people

children's murals

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I'm sorting through images for my new website (hopefully launching soon!) and found these photos of several children's room murals I've done over the years. These two were for my neices...This jungle themed room is in a new baby's room in California.This subtle white line painted floral was in Hong Kong, for two lovely girls who shared a room.And this London-themed corridor and bedroom is in a suite of rooms in Mayfair...I love painting these murals, and always happy to take comissions!

mokuhanga exhibition

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Monday to Friday this week I have some prints on show in the CfSHE gallery in Tokyo. It's an exhibition of prints from all the artists who attended the mokuhanga residency in Kawaguchiko this summer.Let me know know if you'd like to meet up there! Date: From 15 to 19 January 2018 Venue: CfSHE Gallery B109, 6-11-14, Soto-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, 1010021 Tokyo Hour: 13.00/17.00 Admission Free

2017年 MI-LAB アドバンス・プログラム参加アーティスト Artists who participated in 2017 MI-LAB Advanced Program

Kathleen(Kaite) Baldwin ケイティ・ボールドウィン (USA) Kate MacDonagh ケイト・マクドナー (Ireland) Mariko Jesse マリコ・ジェシー (UK) Melissa Schulenberg メリッサ・シューレンバーグ　(USA) Natasha Norman ナターシャ・ノーマン (South Africa) Patty Hudak パティ・フダック (USA) An Gee Chan アン・ジー・チャン (Hong Kong) Brenda Petays ブレンダ・ぺテイス (Canada) Fuko Ito フウコ・イトウ (Japan) Jon Lee ジョン・リー (USA) Sarah Hulsey サラ・ハルシー (USA)

You can see more information here.

dog portraits

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While I was in Hong Kong last month, I helped out my friend Alex, who runs Dogalicious, a healthy dog food company, at his stand at the pink dot festival. I offered pet portraits of people's dogs, in exchange for a donation to lap, the animal charity.I'd never tried this before, but most of the owners seemed to be quite happy with the results! Dogs don't stay still, so I had to capture their personalities whilst they wriggled...I did the portraits in watercolour and brushpen, each one in under 10 minutes!There is even a video of the event that you can watch here. Woof!

Hong Kong visit

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I'm in HK at the moment, for various projects, and just took part in the Symposium for Disaster Risk Reduction at the Hong Kong PolyU.Author Martha Keswick and I gave a presentation as part of the campaign for Disaster Risk preparedness, to launch our new childrens picture book series: 'COPE - How to be Ready for Natural Disasters'.It's a series of books featuring a team of kids who travel the world teaching other kids how to handle various natural disasters. The first book is about Earthquakes. We hope to eventually have books that include what to do in hurricanes, wildfires, floods, tsunamis, blizzards and volcanoes.Because of increasing climate change, natural disasters are becoming more prevalent, and it's so important that children know how to deal with them. We are actively looking for partners to help us publish and fund the series. If you know any NGOs who might be interested, please contact us! We have a temporary website here for more info:

www.COPE-natural-disasters.com

If these books can saves lives, I will feel like I've done something worthwhile. Please help if you can!

River Cottage much more veg

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Hugh-Fearnley-Whittingstall's new River Cottage cookbook has just been published, illustrated by yours truly. I debuted a brand new illustration style, to keep the flavour of the illustrations I've done before for River Cottage, but adding a new dimension.I created a painted collage style, a bit reminiscent of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but with thicker paper, so there's a very definate shadow on the pages, to give the impression of depth.I worked with the art directer Lawrence Morton to come up with the theme for this book's illustrations, which is 'the preparation' for cooking. So I focused on the tools and equipment in the kitchen...and also the preparation of the ingredients themselves. For example, how to cut them...and how to select them...This wonderful book is available from Amazon US here and Amazon UK here. It would make an excellent Christmas gift!

London wedding

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My brother-in-law got married this weekend in London, and it was a beautiful day.I sketched as much as I could, and loved seeing how my designs were used on the day. For Luke & Amy's wedding stationery, I started with an illustration of the happy couple on a London bus, with pink flowers in the background, which was used for the Save the Dates. I started them off in casual clothes, and added a simple hand-drawn pink border around the card.I developed this motif and drew a more detailed background for the formal invitation, including important places from their life together and secret elements from the wedding reception, like the ice-cream cart, the bowling pin and neon arrow, to hint at what would be in store on the day. I also put them in more traditional wedding attire.For the welcome reception, before the wedding, I created a simpler version of the illustration, with a celebratory bottle of champagne...

