Beautiful Cities Designs

I hope Father Christmas left you all something nice under the tree. Luckily my Mum still insists that she likes handmade gifts so here is a little letter writing set that I made her using images form my Beautiful Cities series.

Merry Christmas!

Have a wonderful, very merry day everyone!

Innsbruck... again

The most regular readers amongst you might recall that about 6 months ago I announced that I was in the middle of making an illustration depicting Barcelona, to give to my Mum. I have finally finished and framed the above picture for her; it is definitely not Barcelona but I am certainly far happier with this than any of my attempts at the Catalan capital so far!

Christmas

Have been busily getting the final bits ready for Christmas as I am heading to my parents for the festive season tomorrow, so here is a suitably snowy Christmas label that will be adorning my presents this year.

Wedding Designs

A few months ago a friend of mine got engaged and asked me to design a Save the Date card for her, so I was very excited yesterday to see that a copy of my design - now printed onto a lovely glossy postcard - had arrived in the post. Wonderful - can't wait for the wedding!

A Very Productive Snow Day!

After getting over the disappointment of being told not to come into work today, due to the snow, I decided to use this unexpected free day to finally update my website.

So please take a look. Yes, you've probably seen some of the pictures already on my blog, but hopefully it's still worth checking out as there is even a brand new illustration there inspired by today's beautiful snowy weather.

Innsbruck

I was able to spend the whole of yesterday catching up on various ongoing projects, and managed to put together another illustration for my 'Beautiful Cities' series, this time of Innsbruck. I went there about 8 years ago I reckon, but I remember really clearly the beautiful toy-town rooftops and thick crunchy snow - definitely a winter wonderland!

I thought my preparation page for this illustration had a lovely quality as well, so have posted that too. Hope you like!

Last birthday card of 2010...?!

The Lace-Breasted Sparrow

I hope this little character might one day adorn some of my hand-crafted jewellery, but for now it's just going to have to perch on my blog.

Apologies for the lack of postings lately - nativity rehearsals and christmas card-making has slightly taken over my life, despite it still only being November. More illustration work to come soon though! xxx

Another Happy Birthday...

Welcome Magnus!

It is the first day back at school for me, so rather than posting some new illustration work I'd like to be a little lazy and simply point you in the direction of Kate Slater's beautiful new children's book Magpie's Treasure featuring Magnus; the most charming feathered thief that I've ever met!

Congratulations Kate - I will see you soon to get my copy signed and I fully intend to test this wonderful book out on my own gaggle of 7 year olds very soon!

More hand-made lovelyness for my future Etsy Shop!

Hope you like!

Anja's Homemade Christmas Part 1

I know its only October, but it's my half term holiday and I need to start early if I'm going to be able to decorate the flat for Christmas without a last minute dash to Wilkos...

So the above are my salt-dough Christmas tree decorations, pre-painting, pre-decorating and generally pre all the bling that will make them look less like a blue peter project. Actually, they may still look like a Blue Peter project, but hopefully an expensive one. I feel all creative à la Kirstie Allsopp. Except I've done the work myself rather than handing it over to a slave-army of primary school children....

Matt Sewell's Birds of the Week

I haven't had a chance to just have a wander in Central for a while now, so it's not surprising that after a lovely walk round the Seven Dials area yesterday I found myself once again drooling over the most beautiful illustration pieces in Magma (if you don't know these two sister shops go and have a look, they're ace!) Naturally I had to buy a little something and I came back with this wonderful badge set made by the very talented Matt Sewell. And having checked out his lovely website I've seen that his birds also adorn hotel rooms and underpasses! Genius!

Amnesty International Party 2010

All over London people have been spending the day recovering from Amnesty 2010 - our friends' yearly quest to save the human. This year the ways of raising money included a human fruit machine and a silent auction, in addition to the usual set of wonderful performances. The framed illustration shown above was my contribution to the auction, having decided I could not possibly risk singing again this year.

The other picture shows my 'Save the Human Biscuit Men' - recipe courtesy of Kate Slater, heart decorations courtesy of Kate and Ant's wedding leftovers...

The Big Draw 2010 - Illustrating the Body (Inside and Out!)

Some of you may know that October is the month of The Big Draw - The Campaign for Drawing's international campaign to get absolutely everyone involved in exploring the delights of sketching. And so I was lucky enough to spend most of Saturday at the fascinating Hunterian Museum, assisting the House of Illustration with their own serving of drawing magic. It was a brilliant day with so many people coming ready to turn the museum's collection of bottled specimens and grisly tools into weird and wonderful illustrations, and we even managed to persuade a few very doubtful visitors to have a go at sketching.

Toya Walker's drop-in illustration work shop proved extremely popular and it was also amazing to see some of Britain's best Medical Illustrators at work in the gallery. The above are a couple of my somewhat less impressive sketches from the day (jotted down in between handing out pencils and gawking at bottled moths...) So thank you to the lovely Emily Jost at the House of Illustration for such a fantastic day, see you next year!

New York, New York

I'm working on a New York illustration trilogy at the moment; the above is a small section of the first image which I am putting into a silent auction to raise money at an Amnesty International party in a few weeks.

Hope you like!

Another childhood gem...

Another birthday, another illustration...

