Autumn

Hello lovelies.
I'm feeling a bit blue today but I wanted to come and say hello anyway.


Yesterday I finished off a lovely paper doll illustration for PetalPetal/VintageChildModern, a handmade clothing  company for children.  The game will be shipped out with each order so the children can play!
Brianne from VCM absolutely loved the illustration, saying that me illustrating her designs somehow fulfilled her childhood dream of illustrating her stories - naw.


You should take a minute to go and look at the gorgeous clothes on the website - they really make me wish I could fit into them! http://www.vintagechildmodern.com 

I've not had very much work on recently, which although it's hard on the pennies, it does mean I have some time to work on children's book idea's of my own.  I've started a top secret project of a children's book teehee :-) I've written the manuscript, storyboarded, character designed and started a dummy book - so it is all coming together and I'm quite excited.  Here's a sneak peek of some of the main characters-

I'm sure you all know about my chidlren's book 'The Flyaway Blanket' coming out in less than a month now (15th November) but, did you know that it was given a good review in Publishers Weekly?!

Here's what they said about me and my artwork - 

 'Pidgen’s cheerful artwork is reassuring, with a bright palette, loose, sweeping lines, and plenty of attention on mother-child tenderness, human and animal alike.'

A fantastic testimonial hehe! I'm still incredibly nervous about the book going out though.

Did you see my new website? I spent so many days and nights trying to work out how to code it all, and of course everything went wrong, then got fixed, then went wrong, then got fixed.
It's all much simpler for me to update now, which is good as the old way was such a pain that I wouldn't add new work to my online portfolio for months at a time! 
D'you like it? I'm rather proud that I managed to do it all myself :-) http://www.emmelineillustration.com


In other news, I recently ran a competition on Twitter to win one of my new prints - which the lovely @Mellybeeblog won for her collection.  I also won a Twitter competition ran by YouMeTheRoyalWe and will soon be the proud owner of a gooorgeous (signed) world map by Oliver Jeffers! Hurray!

You can buy my newest print (and my sticker sets) in my shop! http://www.emmelineillustration.bigcartel.com

Have a really good rest of your day, and don't forget to come and say hello.
Your friend, Emmeline x

A new wave of inspiration.

Good Morning sweetpeas and dandelions! 

I hope you're all enjoying our imminent lull into Autumn.

You might have noticed I've had a bit of a switcheroo with the blog with a new title and more open lay out. 

 I think maybe I was a little inspired by Blogger's overhaul and fancied a change myself!

With all the commotion of the print auction now over (official amount we've raised to be announced, it's a good old pile though!) and a trip down to the rugged Cornwall coastline to be with my family; I've been getting back into some intense illustrating.

This lovely lady is Chang'e who I was inspired to draw by The Chinese Moon Festival (or Mid-Autumn Festival) at the start of this week.  The legend of Chang'e and the Moon is quite a sad tale as most legends always seem to be. 

The legend goes that Chang'e was married to the courageous Hou Yi who, amongst other things, saved the world by shooting down (with his perfect archery skills) nine of the ten suns around the earth.  The Queen Mother of the West gave him an elixir of immortality as a reward for his heroic undertaking but warned him not to drink it without preparing with a prayer and fasting for a year. 

Whilst Hou Yi was out one day doing something adventurous his sneaky apprentice Peng Meng found out about the elixir and forced Chang'e to give it to him.  Knowing she could not defeat Peng Meng, Chang'e swallowed the elixir and suddenly felt herself floating up to the moon.

With deep love to her husband, Chang'e chose to be an immortal on the moon, closest to the earth; so she could see her husband every day.

Obviously everyone was very upset about this, but word spread and people put out offerings of her favourite food for Chang'e on tables under the night sky, to pray for her good fortune and safety.

This has become one of my favourite illustrations of late,  I love drawing mystical mountains and lovely, slightly melancholic ladies.

On a more cheerful note!

A few days ago it was Roald Dahl day!  I know the majority of us will have spent countless hours in our childhood (and beyond!) making friends and being scared by the dynamic and captivating characters he created.

There's nothing like one of his worlds.

So in honour of him, I created this illustration based on one of his quotes:

 'Those who don't believe in magic will never find it'

I like to imagine this little girl is the sister of the 'Tales of Adventure' boy.  

