HAPPY CHRISTMAS

I spotted this festive little fellow on the prom yesterday.

I am in Love with my new winter coat! I picked it up at 'Bobby and Dandy' in Hove.

I'd like to wish you all

a Very Merry Christmas

and a Happy 2015.

xxx

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Christmas Card 2014

My Christmas card this year has been a real family effort. I roped in my other half to paint the tree as mine was far too uptight and my children helped with the stickers!

Ta dah!

The design was a continuation on the theme from last year. I was thinking back to my school days when I had great fun making Christmassy things. For last years card it was paper snowflakes. This year I wanted to produce a design that could incorporate stickers so I went for a simple Christmas tree design. I sent the cards to my clients (as they are such creative folk!) with an empty tree and enclosed an envelope with a selection of stickers so they could decorate it themselves.

 Two favourite making books from my childhood.

 One thing I can clearly remember making in the run up to Christmas at primary school is paper lanterns. 

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....and the Runner Up is .....

I have been busy making my annual Christmas Card in between everything else! This little fella was pipped at the post. I don't think he looks too happy about it!

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Percy Pig Advent Calendar 2014

Hopefully it's not too early to mention the C word!!

Percy Pig © Marks and Spencer Plc.

I really enjoyed illustrating this years Percy Pig Advent Calendar.
Here are some of the previous ones.

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M&S Taste Buds

Earlier this year Marks and Spencer launched a brand new baby food range-Tiny Taste Buds. I was really thrilled to be chosen to illustrate the range. M&S then decided they would like to redesign the existing Kids Ready Meal packaging so that it would work along side the Baby Range.

Cottage Pie

We looked at different ideas. First thoughts were to include children on the packaging but we felt this wasn't working. We then decided to look at vegetable characters illustrating them in the same line/colour style as the babies on the Tiny Taste Buds packs.

I was really pleased to go with this concept. It was great fun thinking of personalities for the vegetables and seeing how they could interact with each other.

Fish Pie and Juicy Peas.

 Sausage and Mash (with swede and carrot)

There are around 25 products in the Taste Buds range.

 A favourite was the swede with fluffy pigtails.

Some vegetables were a real doddle to translate in to characters. Others....you know who you are (French Fries) weren't!

Still Here!

4 months since my last blog post....Hmmmm..!

I have been busy busy busy working on several book commissions and a range of food packaging. Can't show anything at the moment so thought I'd share some pics of the garden and my toes on Southwold beach on a recent break!

Other news...The Animal Collective have been nominated for a Henries Award! I am very proud as this range of illustrations were very much a personal project. It started with 2 or 3 characters produced as prints for an Open House exhibition here in Brighton. I went on to extend the range and started selling prints on NOTHS. I then took 6 of the designs and had greetings cards printed. I distributed them myself to start with but soon found this was too time consuming. Not long after this I was approached by The Art Group who spotted my prints online and said they would like to sell the designs as cards. So far they have been sold in Paperchase, John Lewis, WHSmith and Next.

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NEW Marks and Spencer 

Baby Food Packaging

 I have had to keep this exciting project under my hat for some time. Baby food is a new area for M&S and I am over the moon to be illustrating the packs. The range of 20 or so products went in to stores last week.

I am really pleased with how the team at M&S have designed the packs and the quality of print. Special thanks to Lucinda. 

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Valentines with Percy Pig

Percy Pig © Marks and Spencer Plc

This has to be one of my favourite Percy Pig briefs so far. Marks and Spencer asked me to create a series of images for the Percy Pig Facebook page to celebrate Valentines Day. Followers were asked to choose between different date and gift options. These were the winners.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

New Book

Do Dare Duck

by Joyce Dunbar

Do Dare Duck is written by the established author Joyce Dunbar and published by Random House. This was a really fun book to work on because I got to experiment with lots of different mediums - a kitchen sponge, the kids felt tip pens, old toothbrushes.... My favourite details are the splodges and splats and tortoise's face!

Do Dare Duck is due for publication on 27th of February.

New Book

My Mummy is Magic

by Dawn Richards

 'Even when I'm grumpy,

and it's time to have a bath,'

 'My Mummy is a super cook and all

her food tastes yummy.'

My Mummy is Magic beautifully written by Dawn Richards and published by Random house is due for publication on 27th February.

Percy Pig

has some New Friends!

Percy has 2 new friends for the New Year. Marks and Spencer asked me recently if I would come up with a tiger and panda character in keeping with the Percy style. They introduced the characters on Facebook this week and asked Percy's Facebook followers to choose names for the 2 characters. I have to admit I would have preferred Terry for the tiger. I was a big fan of Terry Hall and The Specials in my Youth!

It never ceases to amaze me where Percy pops up! I recently spotted him in this great fashion shoot.

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NEW

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Wishing you all a happy, healthy, 

prosperous and colourful 2014.

One Little Baby Birthday written by Richard Dungworth and Published by Puffin Books goes on sale today.