Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas break. December always seems to be the fastest and busiest month of the year!



I’ve been visiting friends and family in London and Kent over the last couple of weeks and am currently working away on a couple of longer projects and my new website and on-line shop that will be launched this month. (Exciting!)

So…whilst you wait for me to reveal all of that, heres a picture of Mr Bumble in his new coat…

I usually end up drawing the reflections in the windows if I’m traveling by train at night. Last night I decided to draw only what I could see outside over half an hour on one page.

I visited Brighton yesterday and went to see the Ragamala exhibition at Brighton Museum. “This collaborative exhibition show with Dulwich Picture Gallery is based around 24 key ragamala paintings owned by collector, Claudio Moscatelli. His love of these Indian miniatures originated from a visit to the Victoria & Albert Museum when he first moved to England from Italy.”

This is a very enchanting exhibition of miniature artworks. You are handed a magnifying glass as you enter so that you can truly appreciate their intricate detail.

I was particularly interested in the narrative behind each painting. They are very carefully composed using lots of different elements but the use of negative space and limited palette stops the images from becoming hard to read or too busy.

I really recommend seeing this exhibition if you are in Brighton between now and 8th January 2012.

I took some students from AUCB to Poole on Wednesday to collect drawings along the Cockle Trail there. The Cockle Trail is a route around the older part of Poole that highlights the town’s history. It was a great way to get to know a part of Poole really well, and I enjoyed joining my students and doing some sketches myself.

I keep sketchbooks quite religiously – I try and keep one on me at all times to record fleeting thoughts or ideas, to fill a gap in time or to record something I’ve seen. To write down new story ideas…I also use them as a way of trying new things out and learning through drawing. I’ve always thought that its important to keep drawing whether you are working on specific projects or not. Its important to keep drawing for yourself. So you can develop you way of working and push yourself. I have to draw or write something every day otherwise I don’t feel myself.

I’ve always been quite secretive about the contents of my sketchbooks but a good friend and fellow illustrator encouraged me to share them more this week.

So heres a few pages from my most recent sketchbook.

This year’s set of Christmas Cards are now available to purchase from my Folksy Shop whilst my website is being updated.

I wanted to create a set that can be added to in the future and decided to think about every day places that are magical in the winter and that I have sketches or photographs in my reference collection to work from.

I settled on a few places that I always went to during winter when I lived in London.
Hampstead Heath, Richmond Park and Wimbledon Common.





The snow globes came about from trying the scenes inside different shaped viewfinders – settling on round.

These cards are all blank inside, so can be used for any occasion during this season.

We went back to Kent last weekend, which is where I grew up. Kearsney Abbey was a common feature in my childhood, but I think I appreciate it more as an adult.

I was invited to take part in The Bookshelf at The Lighthouse in Poole again this year. This time for The Monochronium by Hazel Evans and as last year I was given a pile of random books to make an artwork from in three hours. This year was much more challenging than last year. It was very busy and there were many other artists, spectators and musicians to be distracted by. It takes a lot of concentration to stay in ‘the zone’ whilst so much is going on around you, but I’m pleased with my new lady character and the composition of the first collaged drawing I created. I’m not so sure about the second drawing, but I would like to see what adventures this new lady and I could go on and where her story may develop in my sketchbook.

The Monochronium has been such a pleasure to be involved in and has encouraged me to step out of the studio and to make more art in front of an audience which is quite an unusual process for an illustrator. I’m keen to plan more live art events, as I always create something unexpected, inspired by my surroundings and the books and equipment I happen to have that day.

The artworks I created last Wednesday evening can be seen at The Lighthouse until 9th November 2011 and you can also view more pictures and videos of this event on Hazel’s facebook page

A few pics that a friend of mine took, with more to follow when I get the ‘official’ones…