Illustration, The Universe and Everything

Um....is there anybody there? My poor baby, I have abandoned you!

Well, I'm not going to make any excuses, but I am back here at last. You know what that end-of-the-year-oo-'eck-it's-Crimbo feeling is like, so I don't need to explain.

Where do I begin? Well, the samples including the pumpkin on my previous post from way back in mid-November were all sent off to the US of A, and they seemed to be well received. They paid quickly, anyway! However, I'm still waiting on a decision as to whether or not the whole project is going ahead. We should find out in January, apparently. Tsk.

Another American publisher approached me around the same time about a fairy/folk tale job that around 40 artists were taking part in, and after confirming the money involved, they said they'd send me the final brief and promptly disappeared off the face of the planet. PG was offered a part in the same project, and seems to have got only a bit further than me with it! It does make me wonder what some publishers/companies actually DO. Not to mention all those desperately frantic emails they send you saying "Oh, but we need the final artwork by last Tuesday!" only to not contact you when they recieve it - so you're worrying your socks off that the piece actually got to them OK - but then there magically happens to be enough time for them to faff about with everything. Tsk again.

A lot of people are liking the watercolour bears also in my last post, including Lovely Mark, who sent them off to all and sundry the literal second I'd emailed them to him. On the back of these, I was asked to produce some samples for another publisher who is creating a pop-up Santa book for next Christmas. (Or rather, THIS Christmas, as I suppose it is now.) So, four samples sent off, but although they like the style, they prefer my older method of working (minus the eyeliner, natch) so it was out with the dusty old gouache, and another sample duly dispatched. I'd forgotten how blummin' long it takes to paint with gouache. Not like zippy watercolour, where you just splosh it on and layer up the coour as you go. No, gouche requires mixing and everything.

Here is Santa from sample set no.1



(I must get rid of those spidery shadows)

I cheated a bit and used this second piece as a Crimbo postcard for my Illustrator Mates.



Of course, I'm still waiting on a decision about the go ahead for the project. Tsk thrice.

Around the same time, the postman rang the doorbell at 7.03am to give me an interesting box that contained this:



I waited as long as possible to open it, but gave in in the end. This was inside:




A rather terrible photo, but I think you can get the gist. It was my SOSF Christmas exchange present all the way from California. Many thanks to Pumpkin Cupcake my Secret Fairy (and many aplogies for taking so long to thank you.)

I had a lot of fun with my own card and ornament making. This is my card:



The card itself - although you can't tell from the photo - is pearlescent. I used a star-shaped cookie cutter as a template, cut out the star in the middle, and laid a sheet of sparkly gauze behind. Luvly jubly. Beautiful and much cheaper than buying a card. Without wanting to sound like one of those terrible middle-aged women I know who live for Paper Crafting With Dawn Bibby, I think I could like making my own cards.

Also in my previous post, I mentioned I was going to a meeting at a publishers to go through my b&w postfolio and talk about the Eeries. Well, I managed to create loads of artwork - I even surprised myself - and the meeting went rather well. They were very positive about the text, but agree with the whole world that is needs work. They gave me a few pointers about where to start, so re-jigging the text is on my list of things to do next. They also really liked my b&w work and said they'd love to use me on an upcoming title. Hurrah!

So there are a gazillion things going on, and updates needed on all of them, but I think that's enough to be getting on with for now. More to come, honest guv!