Feb

18

Our House in the Middle of Our Street

Home Life / Illustration / sketch / watercolour

I seem to go through seasons of focusing on a different creative activity. Sometimes there are flurries of photography shoots worthy of blogging about. Other times of the year, I am up to my ears in flowers and foam, and can’t stop taking photos of petals and blooms and brides. At the moment, I’m swimming in a sea of illustration requests. My watercolours are constantly busy and I regularly have to wash the inside of my hands of smudges from my HB pencil. I love working with a good Staedtler Noris pencil. Or one of those cheap 0.5 pencils from Staples for more delicate work. Nothing fussy, just the ones that we used to use at school.

So this week, it’s been a mix of illustrating an Easter picture, a Wedding invitation, a family tree that dates back to the 1500′s, a Bible story, a book about balloons and a book about a Mummy and a Daddy and a chocolate bar.  Ooh mysterious that I’m not giving any more details yet…

This illustration is one of my own choice, rather than a commission. I live at the end of a little row of terraces. Sweet little houses in Durham, two up two down. We have a great community in our little houses, mainly due to the design of the old fashioned miners cottages with friendly gardens in front of the houses. Tomorrow, two friends leave one of the houses, and two other friends are set to leave soon after. Two friends left in September from another house and well, it may be possible at some point we might leave too. So as a little leaving present and memory, I’ve painted our little row which I’ve printed as a gift for my neighbours; my close-by friends!  We will miss you, and our neighbourhood community.

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home-street-1

home-street-2

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Feb

07

Love Never Fails

Floral / Illustration / Inspiration / watercolour


A little watercolour project for today: 1Corinthians13. A wedding favourite, but some excellent verses for life in general.

1corinthians13-love-is-patient

1corinthians13-love-never-fails

1 Corinthians13 Love Ilustrated

 

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Mar

12

Buds and Blooms

flowers / Home Life / Illustration / Spring / watercolour

Well, hasn’t it been gorgeous in the North East lately?  The weather has been delightful, and I’ve tried to enjoy as much time outside as possible.

I’m sharing a couple of homely things which have made me happy recently.  A few weeks ago, I started a few postcard-sized sketches which I’ve framed.  I aimed to have four, and I currently have two and a half.  One illustration of Narcissus Segovia (Miniature Daffodils), one of Convallaria Majalis (Lily of the Valley) and another of the blossom from a lilac tree which I haven’t yet finished, so I’m not showing it yet!  The illustrations were painted using watercolour pencils, and the teeniest tiniest bit of water from the top of a water bottle.  I’ve only used pencil to define them, rather than black pen, which I usually use.  I think it gives them a slightly fresher look.

The second pretty thing for the blog today is some snippets of a lilac tree that’s budding.  Over the past few months in these bottles I’ve had twigs with autumnal leaves on during autumn, twigs with baubles on during Christmas, and now twigs with buds on for Spring.  It makes me happy.  My neighbours had trimmed back the lilac tree and left some of the twigs in the garden and in true Burglar Bill styley I thought “I’ll have that”.  So I snipped a few bits and popped them in my vase.  I know they won’t mind though, so it’s okay, I’m no thief!

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Feb

23

Illustrated Floral Wreaths

Design / Floral / Illustration / Postcards / Spring / watercolour

I love flowers.  Hence why I’m a florist.  I love drawing too.  Hence why I’m an illustrator.  I also love drawing flowers.

I drew these wreaths a few weeks back.  I’m figuring out what to do with them; I’ve had a few business ideas, and I’ve kept some of the text in on the wreaths, so you can be inspired too.  But they’re too pretty to keep away before I figure out what I use them for, and in true celebration of warmer weather and Spring approaching (hooray!) below are some dainty flower wreaths.

 

Sunflower and Lavender wreath:



Delphinium, Tulip and Roses wreath:


Nasturtium, Californian Poppy and Freesia Wreath:

The wreaths were painted in watercolours on watercolour postcards.  I really enjoy painting postcard size.  I’m always a little daunted when painting any bigger, to be honest!



So I guess they could be used for cards, birth announcements, for Mother’s Day, for Wedding Invitations, for artwork in your house, or for bespoke commissions.  Name me your three favourite flowers and I’ll do a wreath of them.  Do you have any ideas to share?  What do you think these wreaths would be good used for?

 

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Jan

11

A Preview Just for You

Design / Illustration / watercolour

Well, I’ve been keeping many, many illustrations secret for months, and I’m not really sure why anymore.  I think I was waiting until some fabulous launch moment, but it never came.  So, lucky readers that you are… I thought I’d give you a sneak preview of some new designs!

These, and more, will be available as very affordable prints in the near future, so if there are any you like, keep checking twitter and facebook for more details.  I’ll be expanding a range of nursery prints too, which I’m rather excited about, although, I’ll want to keep them all for when I have a nursery.

I did see the most lovely thing on Pinterest the other day that would be perfect for a nursery.  A family tree wall!  Can’t wait to have a go at this, if I ever had a house big enough to justify it.  Check it out – <<here>>.  And then come back, and take a look at my new designs.

