a very rough rough

In amongst the chaos I have managed to snatch a tiny bit of time to start on the poetry book - rough indeed, but now that the first ideas are out and down on paper the whole process becomes so much easier. I hope.

rats...

My rough sketch for the next illustration, the Pied Piper plus mucho rats. I found it incredibly difficult to find my own slant on something that countless other fabulous illustrators have depicted already... so I decided to take my own work as a starting point (the piper bears a passing resemblance to the evil pipe playing monkey in 'Monkey and Bear'

[Edit] Finished illustration above.

polka dot robin [or berry christmas!]

I'm working out a Christmas card design based on my cupboard folk art birds. I've produced homemade cards before, but this year I'd like to do something a little more elaborate in design and get them printed up. As usual though, I've left it a bit last minute! This is the rough, which going to try and produce completed artwork for this week (between pet portraits and the puppet festival design work...).

chickens

A very rough study of chickens, they will go amongst the tulips bottom left... You can just about see where they are going in my pencil scribbles under the painting (top), although the poses have changed. When I was a child, my favourite illustrations were the ones that rewarded repeat viewing with lots to discover. I like the concept of adding little details that could be missed first time round.