Happy Birthday Ant! Ant and his wife are a little obsessed with a slightly fat, very hairy trespassing cat called Merlin... so who better to grace his birthday card!

Handmade Jewellery Packs

Happy Birthday to my lovely friend Kristy! And obviously I took the opportunity to turn her birthday present into an art project... I just can't help it; there's a new Hobbycraft store nearby and it keeps calling to me!

Birds and Trees. Circa 1991

Everyone has a few certain things that they LOVE to draw and, as some of you will know, when I am feeling a bit lazy and in the mood for doodling some of my favourite things to decorate a page with are birds and trees.

And the above seems to demonstrate that this obsession started early! I found this drawing when I (finally) moved the last of my things out of my parents' loft a few weekends ago. I was delighted to find this drawing showing that even aged 6 my skill at drawing birds and trees was developing, albeit with stripey trees and birds with disproportionally large heads... Oh, and the details at the bottom of the picture are worms. Obviously.

Tiny Landscape

It's been a busy start to the week and I am exhausted, but here is a little tiny illustration I used as part of a card design over the weekend. And I think I quite like it. Hope you do!

Portraits! Of a kind...

September is a month crammed full of birthday celebrations so I have been busy making cards for various friends and lately I've had quite a bit of funny incorporating portraits of the birthday boys into the designs. The images above are a couple of my favourites- hope you like! And of course, Happy Birthday once again to Nick and Matt!

New York!

I've been revisiting my photo albums while clearing out the cellar and came across my New York Album! I'd like to do a largish illustration about this wonderful city at some point, but think I will just have a play with some smaller bits for now...

Back on track!

I've been so busy inventing new ways to use up courgettes lately that I've been a little unproductive on the illustration front! But I intend to more than make up for it over the next few weeks - starting with a girl with a unicorn balloon. Because balloons are always better when they're animal shaped. Or mythical creature shaped.

New Baby!

My youngest cousin and his wife have just had a beautiful baby girl... an excellent excuse to make a card! Congratulations James and Gemma!

Turning pattern into stationary...

A friend asked me to make some note cards to give as a gift, which gave me a brilliant excuse to use the patterns I've been working on.

So the above packs of printed note cards are Pattern 101 'India & Elephants' and Pattern 102 'The Bird & The Stag' 's first printed outings! I think there will be more where this came from!

PSS: Dalton Ghetti

I stumbled across the fabulous pencil-sculptor Dalton Ghetti the other day and I love his work! From an entire miniature lead alphabet to an intricately cut key, his work is stunning; so intricate and yet so simple. Definitely worth looking out for!

PSS: Home Produce!

So, what with all this lovely sunshine, we've b

een fairly successful in our first attempt at a vegetable patch. Below is one of our very enthusiastic courgette plants; its produce has been made into stirfrys, pasta dishes, salads... and I reckon we still have at least another 30 courgettes to transform into something delicious...

And below - more home grown deliciousness in the form of redcurrents, transformed here into redcurrent and cinnamon muffins!

More Pattern Work... It's addictive!

Pattern

We worked with a lovely Year 4 class earlier this week making PATTERNS! And the children all did such beautiful work that it inspired me to have a go, so here is my first attempt at repeating pattern! (Below is a close up of the design.)

Next I'm going to try making my own tessellating pattern... I have a feeling that may take a little longer!

More Barcelona work in progress...

I am working hard at populating a HUGE image of Barcelona, which is proving very difficult on my 13" screen... Anyway, the above is scanned from a page of my sketchbook which, with a bit of tweaking, formed quite a pleasing image I thought!

http://www.anjaillustration.com UPDATED!

I have recently managed to update my website with more recent work and there will be more coming soon... have a look! 

A Catalan Pigeon

My mum has for a long time been wanting me to produce an illustration showing BEAUTIFUL Barcelona, so for her birthday this year I am doing just that. 

I won't put the whole picture up just yet, because that would ruin the birthday surprise, but here is a sneak preview in the form of a pigeon who will be gracing the tip of some Gaudi architecture!

Workshopping

I am EXHAUSTED. So rather than being a shiny new illustration, the image above has been dragged out from the depths of my uni body of work. Oh well.

I do have a good excuse for being tired though; I have spent the day assisting the wonderful illustrator Paul Jackson  at a Primary School in Camden. We have been running a workshop organised by the House of Illustration (a very exciting and rapidly expanding project - you should check them out here.) We have been cutting, pasting and scribbling like you wouldn't believe and the good news is that we have 5 more days of workshop fun to come! 

Aside from the expert illustrating that's been going on a high point simply has to be hearing the school choir rehearsing Michael Jackson's 'Beat It'! WITH FULL CHOREOGRAPHY! Amazing.

PSS: theblackrabbit.co.uk

I have discovered a wonderful company that make the most beautiful gifts and jewellery. The brooch Brett bought me for my birthday (in the picture below) is absolutely lovely, and came nestled in a gorgeous box with a little matching pin badge. 

In fact, theblackrabbit.co.uk has plenty of beautiful gifts (not all bunny-themed) including a knitted range... check them out!

Wendy Fee

I'm in the middle of a few projects at the moment, but will try to post some snippets up soon!

In the meantime here is a CD cover design I did for my sister Wendy, who is a very talented singer!