 

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Nov

16

A Special & Entirely Unique Birthday Illustration

Illustration / need a gift? / watercolour

Recently, I was given the brief of creating a “Lord Mayor Float” original illustration, about A4 size for a birthday girl who turned 30.  I was also given the longest ever list of items, memories, logos, animals and more to squeeze on, creating a mish-mash of favourites and memories for the birthday girl to treasure.

I thought I’d share with you the picture, and a few close ups of some of my very favourite parts of the illustration:

How many different things can you spot in the picture?  There’s a fair few to find!

The side of the float had “posters” pinned to it, with all sorts of favourite shows, places, restaurants and more.

There was a distinct ‘girly’-feel to this picture, with curly writing, plenty of pink, princess dresses and the lovely Betty’s Tea Rooms.

Did you spot the caterpillar underneath the Lorry?  Don’t ask me why it’s there – it’s a bizzare, amusing story from those who commissioned me the picture – but I rather like the critter who carried the lorry.  I slightly fell in love with his cheeky face I drew!  I wondered if perhaps he would inspire someone to write a story.  Perhaps Seymour will do it…

And finally, some of the wheels of the lorry (or the caterpillar, whichever way you see it!) I put as other circular objects which featured on the long list of items to paint.  One was a trivial pursuit ‘pie’, the other a vaseline pocket tin.

A truly original piece of art! ;-)

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Nov

15

King’s Church Durham Charity Christmas Cards

Christmas / church / Design / For Sale / Illustration

I am very pleased to show you a glimpse of the King’s Church Durham 2011 Charity Christmas Cards!

I’ve been designing these over the past few weeks, with the aim to make these cards modern, unique and yet traditional to the Christmas Story.  They are printed on deliciously shimmering thick card, making the bauble design glimmer in the light.  Each card has it’s own white envelope and is blank inside for your own message.

The profits from the sale of these cards goes straight to Handcrafted, a new initiative based in Durham City, helping the disadvantaged to gain valuable, employable and creative skills.  I’m really excited about this project, I think it carries a pro-active attitude to helping disadvantaged and long term unemployed people back into employment by learning traditional and modern skills.

I’m also helping to head up the King’s Church Christmas Fayre in Durham on Saturday 3rd December.  No, not the main one in the market square, but an even better one, based in the centre of Durham, in the Appleby Rooms, Church Street (opposite St Oswalds Church).  I’m going to have a stall there, as are about 15 other creative people, selling all sorts of beautiful bits and pieces, yummy cakes, pancakes, homemade mince pies, warm spicy apple drinks, jewellery, Christmas cards, wreaths, gifts and much much more.  10% of all sales at this fayre go straight to Handcrafted too, to give the project the boost it needs to get going in the new year.

If you’re interested in pre-ordering the Kings Christmas Cards, then you can join others by filling in the Christmas Card Form and popping down your name, email address and how many packs you would like.

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Oct

14

Floral and Stripe Wedding Invitation Samples

Floral / Illustration / watercolour / wedding invitation

A few sample watercolour and ink wedding invitations I’ve been designing recently, inspired by some fabric I’ve used to make some fabric noticeboards in the past few weeks.   It wasn’t any special fabric, or any I had completely fallen in love with, but it’s combo of stripes and florals was a simple design just too good to not to capture my imagination and take me away with the fairies!

And these are the results – a few samples printed on ribbed ivory card, postcard size.  I love postcard size.  There are more designs gently floating around my head, I’m sure I’ll develop them soon.  What are your thoughts faithful readers?  Any designs you feel inspired I should try?

Love to all and thanks for reading! x

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Oct

05

A Few New Things

Etsy / For Sale / Illustration / Shop / watercolour


 

 

I haven’t posted a lot of new illustrations recently, but that’s not to say I haven’t been painting.  I have in fact been painting and designing all Summer long and now have quite a collection of new things to show you.  I’ve waited until the products themselves are printed, and they’ve popped up on the Etsy shop before I reveal them.  I’m expecting to add some over the next few days.
These are three little byproducts that I’ve put on the Floral Footsteps Online shop just today!  Weenie gift tags (4cm x 7cm) with some of my original watercolour designs printed on.  I’m slightly obsessed with pumpkins at the moment (see the collection I made yesterday!) hence the first picture, the second is my great love of bunting, and the third you might recognise from my Floral Watercolour Backgrounds Post.  I’ve been developing more floral watercolour backgrounds for wedding invitations and thank you cards, which will be revealed in good time.
Lots more little characters and designs to come, the collection is growing!
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Sep

12

Watercolour Rose Backgrounds

Home Life / Illustration / roses / watercolour

My lovely Nan, Rosemary, will have a funeral service on Friday – and as Roses were her favourite flower, I painted them with rosemary as a backdrop to her order of service I’m designing.  Thought you might like to see the outcome as the backgrounds are quite pretty.  Just a quick snapshot of the simple rose watercolour background designs, one original one in colour, and the other faded and black and white.  We’ll be using the faded black and white one for our order of service, so it’s not too bold.

Hope you like them.  It’s tough doing these things for your own family, but a real privilege too.

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