Books Alive competition

Books Alive cover competition. I don't enter many competitions, but i thought why not give this one a go! I decided to create the letters out of the clay technique i have used which has proven popular in the past. I once won a Subiaco Craft Fair poster competition using this technique. I also have been asked to do a couple of editorial illustrations using clay which has been fun :) I didn't win the competition, but I thought I would put it up anyway. 

Life Drawing

I went to Life Drawing last night in the first time in about 6 months! Haven't ever put any of my Life Drawings online before so thought i would share them. Will try to keep going back now I have started. Always good to keep practising those observational skills. My dogs were also good models under my desk :)

Legendary _ Illustration Friday topic

Mother Teresa was pretty legendary in my eyes, the way she devoted her life to help the poor and sick. 

Intricate-Illustration Friday topic

Intricate - Illustration Friday topic.

These illustrations were done for a TAFE (college) assignment a couple of years ago, but i have never put them on my blog. I thought they fitted in this week with all of their intricate details!

Thorny Devil is an Australian lizard, found in the Western and Central deserts of Australia, they range between 15-20cm in length. 

Breezy - Illustration Friday topic

I got this done just in time for the latest Illustration Friday topic 'Breezy'. I drew this tonight at a Cat Empire concert in Fremantle, well actually when their support act Paprika Balkanicus, a group from the Balkans were playing! Was a great concert, lots of fun dancing, clapping and singing :)

My dogs Jaya and Banjo love the breeze in their face like most dogs do in the car. Jaya is the one smiling on the back right. Sometimes she also rests her nose on the top of the window, and she looks like a little piggy! :)

Just a quick one tonight as I have so much work to do at the moment, which I am very grateful for. Working on a combination of illustration (fairy designs and a painted clay editorial illustration) and graphic design jobs (logos, posters, business cards etc.). My to do list whiteboard is choc-a-block full, but can't complain about that being self-employed. It is so nice when you get to wipe a finished one off the list though! :)

Celebrate - Illustration Friday Topic

Celebrate - Illustration Friday topic.

Thought I would play around with some clay again :) also bought some coloured foam, corrugated card and other materials the other day. This little green friendly monster was just an offcut shape that occurred by chance, I quite liked it so thought I would include him in my celebration piece.

Time - Illustration Friday

Time - Illustration Friday topic. So many things could be illustrated for this topic.

Time can be good to help organise and plan our lives and at other times it can be bad.

In a way time can be our friend or our enemy. 

I have illustrated a race track, on the left you see people / numbers / creatures enjoying life and the time they have been given to enjoy special events in life such as having a child, getting married, playing with your dog at the park, winning a trophy or a race (I know these are a few of the many things one can celebrate in life). I thought about how important the measurement of time is to olympic athletes.

Then on the other side of the track you see people trying to run back in time away from death and disaster. As you will probably know last Saturday the 7th February in country Victoria, Australia we had our worst ever bushfire disaster. Currently the death toll stands at 181, authorities say that figure could soon rise to 200 or even 300. Apparently up to 1,000,000 wildlife could have been killed too.

It is unbelievably sad and devastating the destruction these fires caused. A lot of innocent, good people lost their lives and they had no chance to react. What's even sadder is that some of these fires were deliberately lit. We hope that if arsonists are to blame that they will be caught quickly and we hope and pray that the victims wounds, nightmares and lives will heal.

If you are in Australia you probably have heard that Coles is donating all profits from groceries bought today.

If you would like to / can donate there are many charities accepting donations.

Click here if you would like to donate to the Red Cross

Click here if you would like to donate to Wildlife Victoria

Fortunately there are a lot of firefighters, defence force, volunteers and every day citizens doing an amazing job. Here is a nice story of a koala that was rescued.

and another nice story of an 18 year old boy who rescued his sister and 8 children on a tractor.