Winners!

Thanks again to everybody who entered.
The 2 first prizes go to SakuraDreams and Fin Langman. The 3 second prizes - 3 single cards of their choice - go to Tonja, Fifi and steviewren. Congratulations to every- body who won! I wish I could send cards to all of you who didn't. Maybe next time. Thank you all for your lovely comments They made me very happy.

Thank you!

Thank you so much for the amazing response everybody! And thank you Print and Pattern for featuring my giveaway. You can still join till the end of Christmas day (New York Time) and I will post the winners' names on Sunday. Seasons greetings to all!

The last minute Christmas giveaway!!!

So its too late for this Christmas but there is always next year. I got this huge box from Woodmansterne full of samples of cards and advent calendars I have made for them this year. Its a big big box so I would be happy to share some of it with you.

the big box of cards

Please leave a comment on this post from now till the end of Christmas day when I will be choosing two people to receive a five pack of each of 5 card designs - 25 cards all together. And possibly will add some runner up prizes like 2 -3 cards of your choice depending on how many people participate so please ad your name to the list. I will ship globally so everybody is invited. good luck!

first prize - 5 packs of each card

OLIVER!

I know I havent been posting for a while but given the chance between that and playing with a puppy I chose the latter. Sorry. No hard feelings I hope. I have a new toy poodle puppy! His name is Oliver isnt he gorgeous? My little drawing does not do him justice. Look into those big black eyes and tell me you dont forgive me for ignoring you for so long...

Never mind, Im back. And Oliver reminds me of this ceramic sculpture I made this summer but never showed you. Its a woman with a puppy (how prophetic!) Originally she was nude but I was watching a Jane Austen movie while making her and almost without thinking gave her this Regency look. Here she is in progress and finished. 

I promise to post more often from now on. AND  If you like my card designs, please stay tuned for a - very last minute - big Christmas giveaway this weekend! See you soon

xG

Bollywood

My contribution to the annual NB Illustration promotional calendar. The theme this year was cinema.

Christmas Cards

Apparently its that time of year again.
Here's a bunch of UK Christmas cards Ive done for Wodmansterne
Some are on sale at John Lewis and are featured here on Print and Pattern. Some may come to North America via Paperchase - I'll keep you posted.

Happy beginning of the season

Zeus and Deadalus

Illustrations for Usborne Publication

Project Planter - final day!

Its finally here! Took forever to find place for it in the kiln and then another forever for me to drag it home but its here. Nice right? I used brushing on glaze technique so its nice soft colors (see also elephants and bird little plaques below). I really like it, its definitely a one of a kind.  And the plants look happy and when the plants are happy I'm happy too.
Hope you are as well.

Birds plauqe

Its been a while. I'm super busy but that just means that I will have lots of new illustrations to show soon. Ceramics season is almost over and today I finished sculpting my last large project. Its a wall plaque with lots of birds and flowers - my largest plaque to date. It took 3 weeks of rather tedious work but I'm very pleased with it. Here are my sketch and the final result:

The planter, in case you are interested, is finished and lovely.
The pictures will be posted this weekend.

La petit bell

When I took my first ceramics class, when I was about ten, we made a lot of bells and whistles. Literally. Making a clay whistle was apparently a complicated and secret process shrouded in mystery. We would make the body of the whistle with a little spout and our teacher would then take it to another room to preform the magic of making sound. She refused to tell us how she did it, old family secret I supposed, passed from mother to daughter... I am now planning to enter this secret society of whistle makers (by googling it) and give it a try.

Bells, on the other hand, are easy. Here is one just out of the kiln: Her dress was made by stamping real pieces of lace on the clay. Only the dress and hair are glazed so her skin has a matte finish. Here she is all glazed up and waiting to be fired:

and here is what she looks like now:

and here is what she sounds like now:

And in case you are wondering what ever happened to the planter - it is alive and well and glazed but not fired yet. Because of its (frankly ridiculous) size it keeps loosing its spot in the queue but it now has an "urgent" sign on it and I have been told it will go into the kiln today. Fingers crossed and I will keep you posted

American Girl mag quiz

Illustrations for a Halloween quiz in the new American Girl issue

Calpol Ad

More behind the scenes revelations on the wonderful world of professional illustration. I have been working on this British ad campaign for Johnson and Johnson. Its for Calpol - a baby fever reducer - and its a pretty clever idea. It shows babies sleeping like.. well, babies on illustrated quilts showing backgrounds of fluffy tranquil environments. Unfortunately under pressure of time and due to the complexity of actually making a real quilt out of an illustration, my work was simplified and simplified until very little was left of the original design.
Since this is the only place were you can see them, here are my original concepts:
































and here is the final result:


Too bad but still pretty cute and the money was really good
so I'm just fine ;)

Project planter - day three

Yesterday all the parts came together and I LOVE it. It came out better then I thought and bigger (21 Inches/ 53cm long). The back panel was attached in no time but then I had a mini freak out when part of the front panel stuck to the table and tore off when I picked it up, so I had a big hole on the side but it was patched up quickly and looks fine. Next week bisque firing and then we enter the wonderful world of glazing.

Project Planter - day two

The back panel of the planter is finished.
Everything comes together on Wednesday

Cycling in London competition - the conclusion

So I didnt win anything... But! Before the judging even begun The London Transit Museum chose my illo to advertise the show so it was EVERYWHERE. That was very cool and is (as I now convinced myself) much better then winning! Come see the show if you're in London its opened till August 22nd. You can see the first 3 places and some other works here.

Project Planter - day one

Ok so as I mentioned before this is my new ceramics project - its a window sill planter with a relief design all around. Here are my sketches:






















So as you can see it is oval shape. I am going to decorate 2 elongated flat panels - front and back - and when they are finished curve them around an oval base. That could be tricky hope it works. Today I have made 2 long panels on the slub machine and almost finished decorating the front one. Took almost 5 hours - complicated work. day 2 is going to be Wednesday. See you then

Back to ceramics

off the computer for a while to get my hands dirty. FUN! Not to mention extremely therapeutic. Here is a new Lady Godiva - Fat women on fat horses - oh how I love you so. On Friday I am starting work on a large planter with a birds and flowers design all around in relief. More pics coming soon.