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28 Apr
23 Mar
York & Yours Truly!
Good afternoon!
It has been very busy in my little studio lately! I have lots more to bring you soon but before I can do that, how about images of the mural for the 3Sixty space at the University of York? Completed in collaboration with the very talented Nik Morris, this mural featured points of interest from the campus and local area and included students through the ages that were animated. Since this mural was projected around 4 walls, the illustration/animation was fully immersive and allowed viewers to find lots of new things as they explored. I really enjoyed creating these characters and adding lots of tiny little details, from authentic 60′s cigarettes to the genuine scores of local sports teams!
Here’s a little character detail of the ’60′s students’, and an image taken by Nik Morris from the projection itself.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the event itself (it sounded wonderful!) so I look forward to hopefully bringing you some footage of it soon. I will also add the image to my website so you can study it at your leisure!
In other news, I have a little image in the latest Dolls’ House Magazine! It was a piece about childhood toys that required an image of my beloved ‘pet cat’ (unconventionally I rejected Bears in favour of a black Cat that I still have to this day). And yes, that is me with the 80′s fringe from the crown. Here is the image and the article itself in case you wish to read the whole story. You can as ever purchase the issue is is contained in by clicking here.
That’s all for now, but as I say, I have lots of really fun images to bring you soon!
TTFN
xx
17 Feb
A Mixed Bag of Tricks!
Good afternoon!
I thought I would start things off today by giving you a little insight into another area of Pearl Grey Illustration. I have been offering videoscribing services and Graphics Facilitation for a little while now, and have been lucky enough to work with such clients as ITV. This is a showreel piece of a videoscribe job I completed recently (abeit with some of the features and client details removed). I was pleased with it and it documents another style offered, so I hope you enjoy it! It was created by the very talented Will Tribble and Geoff Gedroyc, who I have been fortunate enough to work with before on such projects as Alien: The Easter Edition.
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It’s a little overdue, but I also have more work in the latest Making Magazine! This project in particular was one that I know I will use again and again myself, so it was very interesting to draw the step by steps as I learned how to make them properly!
I have also recently finished a very special project for the University of York, but that warrants its own blogpost so stay tuned for more details and images! There are also a lot more fun and exciting things lined up for the next couple of months that I can’t wait to share with you, including more work for The Dolls’ House magazine!
TTFN
xx
21 Jan
Have You Seen the Shard?
Good evening!
I am just so excited to share this with you! I thought I would have to wait a couple more weeks but I have had permission so here goes…
Last September (doesn’t that seem an age ago?!) I had a phone call from Elbow Productions in London. This in itself was fabulous, but what was even better was that I had the opportunity to work with the talented Mari of MDLLS again! I always find our projects such fun, and this one was no exception!
It transpired that a couple of large illustrations were needed for a very special, top-secret project, which I can now reveal to you as a giant mural for the lobby of the Shard in London! For those that don’t know, the Shard is the tallest building in London, and until recently was the tallest builing in Europe. I can’t tell you how excited I was!
The mural was to be a highly detailed and cheeky take on famous Londoners, the objective being to entertain visitors at the very beginning of their experience at the Shard. It was up to me to depict Jack the Ripper (who was being tracked by Sherlock Holmes) and Ratty and Moley from Wind in the Williows… on a jetski! In keeping with the look of the rest of the collage effect samples on the mural (realistic, textured and grayscale) I scanned in some vintage fabric samples from my modelmaking supplies to work into. They have since been coloured to match the rest of the mural, so I shall provide samples of the finished panels when the Shard opens on the 1st of February, 2013. Unless you want to see them in person, in which case you can purchase tickets here! I’m so happy with how they turned out, and even more so to see them in context! I hope you like them, too.
I’ve been eagerly anticipating the opening day, and watching the build up gather speed over the last few months until the time came when I could reveal my involvement. This is one of my favourite articles about the mural itself, from the Huffington Post.
I have a terrible fear of heights, so I doubt I shall ever venture to the top of this gigantic building, but absolutely loved doing these drawings. So while I’ll never reach the 72nd floor, I can honestly say I’d be happy enough in the lobby!
TTFN xx
03 Jan
Make it Lucky for Some!
Good evening!
My goodness, how time flies! Welcome to 2013, everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the festive season and even if you don’t celebrate, I hope you had a nice relaxing break. First and foremost I wanted to thank you for your continued support of my little company; I’m so lucky that it has grown in the way it has over the last few years and the support of followers, likers and continued readership has really made a difference to that success. So a huge cheers to you all!
It was my intention to bring you that step by step today, but it was bought to my attention this morning that the last issue of Making magazine has been on sale for so long that another has hit the shelves this morning! So without further ado, I bring you both sets of images!
Those of you who read my Twitter ramblings may remember something about some Sellotape… well here it is! It was quite fun to watch it becoming more realistic as I worked into it and as ever I loved working on these sets of images. If you fancy looking at everything I’ve done so far (except those for the unpublished issue!) you can find them on my Facebook page.
More soon!
TTFN
xx
06 Dec
Another Alice!
Good morning!
I hope you’re all having a lovely December so far! It’s very nippy here (by British standards) and I keep finding myself working so long at studio desk that it has become necessary to bring out the giant crochet blanket I keep for such emergencies as 2am chills! It is so beautiful outside though.
