Tools of the Trades

This weekend I visited Art in Action just down the road from my home in Thame, Oxfordshire. It is a brilliant four day event with over 400 demonstrating artists, designer makers, teachers, musicians and performers.

I saw so much amazing work by incredibly talented people. My sister Kim has written a fabulous review on her blog This is Knockout but what really caught my eye were the behind the scenes glimpses of how the artists create their work. I took a load of photographs of everything from tubs of printers ink to woodworkers tools, in a series I like to call Tools of the Trades. Enjoy.

Wise Words from World Champions

I admit it, I've always had a bit of a thing for motorsport.

Some of my earliest memories involve watching Formula 1 with Dad and pouring over his photos of old Fords and BMWs being thrown round muddy race tracks. He was, and still is, a huge car fan and I couldn't help picking up a love for the sound of a V8 engine, the roar of a Ducati or an appreciation of a do-or-die overtake.

So in celebration of this weekend's British Grand Prix I've completed a trilogy of prints based on quotes from World Champion F1 drivers, from Fangio to Senna. The quotes are great racing quotes, but also inspiring for life in general.

See all three below and hop over to my shop to buy yourself one or three! And if you fancy hearing me waffle on about motorsport (and other things) follow me on twitter

Card shopping

If you are looking for our bright, bold and colourful range of cards then the links below to go directly to our online shops.

Love is in the air: Wedding invitation design

I've just finished a fantastically fun design and illustration commission for a wedding invitation.

The first thing Jenny (the bride to be) told me about the wedding was that the colour scheme was based on the balloons in Disney's move Up! I though that sounded right up my street and so Jenny and I talked about the kind of day she was planning, any ideas she had been inspired by and a bit about her and Micheal as couple. They both love travel and America and as they were planning a very relaxed day we went for a hand-drawn textured look that has a bit of fun about it. The design also features postcards, travel stamps and some of their photographs which help tell the story of the day.

The format is something a little bit different, using one sheet of paper - it's an A3 poster that folds down to an A6 leaflet with removable panels for RSVP, directions and things to do in the area where they are getting married. It all fits inside a yellow lined envelope with a bright blue return envelope for the RSVP. A hugely fun project that hopefully will soon have some more materials, order of service, table plans etc to go with it. Can't wait!

My new toy!

It was my birthday this past weekend and I got a brand spanking new Olympus PEN! Exciting I know! So of course I ripped open the box plugged the charger in and sat and stared at it until the little light turned blue and I could go and play with it. It has been pretty much glued to my hand for the last few days so I thought I'd share a little gallery of what I've been shooting (about time eh Jay!)

Competitive illustrating

A few weeks ago I was asked if I'd like to design some characters for an organisation in Oxford. They were asking a few illustrators to put together some examples so this would be my first competitive pitch as an illustrator. Scary!

I was given personality briefs for a set of five characters and finding the right animal to fit those personalities was great fun. However years of being a designer kicked in quite quickly; did they want evolution or revolution? What impact would these new illustrations have on their brand? Do they have a colour palette? So, without knowing the answers to many of those questions I submitted two alternative looks and I'm happy to say that they liked one of them. Nothing is confirmed yet, but I've done a little more work for them so hopefully something concrete will come from this. It would be very exciting to see my illustrations in the real world and of course I will share them on here, but until then I can only share the set that, unfortunately, didn't get selected.


The other set were all hand drawn, so for a bit of variety I went for slightly wonky vector drawings with long, lean profiles but added a bit of warmth and texture by filling them with photographs of found objects. You can see here that the little bear is filled with some wonderfully stripey fabric that I found at home.


The monkey is filled with the pattern and texture of an old bath towel


And the robot is gets a close-up of a piece of enamel that I made at school when I was about 13 - funny the uses you find for things!


If the other set of characters go any further I'll let you know and be sure to share what I can when I can!