Ive spent the last two days focusing on improving my watercolour skills, before starting the final pieces for 'Gustav the Swedish Mouse' illustration competition. I usually avoid backgrounds because I like to focus upon the character, and feel it distracts from them. My backgrounds usually lack a quality and control, and look poor in comparison (which makes me avoid them even more). Above shows an ideal setting for the Swedish Mouse story, created with watercolours and edited digitally. I hope to continue practicing these skills, so that I will feel more confident in creating backgrounds.
My inspiration for this comes from Jill Barklem , illustrator of the Brambley Hedge Series of Childrens books.


Here is a headshot of Gustav with a more realistic take on how I usually draw mice.

One of many characters inspired by Marc Boutavant, who creates all his work digitally. This helped me use different brushes on Artweaver rather than the same pencil tool.

Another new character, this time inspired by Maurice Sendak after finding 'Where the Wild things are' on my bookshelf. Again this is using scanned pencil, but tomorrow want to create similar images using ink and watercolour- hoping to make the lines look sharper.Ive had a problem getting the face and eyes right on this character, so his expression may change as I go along.

Badger with his morning paper

Badgers Icecream Cart, again in graphite stick and edited using Artweaver. Part of a larger image of Badger looking proudly at his cart, but I still haven't decided what text to put with the it...

More badgers. Today Im working on a mock childrens book page of Badger and his ice-cream store. Using collage for shadows works especially well.

Badger character inspired by illustrator Sara Ogilvie, for the uni summer project. Graphite stick digitally edited (rather than using crayons like I first intended).

Working on a new character as part of the summer project brief.