Templar Publishing Paper Watch Project

Today I have been working on something for a charity project run by Templar Publishing. As part of a bid to raise £5000 for Breast Cancer Care they have asked various illustrators to decorate a paper watch to be sold at auction. 

I set about doing some sketches for ideas

I decided to add colour using some metallic embellishment pens which have a 3D effect on the paper

Before moving onto my final watch:

I added an extra bit because the flowers weren't big enough on the watch face ;) 

You can see some images of the other watches over here on their facebook page! 

Great British Summer Inspiration

So I have been inspired this week by the beautiful packaging Kate Larsen has been designing for M&S's "Great British Summer" range. 

Her designs are being used on a wide range of snacks, cakes, desserts and food featuring scenes of the british summertime including hot air balloons, beaches, fairgrounds and beach huts.

The illustrations are super beautiful, and I love the way she has incorporated food into them, biscuits riding a ferris wheel etc.

I got a little inspired and made this colour palette to work from and create some "Great British Summer" themed patterns: 

Also I downloaded an action for rounding corners on images which makes them look swish and also hopefully harder to steal (; 

Let me know what you think! Has anyone else been inspired by any packaging/artwork they have seen recently?

Giftware Inspiration

This past week I had some time off of work and have been all around the country, visiting some uni friends in Plymouth, family in Cornwall and then up to Birmingham today for the Autumn Fair trade show! This post is just a few photos of some of the lovely things I stumbled upon!

I went with my family to Port Isaac, a seaside town in Cornwall where they film the programme "Doc Martin" (if you like random trivia). There were loads of gorgeous little gift shops including a pottery gallery in this amazing building:

Where you could look down over from the top level into the space below. They had some amazing hand painted pottery.

There were also loads of beautiful gifts and decorations:

And today I went to Birmingham for my first ever trade show (as a visitor rather than exhibiting) to see what it was all about and get inspired by other peoples work.

The NEC in Birmingham is a huuge place, there were 5 halls filled with all sorts of commercial goods, mainly types of giftware, greetings and homeware. I stumbled upon some fun things, and we also watched a popcorn making demonstration and found a dinosaur! 

All in all a very fun day with too many amazing things to see and take in at once, some beautiful displays with varying levels of sparkliness and lights, suck uk was quite extreme:

T-rex!

Dancing sandyclaws!!!

Oh and a little inspiration for any fellow graduates who are freaking out about life right now, if this is too cringy just imagine Dory from Finding Nemo "just keep swimming" ;)