SELF PUBLISHED!!!!

I am so excited to announce my first self published book!

I did a project on the struggles I faced when I injured my knee (I've torn my meniscus and require an operation). I have been on crutches since early September and during the running of this project I have struggled a lot giving up my independence and asking for help. Channelling my emotion into these drawings, which I don't usually do, has really helped and made me look at the positive of the situation.

So here is my book and a few of the illustrations please do go and have a look. This is also a huge thank you to everyone who has kept reading my blog and seeing what I am up to. I love signing in and seeing people have dropped by if I could offer you tea and cookies for visiting I would!

Tell a lie collaborative project.

I haven't uploaded a lot of my work from last year as I felt really overwhelmed. I was pushed so far out of my comfort zone i wasn't sure at all how to feel about the work i produced and whether or not it was good enough or not. 

I have been sitting here tapping away looking through a lot of my artwork, old and new,  I have seen the good the bad and the ugly and to be honest last year had helped me evolve into the artist I want to be and that is free and confident in my own work. 

I had to collaborate with a few of my fellow illustrators in class and we decided to do a project on telling lies. We wanted to see whether or not the general public would expose their dirty little secrets to us and then we could present a visual representation of their lie. The project was based on national tell a lie day and we jump straight in and got to work, bouncing ideas off of each other and working as a team. 

We had some wonderful lies and I think in total we ended up collecting over 100 lies in a lie box we had left in a small boutique tea room in a small town called Puckeridge just west of Bishops Stortford. The incentive to submit a lie was a free piece of home made tiffin. 

If you're interested in visiting this beautiful little Tea Room head over to their Facebook page and show some support to the lovely ladies. 

https://www.facebook.com/Somethinglovelytearoom?fref=ts

My chosen lies did make me laugh but that was what we were aiming for.

“I ran over my neighbours cat. I can’t tell them what happened, they would be devastated. I buried it in the garden under the lavender bush. I was called Whitney. I told my neighbours I hadn’t seen their cat”

“I gave birth to a unicorn”

“When I was little I would eat any chocolate in sight like most children would, but I got caught one day and said it wasn’t me only for my dad to point out that I had chocolate all over my face. Whoops :P”

Another Guardian project!!

Yet another Guardian project was assigned to me and yet again I always seem to enjoy and do well with editorial work even though it is not my first choice.

I fell in love with this project it was personal but not too personal, I had to write a short column based on the guardians weekly section "What I'm really thinking". I wasn't keen at the start because the examples given to me were on quite depressing subjects from the point of view of a woman who couldn't have children. I went and looked at the more light hearted examples and I was more than inspired and decided to write about the time I spent waitressing in a care home and a friendship I had built up with one of the patients. 

I really did enjoy this and I hope you guys do too as it is a happy part of my life that had a lot of laughs as well as tears but definitely made a difference to the person I am now.