Merry Christmas, all!

Here's my Christmas card offering for this year. Wishing everyone a peaceful Christmas and a busy New Year!

christmas card

My Xmas Contribution

Dutch golden Age II

Just to complete the series, including some beggars especially for Sue.



And my client asked me to change the Batavia harbour scene a bit, because she thought it to be too crowded and I think she was right.

Good Morning America

I met this woman while jogging one early morning

I am living in Spain at the moment and thought a Spanish Bull would be suitable for this years Christmas card.

I have used pen & ink with coloured pencils for a bit of texture.

Well i know it is a bit early but Merry Christmas or as the locals say Feliz Navidad

Something Different From Me Too

One of the Three Pigs

I thought I'd get my watercolours out for a change. Here's my first offering. Please be gentle:¬)

Dutch Golden Age (17th century)

First of all I want to apologise for my poor english; I hope I'm able to convey my meaning.
Currently I'm working on 5 full-colour illustrations (42 x 28 cm) on the Dutch Golden Age,
which will be printed on a 60 x 40 cm size and used for educational purposes.
Here are two roughs; one of a ficticious master-painters studio and another of a dutch VOC-ship lying on the roads of the dutch colony of Batavia roundabout 1650 AD.
Still to do: merchants and beggars, the siege of a dutch town by the Spaniards and scientific discoveries.

And now for some thing completely different.....

This is a wood engraving of our Jack Russell Charlie, that I've been working on in odd moments. Almost finished (just clearing out some background that kept picking up ink and printing itself). I must say I do enjoy the slowness of engraving...the delibarateness that is necessary; once a cut is made in the block, you can't erase or un-cut it. What a change to the comparatively frantic dashing out of illustrations in the course of 'the day job'!

I'm also still getting used to my press, an old Farley galley press , fresh from the composing room of some Lancashire printer, victim of the new photo-lithographic age. It found a home in my already-cosily-proportioned studio, next to the Mac. Proper job! (As they do say down in Cornwall)

tides out

I have been plucking up the courage to post a picture on GCI`s blog.

I have decided on `Tides Out` a painting based on a photo i saw of a great fishing boat.

Two characters having tea with a bored dog.

I look forward to seeing some of the work from other illustrators that is mabey not represented on their webpage!

The Frankfurt Book Fair 2007

I spent two days last week 'walking the floor' of the Frankfurt Book Fair chatting to some of our existing customers and seeking out new ones. Quite exhausting but I hope ultimately quite productive too.

If you have never been to Frankfurt before, it is staggeringly large. So large that there are 'travelators' to speed up your progress between the halls...



And if walking seems too much like hard work as the day wears on, you can always hop on one of the courtesy shuttle buses that cruise endlessly around the perimeter of the Fair.

Rugby card finished

Well it's done, bar possible final tweaks by the client. I'm glad to get it out of the way, spare time is very short at the moment for various reasons and I've been promising this card since early summer!

Grandmas Visit

This is an illustration from a little story that I made about a little chap who makes a huge mess whilst getting ready for his grandmothers visit, in this picture he is "helpfully" washing up.

A Christmas card in progress

I've been asked to do an Xmas card for our Rugby Club this year so I thought you might like to see it as a 'work in progress'. I'm doing it digitally, in Corel Painter and using oil painting type brushes.

Here is the rough :

And here it is so far, I've dropped the line work onto the dark background and am applying layers of colour.


It looks quite dark at the moment but in the end I'd like it to have the feel of this card (in the best Blue Peter tradition, here's one I did earlier!):

Feel free to post comments!
Sue W

British Summertime

Just thought I would kick off this blog by posting a little drawing of a typical British summer, one when it doesn't rain the whole time and everyone has a chance to get attractive sunburn marks.