More Owls!

A couple of months ago (before I began the Big Hoot Owl) I was busy painting a banner for my friends Open Mic all day event held at the end of May. It was for an all day event at the Northern Lights pub in Brighton and my brief was to paint a design that represented the night. I chose to create a camp fire design surrounded by musicians (and seagulls) with a friendly owl flying overhead. I created the piece on a piece of black fabric (quite thick!) with acrylics. Cleo is not impressed.

The Big Hoot Owl in progress

Earlier on this year I created a design for the Big Hoot (a charity art exhibition to be held this Summer in Birmingham). He or she is entitled One Giant Hoot for Owlkind to reflect the space theme of the design. Although I don't want to give away the whole piece now (and spoil the excitement!) here are a few shots of the owl developing over the last 3 or so weeks. To find out more visit www.thebighoot.co.uk

(This last photo isn't an owl, it's my cat Cleo "helping" with morale, by pretending to be a shrub.

Brighton Whalefest Whale Tails

Last month I was contacted by World Cetacean Alliance and asked to paint a design on a whale tail as part of this years Whalefest, held in the Brighton Centre. The campaign is to keep whales and dolphins in the wild rather than in captivity. All artists were given a blank tail and a little biog about the orca whose story their tail needed to represent (mine was a baby orca called Kamea whose family came from the warm tropical Atlantic). The tails are on sale on Ebay with all proceeds going to charity (but not for long mine expires tomorrow!) 

Here's how my tail developed...

London Fashion Week Illustrations

A few months back I was asked to do some fashion illustrations based on October's London Fashion Week. I've not really done any illustrations that just focus on the outfit before so jumped at the chance. The designs were quite detailed so I was a little unsure if I could achieve the effects with paper collage alone, so I used painted washes and patterns on the papers first. (From Top to bottom Mary Katrantzou, Holly Fulton Burberry and House of Holland).

A Mammoth Task (the Elephant Parade part 2)

As I mentioned earlier on this month, I've been busy painting my elephant design in readiness for the start of the first UK tour for the elephant parade. It's great to see the design taking shape (and getting lots of compliments from friends, staff at intu (the tour sponsors) and a team of decorators thanks everyone!) Only a week to go and I am nearly done (apart from a lot of tidying up and a coat of varnish).

Lovely to be able to have lunch and walk home through St James Park too, I've never seen the pelicans this close before!