Come Draw with Me!- Catherine Rayner

Last week I had the great opportunity to meet one of my favourite illustrators- Catherine Rayner, at Edinburgh's 'Come draw with me!' event. Held at the National Museum of Scotland (perhaps the best museum Ive ever been in)in the animal world section. A few other artists were also at the event, so its a shame that all the workshops were held at the same time.

The Catherine Rayner workshop meant that I got to draw some of the taxidermy and then turn them into characters. Catherine was lovely, and very easy to talk to- and it was brilliant to be able to see a sneak-peek of her upcoming book about a giraffe! Catherine was kind enough to bring along a few of her sketchbooks to see her work in progress (I loved how most of the work was on separate pieces of paper, then slotted in the book- which is exactly what I do!)and examples of her other work.

I wish that the event had been longer- being able to sit in the museum after closing-hours when its near empty is brilliant. I could have drawn the animals all day! The event was finished off with wine and a chance to wander round and see everyone elses drawings. The atmosphere of the event was so casual and friendly, I'd certainly travel to go to another event.

Check out catherine's website if you havent seen it before: [Link]

Heres some of my sketches from the event:

The social gathering. Had a lot of problems with this piece, as I dont like rendering backgrounds. I decided to re-draw my characters so that they fitted better into the scene. I feel that this piece still needs a lot of editing before the final hand-in date.

Final Pocky Advert

Been meaning to upload this for a while- but here is my final Pocky advert! I had a lot of trouble getting the monster to look right-but pleased with how it has turned out.

Family Crest

Entry for a competition to design a family crest which incorporated a leopard, crane, moon, wheat and a few other elements. Unfortunately my design has now been eliminated as its 'not what they were looking for'. Meanwhile, I think Ive finally decided what I'd like to do for my final major project...and now going to spend sometime working on the latest picture-book project.

Literary View editorial

A front cover for The Literary View, using a similar technique to last time, replacing typewriter keys with the title provided. I've tried using a different colour scheme to what I would usually use, which in this case has worked well. This is the last of the editorials, but over December hope to get a few more extra ones done.

Pocky...almost done

Almost finished rendering the pocky ad. which Ive been working on for most of the time.Think I've finally sorted the font, so now all I need to do is the Monsters face. AGAIN. Will be glad to see the end of this project so I can start on the newest one.