....and then for all of the other stationery, another version with just a few of the details from the full invitation illustration.It was used on the menu

for the wedding lunch, which was delicious, and the table where I sat was full of interesting and beautiful people to draw.There was dancing and cocktails...and an awesome sweet bar: check out the sweet bags! I hadn't seen this, but the bride was given a special dressing gown with the illustration embroidered onto the back. Isn't it amazing!I also made a square-bordered version of the illustration (with an added heart detail) to have printed onto a pillow for the bride and groom as a gift.I have more drawings of the day, but this is my favourite of the bride, my new sister-in-law. Welcome to the family!

HOBBS USA

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HOBBS of London, a boutique fashion brand I've done a bit of work for recently, famously known for being a favourite of Duchess Kate, has just opened their first US store in Greenwich Connecticut. I did several pieces of new artwork for both the store itself and its launch.Some of the artwork I did for the London stores, plus a few new pieces, have been printed and framed inside the elegant new location.I love the way the artwork has been mixed and matched and hung together in different combinations to create a 'collection'. Some has even been framed up for the changing rooms...I also did a detailed map of the area around the new store, full of interesting buildings, a park, and some historic houses......which is now framed up and on display.It looks like a wonderful store, I hope I'll get to visit one day. Thank you to Hobbs for providing these photos.

wood paper box website

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The collaborative printmaking and book arts project I've been working on with my friends Katie Baldwin and Yoonmi Nam has finally got its own website!It chronicles our two complete projects, the titular 'wood paper box', our most recent endeavour 'alabama california kansas', and our brand new project '(un)fold'.There are links to process blogs for each project,where you can read in depth about each artwork, and see photographs of shows we've put together and the meetings we've held. The chapter illustrations are my very own pen drawings, of our work and our portraits. Hope you'll take the time to visit and let us know what you think!

women who draw

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I'm very proud to be a part of the women who draw website, an open directory of female professional freelance illustrators, artists and cartoonists. It was created by a group of women artists in an effort to increase the visibility of female illustrators. You can read all about it here and in this VOGUE article and in this one in the Huffington Post. This is my little lady illustration (recognise her from the Miss joker playing card?) that represents me on the site.ladyShe was even featured on the BBC news website this week, in an interview with the women who set up the site. I hope it will be a huge success. Thank you Wendy and Julia!

Caution May Be Hot

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I made two pieces for this show of paper cup art in San Francisco. The brief was to turn this ordinary object into a work of art, and artists from all over the US were invited to participate.cup-1I tried to create the effect of blue and white china, and used my collection of Chinese ceramics as reference for the design. I made a cup with separate decorated panels first, and then did another based on the famous willow pattern design. It was interesting to work in the round, after working flat for such a long time. https://vimeo.com/192408212

The show was on simultaneously at Long Weekend store in Oakland...cup-show and Fayes in the Mission...cup-show-2Today was the last day to see the show at Long Weekend, but Fayes will still be open to visit this week. Hope you can make it!

HKDI workshop

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I've just got home from my trip to HK, and looking through all the wonderful things I did while I was there. It's especially great thinking about the monoprint workshop I did with the illustration students at the Hong Kong Design Institute.workshop-1It was truly wonderful to see them making a mess and getting really into it. I think they were all happy with the work they  produced.workshopHere are a few pieces of the students' work that I thought worked especially well...student-workI also gave a presentation about my work and being an illustrator. I may have scared them, but hope I put resolve into the ones who are serious!presentation  

Star Trek improv

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I went to watch Phasers on Stun a Star Trek improv group in San Francisco and I absolutely loved it! The actors was so versatile, playing starship crewmembers, aliens, animals, and sometimes even playing two characters on stage at once.uss-golden-gate-clour-copyThis is the crew of the USS Golden Gate, exploring new worlds.star-trek-sketches-copyI sketched throughout the show, trying to capture the strange situations, wonderful conversations and fantastical characters. star-trek-little-copyMy very favourite drawings are these little simplified characters I made of all the actors...startrek-characters-color-copyTry and go and see them if you can, they have more shows this month. Live long and prosper!

Nathan's wedding

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My friend Nathan asked me to create some illustrations for his wedding invitations, and I came up with several ideas for the three different event cards. Each card had a slightly different level of formality, so I tried to accommodate that.invitesI also drew a little vignette of their names for the cards, that could be used on various stationery. I was asked for 'rustic but stylish', as the wedding was in Yosemite National Park, so I thought about the time I'd been there, and concentrated on the sweeping views and sequoia trees. The first event was on the lawn at the Wawona hotel, where I drew the lovely floral arrangements in the glowing early evening light.flowersThe wedding ceremony took place on the lawn of the Ahwahnee hotel, with the glorious mountains as a backdrop, on a perfect summer day.wedding 2As a wedding favour each guest was given a waterbottle with my illustration of Half Dome on, but as a special thank you, Nathan and Strawn gave me a set of glasses as well, and I couldn't resist taking this picture. IMG_8275Congratulations to the happy couple!speech colour