Golden wedding invitations

Golden wedding invitation for Judith and Tony's celebration back in September; front and back pages. The images are things that hold significance for them, with a few of my own additions and interpretations. I was pleased with this and, more importantly, they were too.

Lost - Illustration Friday

A Fox lost in a forest, all alone...

(But gradually finding the way back).

Oak tree sketch

Starting to work things out at last. This is a pen sketch of an amazing oak tree in south London. That's all :-)

The Birds of Greenwich Park 1996-2011

This is the cover of the booklet I co-authored. It's basically an annotated checklist of the birds seen in Greenwich Park, London over the past 16 years. One of the aims is to encourage people in the city to realise that there is wildlife around and it is worth saving. If you don't know it's there, then you won't care when it's lost :-)

Ellie's picture

I was commissioned to create a picture for my cousin's daughter who is now 4 years old! Hope she likes it. She wanted lots of pink creatures, butterflies and giraffes. You can also find her name (Elen), a trumpet, a Giant Anteater, a Mole, a Bullfinch, a Roseate Spoonbill, a Whitethroat, a Robin, a Long-eared Owl, a Fox with a top hat (of course) and two Badgers, amongst other things...

Christmas card and Creative Tuesdays

A design for a Christmas card, with local landmarks as a backdrop. Poor, neglected Ghost Blog :-)

I just added this to the Twelve days of Christmas theme for Creative Tuesdays:
http://creativetuesdays.blogspot.com/

Part of a new project I'm doing about wildlife in London. A bit of an experiment with a different pen (not the fineline pens I usually use) for a change and no watercolour... I quite like the results so far, the very simple image created.

Sketchbook Ghosts

This is an old ghost image from my sketchbook which may be used for some flyers advertising a Halloween film night locally. No pay, but it's nice that something hidden away in a dusty old sketchbook is being seen by people!

Happy Birthday Luke!

I made this image for Luke, my cousin's son who is 6 on Sunday. According to his mum, I needed to include some dangerous animals and also some that he'd seen around... so this is the result. His name is hidden somewhere in the picture too. I hope he likes it!

Cat goes to another world

Trying out 9B pencil, for fun... I quite like the smoothness of the line, the way different pressures can create different types of line, texture etc. It seems good for creating ambiguity, darkness and the sense of movement. Not sure about the smudginess but maybe that's part of the charm. I think I'll try a few more illustrations with this pencil.

Book illustrations!

Dodo

It's 5th from the left, the light blue cover - Was Beethoven a Birdwatcher? by David Turner

Crow by the roadside

Great Bustard displaying

Great Crested Grebes dancing

This is the David Turner book Was Beethoven a Birdwatcher? (Summersdale Publishing) that I did a series of black and white bird illustrations for in the winter. I took a photo of this copy in Waterstone's, Greenwich town centre, today. My first ever published book illustrations!

summer wedding

This is an image for a Badger wedding in June! The drawing was used for the invitations and took a while, so were a bit late being sent out. The image progressed, as you can see, from a basic outline through to tentative colours and then the finished coloured image, with lots of creatures in the picture from the UK and Taiwan. The animals each represent people or experiences. The Badgers represent the same people as the two Hares under the tree.

More Summersdale book images

Kiwi

Northern Bald Ibis

Royal Albatross

These are 3 more black and white illustrations I did for the Summersdale book "Was Beethoven a Birdwatcher" by David Turner, due out in spring 2011.

A mention of the Northern Bald Ibis, a charismatic and endangered species holding on to survival thanks largely to the efforts of local and international conservationists in areas such as Morocco, Turkey and Syria. This wonderful species can hopefully see its numbers increase if efforts are co-ordinated across the different countries where the Ibises range. Please see their inspirational blog at  http://northernbaldibis.blogspot.com/ , where you may also see a post which includes my Ibis drawing!

Pirate doodle

(No reason for this whatsoever, just something that occurred to me as I was trying to think of something far more profound and creative to draw.)

Happy Birthday!

A Hedgehog, Flamingo and Puffin birthday card for my fiancee! Mail is best delivered in person :-)

Book illustration for Summersdale Publishing

This is an image from a series I am working on for Summersdale Publishing, for a book entitled "Was Beethoven a Birdwatcher?", written by David Turner. I have been commissioned to create a series of black-and-white bird illustrations for this book due out in spring 2011. This is a South American bird called a Hoatzin.

Bye Bye Rong!

Rong's card

The card is a farewell card for the lovely Rong Sun (http://rong-sun.blogspot.com/ and http://www.iamrong.com/), a talented Chinese illustrator who has just gone back to Qingdao. We will miss you and wish you all the very best for the future!

Owls of Britain

I did this today because I felt like it, just trying out different styles and it's always fun to draw owls :-)

Halloween Mushrooms sketch

This is a pen sketch of some weird mushrooms I found around Halloween. Quite fun to draw them in black and white!

Proverb - a cat may look at a king

Practically the first proverb I thought of... any excuse to draw kings and cats :-)