The collection features detailed watercolour and pen illustrations of Arctic Terns, Brent Geese, Cormorants, Eider Duck, Oystercatcher, Purple Sandpiper and Puffins.

I’m still enjoying participating in this challenge and have been lucky with some of the prompts that they featured the types of illustrations/motifs I’m naturally drawn to (like food and things in nature). Quite a few of the illustrations for patterns in this quarter have made their way on to Art Prints and Cards in my shop, which is a great way to get additional benefit from participating in the challenge!

With coast and countryside literally on the doorstep, Berwick-upon-Tweed makes an ideal base for exploring a wide range of natural habitats and - as a car-free family - we’ve made the most of the excellent rail and bus connections to get out and about a bit further afield.

You can tell I'm a fan of the Bloody Cranesbill, as I included it in my logo - I wanted to demonstrate that a lot of my work is inspired by the natural environment of Northumberland and that I tend to draw detailed pen illustrations - and this flower answers that admirably.

I love to illustrate simple steps that people can take to live a more environmentally-friendly and sustainable life and incorporate this into my repeat pattern design.

’ve written previously about why I decided to participate in the #52patternsayear challenge to create a seamless repeat pattern every week for a year. If you’ve read my first post about the experience, you’ll know that I had a somewhat mixed success rate in terms of being able to create my weekly patterns - but I’m pleased to be able to say that I haven’t missed a week in my second quarter of the challenge!

I don’t just draw pretty pictures… I offer a range of services, from freelance illustration and graphic design, to custom illustrated maps and even brand and communications consultancy.

Did you know that that infamous breakfast dish - the kipper - is a smoked herring? But why did I choose a herring as the inspiration for my latest artwork?

We all need beautiful things, made with care for people and the planet, and thoughtfully curated