Doodle Press

I've been a full time greeting cards illustrator for a while now, working in-house for various studios over the years. I've been at Doodle Press since the studio opened and I've loved every minute of it. It's a brilliant company to illustrate for as I get to work in an eclectic range of styles such as cute characters, florals and watercolors. Here are some samples of my designs taken from our new website. The full website shows off all the great work that myself and my talented colleagues do: www.doodle-press.com

 

Little Princes

With the recent high profile birth of royal baby George it was a lucky coincidence that my newest set of embroidery designs for Bunnycup were cute little prince characters. 12 designs in all, and fit for all baby boys (lets face it, every baby is special, right?!). They'd look sweet on baby blankets, baby bags, tees and onesies. My favourite one is the little prince with the horse.

In A Flap

Work in progress for Bunnycup

This weekend has been a good opportunity to catch up with some new doodles for Ashlea at Bunnycup. It's been ages since I've last done something. I'm working on a set of cute 1920s inspired flapper girls, which should look really sweet once they're stitched out. Pinterest has been a great source of reference as always. 

Source: host.pappapak8.com via Marisa on Pinterest

Source: theblackapple.typepad.com via Marisa on Pinterest

Source: cassieloo.polyvore.com via Marisa on Pinterest

Viking Embroidery

Recently I completed some cute Viking characters for Ashlea to embroider at Bunnycup. I was watching a Disney film called "Tangled" for inspiration. Most people with children of a certain must have seen it! It's based on the Rapunzel fairy tale and there's a really fun scene in it where she is at a rough 'n' tough inn full of viking style characters. Of course, it being a Disney film (and not Game of Thrones) she charms them with a song. Hopefully you'll find these little dudes charming too. These are some of my favourite designs!

Yesterday I watched another animation called "How to Train Your Dragon" and that was FULL of Viking characters! Shame I didn't watch that whilst I was doing these drawings.

Cute Knitting Illustration

I have time off work during the period between Christmas and New Years, so I have decided to try and learn how to knit a jumper for myself. I can crochet pretty well and I can knit and purl my way through many a scarf. Thankfully Bedford library has come up trumps again with loads of knitting manuals and youtube is chock full of tutorials too, so I think it might be a mission I can handle! 

However, to commemorate this challenge, I have spent today doodling a weird self-portrait of this future endeavor. I used photoshop for this. I don't think the watercolour painting is working out for me. I'm actually feeling a bit glum about my function as an illustrator these days. Maybe my new sweater will cheer me up. I shall knit it whilst eating mince pies and chocolate, in front of the television, as I've recorded loads of festive films to watch. 

Recent Watercolours

Winter Garden

Badger Nap

Red Cello Blue Boots

I thought I'd post some images of the watercolour prints that are up in Pensieri over Christmas. I've no idea if anyone will like them enough to buy any of the prints, but at least it was enjoyable painting in my evenings. My fella has been mega busy trying to finish his new album, so I've needed something to do. It's definitely more interesting than watching telly. My favourite one is 'Badger Nap'... Because I really love badgers!

Pensieri Preview

Red Cello Blue Boots 

Winter Garden

On the 14th of November the Circus of Illustration will be exhibiting some of our work in Pensieri, one of Bedford's gorgeous independent cafes/ gift shops. It will be up until January.

I've been working really hard on getting some work together, I have some linocuts and a couple of embroideries, but it's the painting that's been keeping me busy in my evenings. As my day to day artwork is digital I think that illustrating in my free time needs to be created away from the computer.

These pieces are nearly done, just a few touch ups in Photoshop and I think I'm there. I've one more watercolour that I want to finish then I should be ready to frame them. This body of work has no theme, I just like drawing cute girl characters. I have no message to the world, I'm not an true artist, just someone who gets her kicks from drawing things that look cute.

Christmas Village Applique

Over at Bunnycup Embroidery Ashlea has just stitched out some of my Christmas village drawings. She's transformed them into some really cute applique designs. I hope all machine embroidery users out there will find a lot of fun in using these in their Christmas projects.

