A few recent (and not so recent) pages from my sketchbook (click to enlarge):
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I was commissioned to design a map for Beth and Ed to help their guests get from the church to the reception venue. I enjoyed the challenge of creating something that tied in with their existing stationery design and flower choices, but was also practical and easy to follow.  Tori commissioned a drawing on her dad's behalf of their local pub for him to use on an event invite - I did a drawing of the local church for Tori and Paul's wedding a couple of years ago and he wanted a similar style.  I wanted to draw something for Easter as I did during Advent - but found this an even harder task to get quite as I wanted (striking images that are meaningful without being cliché). In the end I did the following drawings but not quite happy with any of them. Click to view larger and see captions for some of the thoughts behind them. I went out sketching near Spitalfields with the Urban Sketchers London group and my dad. It was great to spend a few hours just drawing. Click images below to view larger. Rebekah commissioned me to draw my take on Genesis 32: 22-32 - it's a strange passage in the Bible where Jacob wrestles with an unknown man who reveals himself to be God. Final image in charcoal below:  In December I shared a drawing every day for Advent. Each drawing illustrated a bible verse, and aimed to give an insight into why Christians feel such hope and joy at this time of year. I'm planning on making the series into some kind of booklet for next year so watch this space. Here's just a selection of the images (click to see full images - originals were approx 1.5 x 1.5 inches square). My parents kindly gifted me an art course at the Slade for my last birthday - I chose one that would focus on moving from drawing to oil painting. I had hoped it would be more focused on mark-making and how drawing can influence painting, but it turned out to be more of an introduction to using oil paints. I haven't used them since school however, so in some ways it was good to have a refresher and just invest some time in thinking about using colour, as that's an area in which I don't have much confidence. Click images below to see larger. I had a go at running a small painting class at our church weekend away at the beautiful Ashburnham Place. We only had poster paints but the results came out well. Here's my painting of the lake:  I've been quiet on here for a while - mostly because my creative energy has gone into planning my own wedding back in October. I designed all of the stationery from invitations to service sheet to place settings - see below. Inspiration came from our overgrown back garden, pictures of ivy covered buildings, and various collage artists that I've always liked - Rauschenberg, Joseph Cornell, etc.  I was also inspired by a series of collages by Lee McKenna (left) as I thought they combined foliage with ephemera well. I scanned in some ivy leaves (see below) to collage but then thought it would be a shame not to draw them myself so did some paintings of ivy in colour and black and white, that I then used throughout the wedding stationery. I made several pages of mini collages that I was then able to select from and combine with the ivy for other sections of stationery. These required a lot of touching up and minor colour edits until I was happy with them. There was also a long process of experimenting before I was happy with how to combine the collage and ivy sections with text. In the end I used a font called 'Angel Tears' (yep...) as the basis for the calligraphy text, but traced it myself so I could make some of the letters look better. The plain serif font used was 'Fontin'. I drew a map for the inside of the invitation, and also one of the inside of the reception venue for the service sheet. I also designed envelope liners but we never used them (stationery madness). I've blurred personal details but hope you get an idea from the images below - click to see full images and captions. Here are some pictures of the final designs in situ (photos by Guy Collier Photography): It's left a bit of a vacuum in my creative life now it's over but I'm looking forward to starting some new projects and getting back to commissions.  |
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