I've been in a very magical mood recently as I've been reading The Hobbit! After spending four days in Middle Earth I feel ready for an adventure.  I have an appointment next Tuesday to go and fight a dragon, so remind me to skip on the hairspray that morning.

Now go! Go and have a beautiful day in whatever part of the world you're in.

Emmeline x

Foxgloves and running out of time

There's only one day left of bidding on the charity auction now!


You can still get your mits on one of these yummy looking limited edition screenprints and be helping out a good cause at the same time!  BID HERE!

Thank you so much to everyone who's bid and helped promote the auction so far, you're all brilliant and if I could I'd send you all presents. Yup.


In new news! 


I drew a pretty fox wearing foxgloves for socks after the Laura Ashley twitter posted a tweet saying about an old folks tale as to why foxgloves are named as such is because foxes used to slip them on their feet so they could sneak around silently.  Naughty foxies.


But a very inspiring tale indeed.


This has turned out to be one of my favourite illustrations I've done in a while, and it's up on Society 6 as a print now too if you like it as much as me! http://society6.com/emmelinedraws/The-fox-loves-his-foxglove-socks_Print

I'll have a very tasty (actually tasty looking enough to make you hungry) illustration up and a floral bag design I've done for Serco to show you soon! :-)

Noticed how everything I've illustrated recently is orange and pink? Interesting.

I'm sleepy now! 

Goodnight blogreading lovelies.

Remember to bid ;-)

Riot Clean Up illustration auction. Prints and Press.

Hi!


How are you? Haven't spoken to you in ages.


Yeah I'm okay too, I only just dragged myself out of bed though so I'm a little bit of a sleepyhead.


Yeah, classic Monday feeling.


Oh really? That's great.


I've got some cool news too.


Yeah!




Well...


In short.
I illustrated a poster responding to the riot clean up efforts, it got jaw-droppingly successful on Twitter, I contacted RiotCleanUpManc and suggested we get the illustration printed up and auctioned for charities.  


This happened.
Now 75 beautiful A2 screen-prints of the illustration have been printed by Savwo (50 auctioned, 25 donated to people that have helped out with the riot clean up)  the money for the screenprints donated by Pop, Bubble, Rock, Jez Myers from RiotCleanUpManchester has done lots of press and organising, and 100% of the money raised from the auction ( on now! ) will be going to Reclaim and Leap Confronting Conflict young people's charities.


Hurray!

Copyright Emmeline Pidgen 2011

In long:

Like many I was shocked to see the scenes of violence and rioting on the streets that dominated our media. But in the midst of the destruction what stood out to me were images of local communities of all ages and backgrounds working together to restore their neighbourhoods. It showed real strength of purpose and hope for a better future.

I felt inspired by the positive attitude of the riot clean ups and tried to capture these feelings as a personal expression through illustration. I posted the artwork on Twitter to share it with my followers and friends, receiving an overwhelming response of over 19,000 views in two days.

As a result of the interest, I got in touch with Riot Clean Up Manchester. I suggested the idea that the illustration could be made into prints to be auctioned in support of the community and charities. They were extremely encouraging and so far we've had fantastic support with a number of local businesses donating their time, money and goods to get things going with the printing.

I felt it was important the money raised from the sale of the posters should go to young people's charities.

Leap Confronting Conflict are a fantastic charity working with young people nationwide to aid understanding of the causes and consequences of youth conflict; whilst sharing skills in handling and transforming it, preventing escalation into violence.

I hope the poster can help spread that feeling of positivity, encouragement, hope and community spirit that can be applicable not only to the riot clean up, but globally.

Photo by Christopher Bethell

So far there's been a lot of press about the auction/illustration (some of them here) 

Manchester Confidential - http://tinyurl.com/3sb3fo9
The Mirror- http://tinyurl.com/3ez5vrr
Manchester City Council- http://tinyurl.com/3gkyo4p

I've even appeared on the radio (Allfm) on Saturday to talk about it (bit the bullet and buried my shyness for that one!).

I really hope people dig deep to support this and we raise a lot of money for the charities.

You can bid here! 

http://tinyurl.com/rcuprintauction

Spread the word!

BIG NEWS!

Freshly served up for your eye palletes today - the first look at the fully printed children's book I've illustrated! 'The Flyaway Blanket' is officially published on 15th November 2011, by Magination Press - part of the American Psychological Association.

It was quite a long, bumpy road for a first picture book commission - but I think it looks great.

