happy halloween!

Hope you're having a spooky day and looking forward to all the tasty treats this evening! Here are some I made earlier...

River Cottage light & easy

I illustrated Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's new cookbook, which is available now, and it's lovely! The recipes are totally amazing, especially when you realise that they're gluten & dairy free. My illustrations throughout the book are drawn in colour pencil, so I could make them feel 'light and easy'... I did some little drawings to add flavour to the page...and some larger ones across whole spreads.I did some drawings around the text...and some for the text to go around.I worked with the whole Bloomsbury team, as well as Hugh, but mostly with the wonderful Lawrence Morton, who art directed the book. There is now a River Cottage youtube channel, where they feature quite a few recipes from this book. Take a look, it's really fun!

River Cottage light & easy is available from River Cottage's amazon page. And of course all good bookstores. Enjoy!

Tokyo

I'm in Tokyo for the 2nd International Mokuhanga Conference, where I'll be giving a presentation as part of our group project wood + paper + box, and also showing some work in the corresponding exhibition. Photo to follow of that next week! In the meantime, here's a tasty picture of our okonomiyaki dinner last night...

PMQ Hong Kong

I'm in HK at the moment, and went to visit the new Maker/Studio/Shopping location PMQ. It's super hip right now, and my toile ceramics are on sale at the TDC shop there.I'm very happy (can you tell?)...

best of Chicago

I did some fun line drawings for the annual 'Best of Chicago' special for Chicago Magazine recently. I really love how they turned out... I did drawings on the headings for each section,and little icons throughout.I especially enjoyed drawing on some of the delicious photography.Hope I get to Chicago again to try some of these places out!

happy birthday me!

I've spent a lovely few days celebrating my birthday: I went to the De Young museum to sketch, and then to the wonderful State Bird Provisions for dinner with friends. OMG it was totally amazing. It was sort of dim sum style, with waiters coming round with selections of tasty little plates. The pancakes with corn & Mt Tam cheese were absolutely to die for! Everyone was casual and friendly and they gave us extra ice cream sandwiches which was a lovely touch. And then today I had a picnic in the local Washington Park in the sunshine... I made cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and everyone brought something to share. My friend made these amazing individual jellies...Another lovely birthday. Thank you everyone!

aloof

I went to the launch party of the new Bonaveri mannequin collection 'Aloof' this weekend, hosted by Blue Studio (a favourite client of mine) in London. The display of the mannequins, the delightful dinner and the utterly gorgeous display of peonies and poppies was truly wonderful. I hope I can work on a window display soon!

happy Easter!

Hope you're enjoying some tasty chocolates this weekend. I saw these in the window of Woodhouse Chocolate in Napa Valley. Such chocolatey goodness!

Tiffany mug on lifestyle blog

My NY Tiffany mugs have been included on the Top 5 High Fashion Designer Coffee Mugs list on luxury lifestyle blog Affluence Avenue. Thanks guys!

slice of pear

This year I'm working on a collaborative mokuhanga project with my friends Yoonmi Nam and Katie Baldwin. We're going to give a presentation and hold an exhibition of the work we produce at the International Mokuhanga Conference in Tokyo in September. It's very exciting! Here's a preparatory sketch for my first piece of work for the project...and a test print of the colours.You can follow the group's progress on our blog woodpaperbox.

pizza cake

We went to a friend's pizza party last week and made these amazing dessert pizza cakes! The bases are sponge cakes, with coloured buttercream for the tomato sauce, white chocolate ganache for the melted cheese, fruit leather pepperoni, hollowed-out liquorice allsort olives, dried pineapple, gummy pepper pieces, and grated white chocolate for the parmesan. We used real pizza boxes from Pizza my Heart et voila!Kind of messes with your mind when you bite into it, but super sweet and tasty!

valentine

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Here's a little bird in love...

Chinese New Year ceramic gift set

Chinese New Year is rapidly approaching, and this pretty new set of my HK toile ceramics might be just what you need to see in the start of the Year of the Horse...I love the little dim sum and egg tarts in the centre of the plates and bowls!All are available direct from faux in HK..

Tiffany & Co. mugs

My Fifth Avenue Tiffany designs have been made into special little versions in Japan, with angled sides. Little and cute works well there! They're available exclusively in Japan, either in store or online.

Hong Kong food guide

I've recently done the cover and inside chapter artwork for the Word of Mouth restaurant guide for Hong Kong and Macau. It's full of amazing reviews and ideas...I worked on the book with Sandy at Lui & Co design company in HK, which is always a pleasure. It's available at most book stores in HK.

christmas treat

Hope everyone is enjoying their holidays. Here's a tasty photo of mine...

Christmas drinks

I drew some festive line decorations around seasonal wine bottles for Waitrose supermarket's free Christmas drinks guide this year.I created a green-on-green patterned wallpaper for the background, so the white lines would pop, and the lovely rich colours of the wine bottles would sparkle.You can pick up the guides in any Waitrose around the UK!

London toile dinner plates

I'm in London, and I've just received some samples of my London toile dinner plates. They're super cute!They're made from fine bone china, blue on white, in a set of 6, and each plate has a different London icon in the centre.I have to say that I have a soft spot for the corgi...They're available to buy online and instore from faux and tree, in HK.

Hong Kong chopsticks

I'm really missing HK this week, so here's a photo I took at my local cha chaan teng when I was there last time, just down the steps from my studio. I love the combo of colours and textures...

River Cottage veg USA

River Cottage veg everyday has been re-printed in the US, and the publishers here have taken the illustrated endpapers I made for the original UK edition, and put them on the front and back covers of the book, with a short dust jacket. I like it. Though I kind of miss Hugh on the cover.Vegetable books are super popular in the States at the moment, and I saw the book in a nice article in a foodie magazine...I was also super chuffed when I saw it in the anthropologie online store...and even more when I saw it in the actual store!It's available on amazon US.