20 Ways To Draw A Tree

I got this book for christmas and rediscovered it recently when clearing out my book shelf. It is a sketchbook with a difference, combining space for drawing with a huge number of drawings for inspiration. 

The front cover is made of matte texturised paper which makes me feel artsy for a start.

Each page consists of a different "thing" to be drawn from nature, there is a huge range from acorns to snowflakes, stars, mushrooms and feathers. 

They are all laid out slightly differently but the pages always have around 20 drawings of each thing, and space for you to add your own drawings. 

This is a great book for people who like drawing nature. I especially like it as pattern designers like me can use these small drawings as the basis for repeat patterns. 

Here are some ferns I drew on one page - it does feel strange being "allowed" to draw in this book.

The illustrator Eloise Renouf has put some truly beautiful artwork in this book with a wide variety of different colours, textures and styles to really get you inspired and motivated to draw. Even if you aren't into drawing it is a gorgeous book to own and have a flick through.

You can check out Eloise's website here and this book can be purchases from amazon here along with a number of other "20 ways to draw" books by different artists. What do you guys think of this book? Any other sketchbooks you can recommend?

Glass Dip Pens and Kelmscott Manor

Last wednesday I went for a day out to Kelmscott manor with my mum. Kelmscott was the home of british designer William Morris for many years, after writing my dissertation on his work I have a bit of an obsession, unfortunately you weren't allowed to take photographs inside the house but you can see some of his work from when I visited the William Morris Museum in London here.

It was a lovely sunny day so we wandered around the gardens and I got some photos of the autumn leaves - such lovely colours!

We had a timed entrance so had a look around the gift shop before we went in, you could buy almost anything in some kind of Morris print.

My mum bought me an early birthday present, a venetian glass dip pen and ink set which is absolutely beautiful! 

It holds the ink in the ridges in the glass and it flows really nicely, I haven't used ink in ages so I did a few doodles.

New work - Type experiments

Whilst I am at home and still job searching I have been trying to work on my portfolio, specifically working on my hand rendered type. 

After speaking to an agent at the end of third year I was told if I was going to use it I should really push it. She also told me to try a less digital approach so my work still looked slightly hand made which is why a lot of my recent work uses more pencil and crayon line. I remember being pretty annoyed when she first said that but i think it has added more depth to my work having more textured lines and backgrounds.

These two I made for the Tigerprint "gifted" competition but the balloon one ended up being quite dark and the photographic one didn't show my illustration skills as much as I would have liked so I submitted different images (which I still have to keep secret and it's driving me crazy - want them to publish the results!)

These two I made yesterday after seeing a project to describe yourself in your favourite type I got inspired and I am hoping to do a few more fun experiments over the next weel or so. 

Zines preview

This is just a little sneak preview of some things I am working on right now. We are going to Bristols Artist Book Event (BABE) later on this year so I am preparing some zines to be screen printed in all different colours!

The first is of a group of men made up of body parts, haven't decided what this will be called yet!

The second is a little book of carnivorous plants.

Let me know what you think :)

The Sketchbook project

I feel like I haven't posted enough here recently. This is mainly due to it being christmas and me having no access to a scanner or much internet!

I generally put pictures of drawings I like on instagram as soon as I take them, give me a follow over there if you are interested @josiethejump. 

Over christmas I decided to do the Sketchbook Project as something to do aside from my uni work for a bit of fun. I chose to draw peoples dreams because the things people come up with are so much more strange and random than what I could come up with just making things up!

I ended up using a different style to what I have been recently. I kept with using black line and the odd bit of brush pen with quink in, but I used a graphite pencil in different ways to add shading and add a bit more dimension to the pictures compared with the way I usually just use flat shapes. 

Here is a few to start off, let me know what you think, I love reading peoples comments! 

I had a dream a polar bear chased me through my house and when I came downstairs he was eating the laces from my favourite shoes.

I had a dream I was pregnant with my friends baby.

I had a dream I dropped my new phone off a bridge into a river.

Dont Drink and Draw

Smoke and fly? 

So before christmas I had an evening with nothing to do and decided to do something I had wanted to try for a while, drawing under the influence of alcohol. I had a bottle of cider (ok not that much alcohol) and sat in my bed with a lovely book my friend Hayley had given me to draw in!

Armed with an Alex Walker wonder pen (something all illustrators should make) and my book I made these images, which I only just re-discovered and photographed :)

I don't know why I drew a topless woman, the influence came from somewhere I am sure...

The sketchbook project

My plans for the Christmas holidays so far include going to the Lake District for a week, and then Newcastle for New Years which I am really excited about! I also have a lot of drawing to do...

I signed up to do the sketchbook project about 6 weeks ago but have been so busy with Uni work I saved starting it until today. I have decided to base it around strange dreams, mine and other people's. the images are definitely going to be strange but I quite like it :)

Drawing in a sketchbook you know will be seen by lots of people is pretty damned nerve wracking though.. I usually just draw and draw and don't worry about it but these I feel I should plan out in case I massively balls something up...

After watching the snow queen (which had a giant polar bear in it) I had a dream that a polar bear chased me around my house and then at the shoelaces of my favourite trainers.

Lynettes dream-running really fast like a dog and then flying into the air.

 

 

Am excited to carry this on :) comment if you have any weird dreams I can draw!

 

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Silly 3rd year...

 

Making flat plans in my dressing gown because I have clocked way too many hours in the studio the past week!

After Sunday I am going to:

Sleep

Get drunk

Eat cake

Sleep more

Get drunk again

Tidy my room

Eat more cake

And also do a little bit of work experience for Plymouth art fair before going home for Christmas!

 

 

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so much drawing

Oh my ghost came by
Said who do you love the most
Who you wanna call before you die

Oh my ghost came by here
Said who do you love the most
Who you gonna sing to 'fore you're gone

Oh hey heaven is the place we know
Heaven is the arms that hold us
Long before we go
Oh hey, heaven is the place we know
Heaven is the arms that hold us
Long before we go

Oh my ghost came by here
Said who do you love the most
Who you gonna sing to 'fore you go

Oh hey heaven is the place we know
Heaven is the arms that hold us
Long before we go
Oh hey, heaven is the place we know
Heaven is the arms that hold us
Long before we go

Oh if you're there
When the world comes to gather me in
Oh if you're there
I will be blessed

All I have been doing this week is drawing pages and pages of ghosts and girls! Still haven't got my character design fixed...

lyrics "I will be blessed" Ben Howard
came up on spotify and it seemed appropriate :)

long lake

Another long lake sketch, trying out coloured line again, opinions?

Long lake work

Finally able to scan these in. I did a lot more ink and watercolour work due to the lack of scanners and the fact that Anna had a table full of batik dyes at the next table-so much fun to paint with!