Butterflies, Birds and Botanicals

I have been working on a few new greetings cards designs recently, most are brand new designs based on my original watercolour illustrations. I really enjoyed designing these, especially the owls! Theres also a geranium with a bumble bee design, three bright butterflies, and a little owl with 'happy birthday to yoooh!'. They are all printed on heavyweight FSC cardstock and come with flecked brown kraft envelopes.  

I am very pleased to say these are now available to buy in my Etsy shop The Inky Deer, and you can also get a discount on any purchase with the code HEY10 at checkout this month.

It's been a while...

In amongst commissions and running my Etsy shop, it seems I've really neglected my little blog! :( I've had a tough time recently, with trying to regain a little motivation. But after I noticed so many months had passed since I'd updated things on here (okay like, almost a year) I thought it was about time I posted some snaps of something new! This is a mixed media piece I've just finished, and I really enjoyed creating this one.
I had wanted to do another watercolour featuring a stag for some time and after I started the sketch for this piece way back in February,  I left it as I just wasn't all that inspired by it. But after finding it hidden in the back of my sketch pad a couple of days ago, I hoped to resurrect it with some splashes of watercolour and ink.

The drawing inks by Winsor and Newton really are my favourite, they're incredibly vivid and are perfect for working over fineliner detailing or using with watercolour to create lovely marbled effects.
I experimented with the drips using a pipette on the paper to create the effect on the dog rose flowers which was quite fun, and there's also a little bit of gouache in there too. I've been loving gouache recently, it's the perfect partner to watercolour for more opaque areas of a painting, it's really midway between acrylic and watercolour in terms of it's viscosity and I'm really looking forward to using it more often.

I'm currently in the process of testing out prints for this one, so hopefully I will be listing them along with some other new artworks, in my Etsy shop The Inky Deer soon.

Thanks for reading!
xxx

 

Designing fabric + Zip pouches

Hello :)

I have been working on designing fabric patterns featuring my illustrations, with the intention of creating some products for my Etsy shop, and maybe expanding my range a little?

I'm testing out some little zip pouches for now, that could hold bits and bobs or lip balms and the odd bit of makeup. To be completely honest, I'm not incredibly well acquainted with my sewing machine, despite always having a love for using textiles and the urge to make my own clothes. 

The poor thing had been hidden in it's dust bag inside a cupboard for years! And I could probably have counted on one hand, the amount of times I'd used it.

It was only recently that I felt it was about time I had a little play around with it, and I actually made myself a couple of skirts, one from a 60's pattern too, and surprisingly, it's actually wearable! Well kinda...but that's another story!

I do know that sewing machines can be a bit temperamental until you start using them more frequently. So after a few more little projects and even a bandana for my dog,  I started some little zip pouches. 

There's a lot more work to be done, because I am a bit obsessive about straight seams and patterns matching up etc. and these aren't quite there yet. But I'm still excited to share these. I'm currently using the blue tits design below to hold my mircon pigma pens and its the perfect size!

I'm so excited to receive some more samples for the stag design and the sleeping fox design above, so that I can get started making a few more mini prototypes. Eventually I plan on making some larger flat bottom zip bags for cosmetics, toiletries etc. Because there is seriously something so addictive and rewarding about turning your artwork into a functional, useful item.

Thanks for reading!
xxx

 

Illustrated notebooks!

Yet again, I've neglected this blog for so long. My blog posts are pratically annual! I've been busy coming up with lots of new ideas for my Etsy shop, TheInkyDeer, which I'm really excited about trying.

First of all. Notebooks. I have always been the type that loved to doodle all over the front and sometimes back covers of notebooks, sometimes out of boredom, but usually because I thought it looked cool. I still find myself doing that now, in fact. I spotted some plain kraft moleskine notebooks which were just dying out for a design of some sort, and I came up with the idea of popping a few up on Etsy.
The first is a botanical design of freesias. Then a little bird - the jenny wren, which is my favourite garden bird as they are so adorably tiny! Lastly is a stag, but I'm not yet sure if I will keep this one for myself as I do have a bit of an obsession with all things deer related.

  

True North Gallery exhibition

Last November, I was fortunate enough to be included in a really exciting exhibition over in the states. 'Antlers; From fairy tales to the spirit world', at True North Gallery in Massachusetts. Whilst I wasn't able to see the whole range of artworks in person- what with living across the Atlantic- looking at the True North Blog I could see that the show featured an amazing array of different artists, with works in a range of media.