Hooray! Finally got round to posting this- here’s a Ravenclaw to complete the Hogwarts houses. Read more info here about getting yourself a patronus portrait of your very own!
Jennie is representing the eagles for us, and that’s Pixel her little doglet! Representing little feisty dogs everywhere. Check out Jennie’s illustration website too!
Getting some more of these Potter portraits done- I’m looking forward to sharing them with you! Here’s the lovely Becca and her dapple grey mare patronus! Good to have a friendly Slytherin to represent the snakes for us. Want to represent your house? Check out the expecto patronum page and get in touch!
Feeling cold and faint? Like you’d never be cheerful again? Dementors may be in the area, take care, stay alert and remember muggles can’t see them and may need your help. Summon up your happiest memory and kick dementor butts with your faithful patronus!
Here’s a little cartoon of me (go Hufflepuff!), with my lovely deerhound patronus. I took the test on Pottermore and was pretty chuffed to find my patronus is rather like Maggie! That’s a good dog. (here she is, looking very fierce and threatening)
I’m having so much fun with this that I’m going to open up commissions for patronus cartoon portraits, partly so I have an excuse to draw some more patronus pals.
If you would like one for a friend (or yourself) then get in touch! I recon they’d make a fun pressie for the Potter fan in your life! đ
Oops sorry it’s been a while again, really need to get back into better habits with updating this site.
I’m working on a great project at the moment, with my big bruv Dan. That’s right, the Crows are teaming up. It’s the cover of Dan’s upcoming book Skapninger!
Book covers are always really interesting to work on. They sort of play multiple roles- to attract readers and encourage purchases is part of it for sure, but also I think it’s important to respect the subject matter and give pointers and nods to themes in the book too. To echo the atmosphere in some way so that the cover doesn’t just act as a pretty wrapper, but works together with the contents of the book to add more. When done properly books can be such a joy as objects in their own right.
I think a lot of publishers have really picked up on that idea (or, perhaps remembered it is a better way to put it?) in the last few years too. There are some outrageously beautiful books out there these days and it makes me so happy. So yeah… I could just spend all my money on books except I’d have to buy a new place so I had room for them all, but then I’d have no money left to buy ALL THE BOOKS… But I digress.
I can’t say too much about this one just yet as it’s still a work in progress and I don’t want to give anything away about the story, but here are a couple of sneaky peeks at ideas I’m playing around with. Mmm skulls. As you know, any excuse to go to the Natural History Museum for some research. That building is just a delight. I mean, look at the Hogwarts vibes in the photo below!
Anyway, in the meantime go check out Dan’s website and his Twitter and Instagram feeds and read more about how he’s getting on with the book! (And while you’re there, come see me on Twitter and Instagram too for more regular updates, photos and sketchbook nonsense)
Here’s a little something I’ve been working on recently. Playing around with different textures and enjoying myself by using allll the green. I find this colour so calming to use, it makes me happy! Plus plants are always a delight to draw.
This guy actually started life as a scruffy doodle in the tiny calendar I carry around all the time in my bag. Sometimes I find a sketchbook makes me feel some weird pressure to do a ‘good drawing’, whereas I never feel like that doodling in the margins of the calendar or on the back of an envelope! It’s pretty daft I know.
Here he is, looking worried! I liked the eyes in the original sketch but in the tidied up version it just didn’t work as well. I still like the scruffy doodle, maybe I’ll have another pass at it sometime and use a different colour palette or something. Or just draw even moarrr plants! Yeah!
I’ve been updating my portfolio recently with some front covers, though there’s still a lot to do! In the meantime I thought I’d share a more detailed pic from one of the covers I did for Nature last year.
The brief was to create an illustration about things being separate but connected, particularly by bridges. I quite often get fairly open-ended briefs like this and I’m really lucky that the Editors are very supportive about the ideas I come up with!
This is just a small section of the final image, (which you can see here in full) but I wanted to share it because I was really satisfied with the little details in the island itself, which got a bit lost in the larger image. It’s a bit of a new direction for me style-wise and I’m keen to explore it a bit more when I get a chance. Floaty islands!
Just a super-quick little doodle today, before the monster wakes up from her nap! She really did sleep like this for the first couple of months, with arms right up at weird angles above her head. She also made alarming growly snore noises and at first I woke up in complete terror every time…
Ok it’s news to nobody but turns out that babies sometimes cry at night and you don’t sleep so good no more. Or write sentences so good no more.
I wanted to share some of the nonsense that happens after a few sleepless nights so here’s a little scribbly cartoon of a conversation I had with Steve… I’m actually quite nice usually, I promise!
