A Catty Commission

Have you heard of Will Rafuse? He's a fine artist that now paints very bold lush hyper-realistic images, but his earlier work includes numerous paintings of irregular looking cats in interiors and (rather oddly) chefs in restaurants. Go check out his work here.

One of my good friends loves the cat paintings and being unable to afford a Will Rafuse original he instead commissioned me to do a melancholy quirky cat illustration, in a bold Rafuse style.
Very sadly whilst working on this piece his cat 'Astro' was knocked over by a car and killed, so in tribute I was asked if i could change the colours to make the cat look similar to Astro.
So here is the final image 'Moon Gazing With Astro':

It was created with gouache and finished in PhotoShop. I'm really pleased with how it turned out and like how its different to my other work but still has elements of my own style.

Lilla Rogers Global Talent Search competition

A couple of months ago I was given the heads up about this competition with Lilla Rogers agency and although I know they will get thousands of entries and it is highly unlikely that my work will get to the shortlist stage, i thought what the hell i may as well go for it. Besides it sounded fun and would give me an opportunity to do some different work.
The deadline for the first stage entry was yesterday so i think its now safe to tell people that the the first stage assignment was to produce wall art with the theme of 'Little Terrarium'. There are three stages and from this first one 50 are selected and go through to the next round.
So wish me luck!

I started off by gathering together lots of different images of terrariums. Before this competition I had never even heard of a terrarium before.
After lots of pencil and paint sketches and a number of different thumbnail design ideas I spotted a beautiful terrarium bonsai on a blog. In a moment of inspiration and after producing a little thumbnail version of the idea i decided to work it up into a full size sketch -

I liked it so much that I decided to go with this and here is the final illustration, which i've titled 'Sanctuary':

Its created using watercolours, gouache and PhotoShop.
I really like the way it turned out, but i have my doubts that it will get selected amongst the 50 as i don't think its really what the judges are looking for - not sure its commercial enough. However if by some miracle it does get through then i'll be sure to post an update on here.

A furry guest

Today there is a bit of a deviation from the usual illustration related posts in the form of Seaweed; a guest Guinea Pig whom we're looking after for five weeks while two of our friends are in China.
She LOVES spinach and just the sound of the rustling salad bag is enough to get her going. A series of high pitch squeaks (or more like wheeks) can be heard whenever the possibility of food is imminent. In fact its pretty much the only thing that she gets enthused about.

I've taken, rather embarrassingly, to calling for her to come out of her hutch in a high pitch voice. I don't think she really pays any attention but i'm hoping that after a couple of weeks just calling out SEEEAWEEEED, in "the voice" will set her off wheeking in the hope of grub.

Tonight is going to have to be hutch cleaning night i think, judging by the state of her abode. Oh and no, that stuff in her bowl is NOT droppings (despite it looking very much like it), it is in fact special GP food...although shes far more keen on salad leaves and carrots.

I've gone to the length of making a video for your viewing pleasure. You'll notice the special "Seaweed voice" part way through, oh and my husband sabotaging the movie shoot by the asking if i want a coffee - so please just ignore these bits :)