Fabulous New Young Illustrators!

Here is a more detailed look at just a few of my favourites from the Nottingham Illustration Competition:


I was especially impressed with the winners from Fernwood School, who had put an extraordinary amount of work into their projects. They wrote surprisingly sophisticated stories, and not only illustrated them with loving care and delightful creativity, but bound them into actual books, complete with illustrated front and back covers and blurb!


All these illustrations were done by Y7 children - amazing eh? The work you can see here was done by prizewinners Amin Ahmadi, Laura Ajouz, Lucy Jennings, Parris Rawson and Ashar Burney. Well done guys!


There was some brilliant work done by all the children that took part and it was an excellent project, devise and organised by the folks at Quadrant C Leading Edge Partnership.


I'm sure you'll agree that there are some wonderfully talented children in Nottingham and very possibly a few future authors or illustrators!

Worldwide Sketchcrawl Day 2010

Here are some more photos of us all hard at work, during the Wakefield Sketchcrawl on May 15th: Wordwide Sketchcrawl Day.


The one above is in the orangery garden at Beam, below we are loitering on a bridge, drawing each other and the Chantry Chapel:

This is my in my museum corner drawing the Victorian doll:


And here we are rewarding ourselves with a nice lunch in the sun:

If you would like to join up to take part in a sketchcrawl in your area, join the Sketchcrawl forum.

My goodness - don't look at that double-chin...

Thanks again to Dave Hanvey for the photos - we were all far too busy scribbling!

Wish You Were There..?

John took this took this pic of me while we were in Italy, sketching the Centro Storico (old town), perched high on the cliffs above the bay.


I originally had the chair half in the water, so the sea lapped my feet (lovely...) but the chair legs sunk deeper in the sand with each wave, putting it at such a rakish angle that I nearly fell out into the water!

Sun, Sea, Sand and a Sketchbook

More drawings from my holiday in Italy, the ones I couldn't fit onto the main blog about the trip:

Because I had a few days in one place on the island of Procida, I was able to do more sketching during the day, mostly sitting on the beach (jealous?).

The sea's a bit hard to do much with, so I mostly sketched the cliffs, although I had a go at the waves on the one below, and was really pleased with how it turned out:

The 90's film Il Postino was filmed on Procida and the two sketches above are in the bay that features in it.

Sorry - my funny feet, yet again. I always love to paddle, whatever time of year. The sand was gritty and very dark.

The one below was on the sister island, Ischia. The beach was divided in two by a rope: one half you had to pay for, with fancy loungers etc, the more scabby end was free. Being cheapskates, you can guess where we sat...

Oh, and here's one that escaped earlier, from the 'walking between mountain villages' part of the holiday:

Thanks for taking the time to look in!