Christmas Cards

Well i've been a busy little bee making lots of christmas cards. I struggled with the designs for a while, so as a result, i have lots of designs!

These cards are also now available to buy at my local art gallery. Yay!

Book Cover No#5

Taken a bit of a long time to post this on here. My fifth book cover design is this time for a book called The Rogue, by awesome fantasy writer Trudi Canavan.

Here it is without type...

....and here with....:

Hope you like :)

take care

Book Cover No#4

Well, here it is, book cover number 4. Only about another 5 to do! This one is inspired by the novel by Lian Hearn called Blossoms and Shadows. I had a real problem with the actual cover for the actual book as i don't think it related to the story one it. Because it is a book set in Japan, the cover had a typical oriental feel, even though the story was more about war and the effects of war, the cover was pink. I'm not saying mine does the story more justice either, but i just wanted to do my own. :) Hope you like.

Here it is without type:

And here it is with, remember i'm rubbish at typography :) :

Take care

Madness Returns

A little fan art inspired by American McGee's Alice, Madness returns. It's a brilliant game......even if i am a little stuck :)

Take care

Book Cover No#3

And heres the third and final illustration for Philip Pullmans His Dark Materials Trilogy:

Here it is with the type:

Lemme know what you think :)

Book Cover No#4 = Blossom and Shadows by Lian Hearn

Take care

Book Cover No#2

A couple of weeks ago i showed you this:

And this week, i'm bringing you this:

My  version of the second book in the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. Like i said before though, my typography skills are less than abysmal so this typography is just to give you an idea, and would most defiantly be changed. Here it is without the type:

I wanted to give each of the covers its own colour scheme, but keep they united by the main colour of dust. For the first one, i added purples and blues because most of the book is based in the north (funnily enough). For this cover, i wasn't sure for a long time what colours to do, eventually deciding on browns and earthy greens, and i think it works.

Book cover No#3 Will be arriving shortly :)

Take care

Nia

Felt Clowns!

Well, today was the last workshop i got to do at my local library. It was really very fun and more than a little bit challenging this week. They had to make, felt clowns. I got the idea a couple of months ago from Felt Mistress when she came to my uni to do her own felt workshop. It was quite difficult with children because they couldn't stitch like i could in Felt Mistresses workshop so i had to find a glue that would work. Which posed its own problems of too much glue making the felt tacky (which happened ALOT!) anywho, heres some photos of their clowns. I gave mine to one of the girls so i don't have my example to show you, but to be honest, theirs were better :)

The age range of the children was 6-11 years old so their abilities were really varied but every one of them did well for their age and ability.

If i had to have a favourite i think it would be this one, the expression on the face is ace!

That is all. Book cover No#2 is on its way :)

Take care

Book Cover No#1

Heres the first front cover in series of God knows how many that i want to do :) First up is Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. I love these books and the imagery it evokes and have been waiting for a chance to try and illustrate them :)

This is it without the text:

Im a bit rubbish at typography but here it is with the title and author written on it:

Let me know what you think :)

Take care

Salt Dough workshop!

Well, today was the second in a set of three workshops i'm set to do throughout August. It went really well and this week, i was allowed to take photos! Yaaaaay!

Although they were told to make animals, i followed it up by saying you can make anything you want, meaning animals. Some however took this to mean anything at all and made:

A man.....

A hot air balloon.......

And this, im not quite sure what it is, but she had fun making it :)

And here are all the others that got made:

(This butterfly now decorates my desk ^_^ )

This bunny looks like chocolate :)

Raaaaaaaaawr!

Overall it was fun, very fun,  very tiring and very very messy. Hopefully the children enjoyed it as much as I did :)

On another note, book cover artwork coming soon......

Take care

My other blog

Don't know if you know, but i have another blog, and i've just updated it with new stuff i've drawn. But so that this page doesn't feel left out, heres a doodle from my sketchbook:

Donatella the bunny :)

(link to my other blog: http://hodgehegswelcome.blogspot.com/)

A bit of random stuff

Hallooooo! Probably last post before i go away. As you know if you've been following me, i'm doing Art workshops in the library where i work throughout August. Well, they put me in the brochure! yaaaay! .....

And this next picture, well its erm, a bit of fun. I was cleaning out my paint palette in prep for going away, and this happened:

I thought it was pretty awesome that it was a gradient and all i was doing was cleaning it! My mam and dad however didn't quite agree when i made them come upstairs especially to see it. Oh well! It amused me :D

Take care

Nia E

New Designers

This week was New Designers. It was a brilliant yet tiring experience an i'm very glad i got the opportunity to go. I don't quite think my style of art is necessarily "in" at the moment, the work getting most of the attention was the more graphicy, block colour type of work, but still, i came away from the experience feeling inspired. I got the chance to speak to an agency about my work and got some really good feedback and advice as to what my target audience should be, which is always handy to know :) Anywho, heres some photos of the event:

I'm going on holiday this weekend for two weeks, so there probably wont be alot happening around here for a while, but hopefully when i get back there will be lots to post :)

Take care

Nia E

Salt Dough Animals!

Heres some salt dough animals ready for one of my art workshops this summer :) Can't wait!
This is the base, the salt dough not painted but fresh out of the microwave:

And these are the final product, please excuse the messy background :)

Hope you like!

Take Care

Nia E

Circus Fun!

In August I have the opportunity to do some art and craft workshops with a group of kids in the library where I work. Because I am super busy in July I'm getting the work done now so that it's not a rush. These are pictures of the pop up card circus scene I'm going to get them to colour in and make their own circus scene. Lemme know what you think! :)

This is the pop up base, took a stupid amount of time for to figure it out, paper engineering isn't my strong point! ^_^

 Below are some of the line drawing designs for the circus characters:

And heres the final product! All coloured and fancy! My work colleges seemed to like it so thats alright! What do you think?

Take care

Nia E