There's always that feeling of 'ohh it doesn't look as good as the real thing!' but I'll have to put those perfectionistic feelings away in a drawer somewhere and accept that printed illustrations never look exactly the same....still looks great though!

You can pre-order it now from the Magination Press website http://tinyurl.com/3jqs522 or Amazon http://tinyurl.com/3k9wlkc (softcover or hardcover)


Hurray!


In other news!


I hurt my wrist from going a bit over the top with work - hours and hours of using a wacom tablet/ drawing/ painting is not good for little wrists.  I took a few days off and enjoyed the sunshine, forests and cities - saw the new Ghibli film Arrietty at the cinema - it was so beautiful, it's a shame the english dub was a bit annoying!  I usually opt for the subtitled version but there was no choice in the matter this time.


Since my wrist's been feeling better I've been working hard on character designs.  Partly for fun, partly to show off the different expressions and poses of characters I can draw, and partly for a brand new children's book I'm writing and illustrating!

I've also been working on some drawings of a feisty warrior lady - but they're not quite ready to show you yet!

I hope you're all having a great start to the week.

Don't be shy, let me know what you think of my work :-)

Kids having fun and being grumpy

This is the first of many character design sheets I'm working on.  Lots of dynamic, emotion-full children.

Let me know who you (or your kids!) like the best and who you'd like to see in a story!

In other news, I'm working on a new book! It's about a cat called Jasper and what a giant beast he is.

Let's make some little boxes!

Howdy partners! This blog post is a little different from my other recent ones, I'm going to show you how to make some lovely little paper boxes out of old greetings cards! 

Come closer dear student and I'll show you the way.

These are the sort of things you'll need (look below) - A square greetings card (OR one cut to square shape!), some scissors - and, if you want to be a lot more precise than I've been a ruler and pencil can come in handy. Coloured scarf surface optional.

Step 1! 

Snip snip snip the cards in half, put the back pieces to one side for now, they can have a little snooze in the sun while we pay attention to the front pieces. 

Step 2!

Fold each of the front pieces in half diagonally.  Looks like a tasty card sandwich now.

Step 3! 

Open the pieces back out and repeat step two the other way so that you end up with a cross shaped fold in the middle of each piece.

Step 4!

Now, look at that supercool folded line that's now down the middle of the card - well, the parallel corners really like hanging out with that line - so fold them inwards to touch it.

Step 5!

Fold the sides of the card inwards so that the outer parallel edges touches the middle fold line too.

Unfold! Unfold! Unfold!

Step 6!

Turn the card around and repeat the previous steps with the unfolded sides going in to touch the other middle line.

Step 7!

Remember this? Yeah of course you do, you're great. Fold the outer edges in to snuggle next to the middle fold line.

Unfold! Unfold! Unfold!

You should have a grid-like pattern of creases now - yeah? Cool.

Okay time for a cup of tea or some other delicious beverage. 

Step 8!

Right, have a look at that grid pattern - can you make out the smallest square shape?

Well grab yo' scissors and cut vertically along folded lines to each corner of that square - four cuts.  (if it's easier use your pencil and ruler to draw out the lines and square shape :-) )

Step 9!

Fold along the outer crease on both of the triangle sections and meet the corners at the middle fold line (similar to a step before, but now you have the cut parts)

Step 10! 

Fold up the two sides to make 'walls' (the soon to be sides of your box top!)

Step 11!

Bend in the side tabs that have been created (don't worry if they don't stay in place very well!)

Step 12!

Grab the wings of the box and fold them up and over the tabs - pushing the triangle parts in to form the bottom and inside wall of the box.

Waheey! You have one damn fine lookin' box lid right there. Give yourself some pats on the backs.

Step 13!

Grab your snoozing card backs and repeat all the steps up until now.  It helps to make the folds a little bit tighter than the lid to make sure it fits together well.

HEY EVERYONE! LOOK! LOOK WHAT AMAZING BOXES THIS GUY'S JUST MADE!

That's what they're all shouting! They love you! You truly are the king of paper boxes - well done, well done indeed.  You have learnt well young grasshopper, go now and make paper boxes - for it is your destiny.

Tip: Obviously the bigger the card you use, the bigger the box.  If you have some huge sheets of card around you can try using that to make a hat box, cake box, or mouse house.  Using average sized greetings cards make a box around 5cm square - a good size to hold your trinkets or a nice bed for your tiny porcelain cat.

