Archive for September, 2009

New ‘12 English Birds’ series illustration - The Barn Owl

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Finally finished, here’s the latest traditional collage illustration for my ‘12 English Birds’ series - The Barn Owl.

And for those interested, here are a couple of process pics - one of the sketch/composition along with the completed collage background prior to adding the Barn Owl.

Below is a sketch/colour study taster of the next illustration in the series - ‘The Swan’…

Week In Review & The Week Ahead: 31st Aug - 6th Sep

Blimey, it’s already September - where did the last 2 months go?

Still busy with the day job (Graphic Design is my bread & butter while I’m working towards my illustration goal) along with taking a more active role in the site my wife and I run called ‘Location Independent’ which focuses on breaking free from convention and being able to live and work from anywhere you choose.

I wrote a post a while ago about our Location Independent lifestyle and will be mentioning it more on this blog as the months go by as it’s an interesting option to consider for other aspiring and working illustrators out there.

I also came to the realisation this week that I’ve fallen in to bad habits again with the amount of time focussing on what other illustrators are doing - both looking at their work and questioning my own abilities (something I’m sure all you other aspiring illustrators are familiar with).

My aim for this blog is to try and share with readers a practical and successful route to becoming a full time illustrator and in order to do that, I have to reach that goal myself so that I can authentically share with you what has and hasn’t worked.

With limited time at the moment for my illustration goals due to other commitments, I need to make every minute count. My daughter is now 8 weeks old and things are starting to get a little easier with routines starting to be established, so it’s time to get things back on track and make this work.

Week In Review

With the imminent release of ‘The Big Book Of Contemporary Illustration‘ featuring 4 of my illustrations, it’s important that my portfolio site is looking ship shape. Who knows who might see my work in the book and what it might lead to, so I need to make sure everything is looking how I want it to and also that it reflects the current style of work I do and equally importantly, the type of work I’d like to be doing.

I’ve almost finished the collage illustration for ‘The Barn Owl’ and have planned out the next piece in my set of 12 British Birds - ‘The Swan’.

I also fired off a few emails to other illustrators that I’d like to interview for the blog.

The Week Ahead

• Tie up all of the loose ends on my portfolio site - including adding the Barn Owl illustration once completed (currently have a placeholder up there at present with just the sketch).
• Refine the sketch and start work on the collage illustration for ‘ The Swan’.
• Gather more info for the zero2illo post I’m putting together on ‘Passive Income From Illustration’.

I have a few new resources that I’d like to share with you but am saving them for a resources round up post later in the week, but I did want to share this inspirational post about the amazing Bernie Fuchs from the amazing blog ‘Todays Inspiration‘.

Finally, I always like to include some art on these posts - so here’s the collage illustration for my new (soon to launch) web store…