Cute Bears: A Step By Step

Here's a step by step on how I work up my cute characters for Doodle Press.

This week I have been working on some 'Thank You Teacher' designs using the owl and tortoise characters from our super cute Happy Hollow range.

Source: doodlepressltd.tumblr.com via Doodle on Pinterest

Source: doodlepressltd.tumblr.com via Doodle on Pinterest

Carousel pattern

I thought I'd fool around with the carousel animals a little since I love them so much! I spotted a competition via Twitter over at Tigerprint, that I can't enter unfortunately, but I liked the brief so I thought I'd try it as an exercise.  

I can see this pattern working quite well as school stationery or in soft furnishings. I would have liked it in my bedroom as young girl, maybe matched with some hot pinks. They're cute carousel animals, but the black and white scheme is quite sophisticated so I wonder if there's actually a clash of styles here! 

There are some really nice entries on the site, so if you fancy your chances I think there is still a week to go if you want to take part.

I do cutes!

During the day, I work as a cute artist for Doodle Press. I've been there since 2008 working in-house. They are an amazing illustration and design company based in Lancastershire. We provide design and illustration for greeting cards, packaging, product design and crafts. I usually work on cutes but I have done traditional scenes and florals too.

This a small selection of my cute work taken from the brand new and gorgeous Doodle Press website so if you're interested in our work you should get in touch.

Linoleum cut #2: Little girl

I'm still experimenting with lino cutting at home. Still a few tweaks needed on this one, but here is my progress so far.

Circus Homework

A watercolour and pencil drawing (Yeah! It's not digital!) for the Circus of Illustrators in Bedford. Our homework this month was to draw something from the circus that hadn't been depicted yet so I combined both elephants and a little clown character.

Machine Embroidery: Tween designs

I was asked to do some mini machine embroidery design for Ashlea at Bunnycup. I made them a bit gothy, but as cute as I could! It's the sort of thing I liked when I was eleven years old. They are little, only 1.5 inches by 1.5 inches, but if you are a machine embroidery enthusiast, you can get larger applique versions of these designs to use for your craft projects too.

Illustration Friday: FORWARD

This is a sketch I eventually worked up into a birthday card a few weeks ago for work. It's a centre-forward soccer bear being whistled at by the mouse referee. Not sure why he's been yellow carded! Most of the work I do during the day are cute characters and I love my job so much! At the moment I'm working on cute Christmas designs.

Pixies at Christmas

Ashlea at Bunnycup Embroidery has been super busy stitching out various doodles I've sent her for her Christmas rush. I drew a set of 12 'Christmas Pixies' and here are just 4 all stitched out. If you have an embroidery machine these would might look cute on stockings or as a fun festive way to spruce up an item of clothing for your own little pixie in the family.

More illustration with sewing

I'm still playing around with the sewing machine. It's rewarding to create illustrations that are tangible. I work digitally during the day, creating files through mouse, tablet and monitor screen... But ultimately creating an image that you can't hold. My designs go abroad to get printed into cards, so I seldom see let alone hold the finished product. Therefore it's quite therapeutic for me and arguably a natural reaction to my daily routine to make something perceptible by touch as well as by sight. Made directly with my own hands.

Drawing with stitches

As a full time digital illustrator, drawing at a computer for around 9 hours a day makes you sick of staring at a screen. In the evening and weekends, I try not to switch on the mac.
My day job as a cute greeting cards artist is fun, but I want to start creating artworks in my free time without the burden of using a computer. I decided to use a sewing machine to doodle. I've tried painting in the past, but time and space is sparse and I can't be doing with all that clearing and cleaning nonsense with messy brushes.

Bugs and Gymnasts

It's been a long while since my last post, but here are a sample the latest embroidery projects available by me at Bunnycup.

Gingerbread men Christmas Embroidery

If you need some ideas for machine embroidery projects this Christmas, then Ashlea at Bunnycup has stitched out some of my gingerbread men illustrations. I think they look cute and there's 12 in this set.