Emmeline Pidgen - Over and out.

Shoreditch Festival t-shirt competition

Hey guys, I entered a competition on AllTropical.com yesterday to design a tshirt for the Shoreditch Festival '11 - combining the themes of Shoreditch, heritage, the waterways, Regent's Canal, music etc (using only two colours!)

Here's my designio - 

If you have the time and really like me, have yourself a little voting session and vote/comment/RT/reblog/like/whatever me and my design and then come round for a cup of tea - okay?

http://www.alltropical.co.uk/live_html/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=785:rate-qshoreditch-festivalq&catid=6:latest-designs-for-vote&Itemid=34

In other news, I've collected rain water in an old ice cream tub to feed my little Bonsai tree Nagano.

Books and songs and dads and trapezes.

Hello!

HOOORRAAAYYY!
After many days of twelve hour painting shifts, and months of drawing and planning - the children's book The Flyaway Blanket is done!
'Where are the pictures?' I hear you wail, well, hold your horses, sheep and other farm animals...I can't show you the artwork just yet (it's not released until November...) but I thought I'd share the good news with you anyway.

You can already pre-order it on Amazon!

Magination Press publishers have been lovely to work with, and I'm proud that this book is such an important one to them and to the author.

In other great news, one of my illustrations 'Tales of Adventure' (below) has become the album cover for Takahiro Kido's new album 'Fairytale' which is released on July 20th.

A couple of my other illustrations will be on the inside of the cd too.

Takahiro Kido is a truly brilliant musician from Japan and it's an honour for my work to be the visual representation of what is sure to be a beautiful collection of music.  You can hear samples of the album at the Ricco Label website here - http://www.fleursy.com/riccolabel/discography/ric-012/index.html

Over the past few days I've been asked by my not-so-secret agents Advocate to design a few fathers day/male themed greetings cards, which will hopefully be licensed to a greetings card company in the near future.

I've been trying to draw a bit more dynamically recently (practice makes perfect!) and so hopefully it's showing through a bit in my latest work! 

I spent a whole evening quick-sketching trapeze artists and contortionists, trying to improve the sense of weight and tension in my drawings.

Here's a couple of them, I'll keep practising!

Well, I'm going on holiday to Wales for a week tomorrow - to stay in a holiday house with a TOWER! By the sea too.  So that'll be a good opportunity for me to get away from technology and stress for a while and climb some mountains and read some books.

Speaking of books....'Mockingbird' by Walter Tevis is one of the best books I've ever read - I finished it today and phewioewie...it was brilliant.  Hunt it down, devour it's words.

Night night! Come and say hello to me soon okay? x

Winning and news and drawings and letterboxes and dinosaurs

Good Morning my internet friends! 
I hope you're having a good day so far.


Yesterday I got very excited because finally my silliness paid off with something (-air punch-)
Creative Review were doing a little competition on Twitter for people to write a '#blameitonsomeoneelse' excuse as to why they hadn't entered the CR illustration Annual.
I, other than admitting that I actually couldn't afford the entry fee, said this:


'Well..here's how it is. I was about to enter..when a large white cat, Jeff Goldblum and a tiny wooden horse barged in and demanded I play hide and seek with them. Jeff was really bad at finding us, so I was hiding at the back of the mouldy cupboard for 3 and a bit days and totally missed the entering.'


and I won! Hurray! 
This meant that I got free entry into the competition to be in the illustration annual.
I entered my snowy illustration with the boy and the girl hugging (one of the ones I'm most proud of) so here's hoping I'll get in! :-)


I also hit the 1000 follower mark on Twitter, which was a very nice (and weird) feeling! I gave away some cool prizes.


I've done a couple of quick, pretty illustrations recently.  I've been having fun with my new brush pen and working with Photoshop on them :-)
They're both available on Society6 as prints, iphone covers blah blah blah.

Hmmmrfph, I just caught the postman trying to jam something really important through the letterbox - luckily it's all okay.  Phew. 

I'm still working on the children's book, I've had a bit of confusion with extreme changes I've been asked to make and such, but it's all more or less back on track now.  

Anyway, come and say hello to me somewhere on the internet.  OR come round for a cup of tea. 

 It's lonely here with just my pencil, laptop and some wooden dinosaurs for company.

Byebye