A Worldwide Symphony

Hey there! Time for another update :)

So the news is, I'm very close to finishing my second children's book with the fabulous singer songwriter Lou Rhodes! Its called "The Phlunk's Worldwide Symphony" and follows on from our first book, "The Phlunk". Set to be released on the 20th of September, this is looking to be a really exciting book for a worldwide audience!

It was such a challenge for me as I am the least musically minding person since the history of time, but I've really enjoyed the process and development of this project, more than any other for a long time.

When working with an author, its always an interesting path to find their vision of their story, and The Worldwide Symphony took a good long while in order for us to be on the same page. As an Illustrator I think you'll understand how complex it can be to illustrate what others see, rather than how you'd like it to be. These discussions have led to so much growth and new design processes which I wouldn't have found without it.

Children have never really been my absolute strongest point, often looking much older than they should be, so I was really thrown in at the deep end in this book. With many different ethnicities, hair styles, traditional dress and also musical poses, I began to stretch my skills and fine tune my confidence in illustrating children. Below is the original artworks for how I wanted the characters to look in the book, sadly they didn't make the cut but I hope they enjoy their small moment of fame right here!

After some time pondering and a plentiful amount of tea, (and in actual fact, a good half a sketchbook later!) I was able to develop a style than still resembled my work, but was also suitable for the authors brief in very simplistic (almost stick like) characters. As you can appreciate, there is only so far you can simplify characters in a picture book!

Above is a final page from The Phlunk's Worldwide Symphony, and you can see how far the style developed just in one book! Hopefully you'll agree that it still captures the essence of my digital collage style, but still remains fairly simplistic.

Watch this space for more updates on The Worldwide Symphony, and you can now order a copy of The Phlunk in paperback! Happy Phlunking :)

Time to get the paintbrushes out again

So recently I've had a fair amount of work on with children's book work, and also a few commissions. This small canvas below always seems to attract an interest when people contact me, and I jumped at the chance to do another one to break the continuity of drawing musical instruments and cat-like aliens!

"There's No Place Like Home" Brixham, 30cm x 30cm canvas in 2009

I received the commission to paint Teignmouth seafront, which is a beautiful part of Devon, and only 15 minutes from my front door. Also, since the canvas was to be sent to New Zealand, I needed to split it across 4 smaller canvas' to be mounted separately. 

I can't claim to be a fine artist in any stretch of the imagination, but I thoroughly enjoyed putting my small stamp on this painting. Its definitely got my mind into thinking about creating scenery and different types of work with my decoupage/digital collage style. 

Sorry about the poor quality photo, it was taken on my phone late into the evening! 

And here are the individual splits!

Illustrated moments

Its so great when I see Illustration and animation used in such a delicate form on a completely massive advertising campaign. Its about time that femininity and textural collages are able to step outside their children's paperbacks and brave the big wind world of commercial form too. Gone are the days where it is refined to folky illustrated one offs or highstreet Tshirts for preteens, and its awesome.

And so you can image how excited I was when I saw the absolutely, mind blowingly beautiful advert for the Linda Mccartney Foods on the TV. Feast your eyes on these screenshots and enjoy the clip below, I hope these guys know that they make my day every time I see it!

International Book Giving Day

I'm giving a signed copy of The Phlunk to Little Bridge House, Children's Hospice South West! They're a wonderful charity which have helped me and thousands of others.

Sometimes I make cakes too!

And so while I'm busy working very hard on my second children's book to be published by Strata Books (all shall be revealed!!), I thought I'd let you take a sneak peak at my second biggest passion..... cakes!

Baking AND eating them, of course!

Every body loves the Toy Story aliens! Made for my Dads birthday, and they were apple & cinnamon flavour.

Here was a 30cm Hen night cake with hand-dyed and handmade flowers, which only just fit inside my oven!

Here is my three tier blueberry, vanilla and beetroot cake for the Queens Jubilee celebration.

It was a little over the top and really was best to eat the layers separately but it was all good fun!

This cake was for my boyfriends 24th pirate themed surprise party, so of course I made a Kraken!

My Zerg cake from Starcraft II went down a treat at work for my boyfriends birthday, with a star shaped sparkler to boot!

I hope these might have inspired you to get creative in your kitchen! 

If I can do it so can you, so get baking!

Phlunk all around the place

Time for an actual blog update!

Its been a very long time and lots of very exciting things are happening at the moment!

Tell me, you've already bought your very own copy of 'The Phlunk' written by Lou Rhodes?

YOU HAVEN'T!? Well why ever not?! I illustrated it, silly heads! Its a lovely children's book about a cat-like alien that hears all you say and do, and you can buy a signed copy, right here right now, via my website! Its also in your local Waterstones, so pop in and ask a lovely staff member to order one into store especially for you. 

You can also find it over at Amazon, but stop them killing independent bookshops by buying locally and support Illustrators and writers!

The book has been received really well with all of the reviews that we have had so far, with parents and guardians often being unsure of it but their children loving it! I'll link up some of the reviews from lovely bloggers and book reviewers just below, so you should definitely read and follow these people for more great reviews!

Fancy writing one of your own? Contact me about it!

Being Little wrote some sweet words.

Read It Daddy gave his honest opinion.

The Book Sniffer gave a wag of its tail.

MG decided it was her book of the week.

The Book Bag took the words right out of my mouth.

Chicken and Frog are now happy stockists.

And I'll end on that note, with a love tree that was commissioned not so long ago.

Keep Phlunking! x

Happy 2013, here's some dogs!

I really must write a proper blog post soon and update you, but for now, have some hounds!

Come over to Twitter and follow my every move at @ToriDraws xx