You may remember me mentioning recently that I had another image featuring in The Dolls’ House Magazine. Well, the issue is on sale today, all over the UK. I found myself working on another image of Alice, albeit this time featuring Lewis Carroll too! I was asked to draw a little portrait to accompany an article about the author, so I decided to inject a little comedy into the mix and give him a ‘thinking’ face whilst writing ‘Wonderland. Hopefully it will raise a smile for you and the readers!
If you’re a fan of all things miniature, you can also find The Dolls’ House Magazine on at the Crafts Institute website, on Twitter and Facebook.
The next portrait is coming along nicely, so I should be able to bring you a behind the scenes peek very soon. So until next time, enjoy the festive season! And to those of you that don’t celebrate, I hope you have a great month, too.
28 Nov
Mini Me for Making!
Good evening!
I’m very pleased to be able to tell you that I now have my very own profile section on the fabulous Making magazine‘s website! It’s a real honour to be one of their resident illustrators; I still get a thrill when the fresh issue hits my studio desk and I see my work in print! So if you’d like to have a little read, you can do so by clicking here! There’s also a profile for my friend, the talented illustrator Emma Cowley.
Here’s a little screenshot to coax you over!
I’ll be back very soon with some behind the scenes images of a new project!
TTFN
xx
08 Nov
Murder Margaret Wrote (Part 3!)
Good evening!
I am pleased to be able to tell you that the finale of the Dolls House magazine’s murder mystery is now on shelves! I really enjoyed doing this piece as I got to draw a character (my favourite thing to do). There’s also another little joke in the image. Can you spot it below?
18 Oct
Murder Margaret Wrote (Part 2)!
Good evening!
Issue 174 of The Dolls’ House magazine has been on the shelves for a little while now, and it features the second installment of the murder mystery I mentioned a couple of posts ago!
The second part required the highlighting of more details from the text, so I opted for a scary needle, a bottle of evil poison and an LAPD badge (which, if you have a look in the magazine itself, was very detailed). It was necessary for me to look very closely at the detail on an LAPD crest and I realised quickly that I had previously had no idea how much detail it contained. I recommend looking one up if you have a moment, they’re very interesting!
I’m thrilled to say that not only is there another part of the story to appear here soon but I have another commission to work on the the following issue! Very exciting. I adore editorial commissions in general, and this one is slightly different because I haven’t had a sneaky peek at the article it accompanies yet! So watch out for more news in a month or so.
TTFN
xx
11 Oct
Start to Finish…
Good evening!
The Cox & Kings ‘Inspiring India’ bloggers challenge concluded last night with a wonderful evening at the Royal Geographical Society. There was an engaging talk from Sir Mark Tully, beautiful authentic music and lots of lovely food floating about! And also, lots of artwork on display and open to votes! I hear that the event was also mentioned in the Telegraph newspaper on the 6th, so if anyone has a copy I would love to see!
I began work on my piece with a strong design in mind, even down to the colour palette I wanted to use. I started by sketching out the main character (I rarely work without characters it seems!) of an Elephant in pencil. This was followed by some Peacock feathers…
Everything was then painted with acrylic and scanned in! The background was painted separately with a large brush to get the sweep of colour that I was hoping for, as I wanted to keep as much of the original paint texture as possible.
I also drew my own Indian inspired henna patterns which were converted to a beautiful brick red colour and applied very lightly to the background layer to add another point of interest. I’m not sure whether they are prominent enough, but I really liked them anyway! I also added a subtle image of the beautiiful Taj Mahal; it was kept consciously simple because I did not want it to steal focus.
And at the end, I finished up with this!
Cox & Kings had also compiled a wonderful little leaflet so that guests could cast their votes in the evening-
It was wonderful to see all of the fabulous artwork on display, and had been curated wonderfully in order to emphasise the diversity of imagery. So a huge congratulations to Cox & Kings for putting this on, and a big thanks for asking me to be involved.
Here is my piece on the easel (photograph courtesy of Che Kumar)
And finally, I am proud as punch to be able to show you the winning image, again produced by my hugely talented friend, Che of cheism.com!
Isn’t it gorgeous?! Well done, Che!
Well, I have bombarded you with plenty of images for one day, so do check back soon for the next set of the Dolls’ House Magazine’s murder mystery images!
TTFN
xx
Fancy Fabrics and Sweet Stitches!
Good afternoon!
Summer is officially upon us! I love this time of year, the end of the Spring and the beginning of Summer when the air still feels fresh but the sky is a beautiful blue! I’ve been very busy recently both out on site (which I love, because I get to meet lots of lovely new people!) and here in the studio, and April/May also sees a lot of mini breaks and holidays which I am very excited about. I’m soon to visit the USA so expect lots of drawings from my travels across the country!
I recently completed 18 illustrations detailing various stitches for Making Magazine. After working on them all as individual images, it was wonderful to see them all lined up together on one page. I hope they help people learn to sew; I certainly took some pointers from them!
I was also recently given a special commission from the Dolls’ House Magazine, who were putting together a piece about Tudor costume. This was great fun because it meant that I was required to do some research (which of course included a little trip to Hampton Court Palace!). I’ve never wanted my own ruff so much! I decided to put together simple little paper doll designs, as the article described various layers of clothing that would have been lost underneath. You can download the PDF versions of the dolls to dress yourself by clicking here! I’d love to see how you get on!
These will all be available to view on my Facebook page, too. As ever, I have lots more to bring you soon! I hope you get to enjoy the lovely weather.
TTFN
xx