What Emmeline Wore In October - Day 18

This is a bit of a different outfit illustration for today, as this evening I have my Karate class! I started going to Karate about a month ago as I wanted to feel, well, strong, and try something a bit different. It's Goju Ryu Karate (a hard-soft style from Okinawa) with an extra focus on practical self-defence - the class is mostly men, but it's really inspiring being paired up with an amazing lady black belt that goes to the class! 

I've been really enjoying it, but the only issue I've had is feeling very protective of my wrists and hands as obviously they're muh bread-winners as an illustrator. I think as I continue my practice I might look into gloves, and I'll be strengthening my wrists up as much as possible! 

I've found a lot of the time that people have had vivid preconceptions of what picture book illustrators are like (I've honestly had someone assume I only draw teddy-bears all day... what?), so it's quite fun to breakdown misguided those stereotypes if they crop up! I think now there's such an explosion of amazing children's illustration work out there, things are starting to shift a little and people know that illustrators come from all walks of life (and that's what makes the books so exciting!).

So at the moment for Karate I'm wearing a simple black vest top from Topshop, loungey pants from Primark and a white hoody from Next. I'll update you if I ever accessorize it with a belt ;-)

As always, you can keep up to date with the daily 'What Emmeline Wore In October' illustrations by using the hashtag #wewio on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Instagram, or over on Bloglovin'.