Reading in shadows

Well, a very good afternoon to you dear blog reader.


Just another little post for you today.


Yesterday I finished off another illustration, which, like the last one, was started many months ago and resigned to an unmarked folder buried in my freelance files.  It started off as a digital colour test for a painting I was planning to do, I did start the painting but it just ended up that the digital version was working better.  

Now, I'm all for physical painting; the smell, the mess, I love it. But there's absolutely no denying the convenience of the undo button and the millions of editable layers.
Sometimes, it's just a case of not having the time to dedicate to a full painting, which is a shame - but don't worry, I certainly won't give up on it.  In fact, I bought myself some indian drawing ink and have been experimenting with some dry brush painting recently, I'll show you soon I promise.


So, what do you think of this entiiirely digital painting? My only negative thoughts about it were that it maybe ended up more polished than I had intended, the character in particular *shrug*.  I sort of had it in my head that it would somehow link to the last illustration I posted, as a sort of flashback from the previous woman to her youth (note the similarly coloured cities in the background & intense shadowing). However I haven't really developed this story yet and the styles are slightly different.  I really would like to illustrate a graphic novel at some point though (my mister's a dab hand at writing too), so maybe these will be a good platform.


I've had people say that the girl in this looks like me, and I suppose she does a bit.  It's not unusual for my characters to look like me or people I'm close to though, it's just the subconscious influences from the everyday.  I must say though, I would a b s o l u t e l y love to be there, reading right now.  At least I was, in a way, whilst I was creating this illustration.  Imagination is the best form of escapism.




Keep in touch, say hello!


Emmeline 

Guess what! I have a NEW illustration to show you (it's been so long since I could actually show anything, it's all been secretive book work!) I started this months and months ago but got too busy to complete it - until now! (obviously)

It's good to combine interiors/exteriors, lighting and non-facial emotion into one illustration- they're all areas worth practising!


What do you think?
Leave me a comment, yeah?


Short 'n' sweet.


Bye!

The Flyaway Blanket Gold Award

Exciting news!

My very first published children's book The Flyaway Blanket, which was released in November 2011 (written by Alan Peterkin and published by Magination Press) has received it's very own GOLD AWARD for bedtime stories in the Mom's choice awards for picture books!

See the winners list here!

I'm very excited to be able to say I'm a gold-award winning children's book illustrator now, it's fantastic and very encouraging indeed.  There's always the classic case of as your work gets older you don't like it as much, but getting feedback like this really makes me feel proud of how far I've come in the short time I've been working as a freelance illustrator. 

This news has also come at a time when my family has suffered a great loss, and so it's really lovely to have something we can all feel positive about and proud of come our way.

The Mom’s Choice Awards is an international awards program that recognises organisations and creative individuals who produce high-quality, family-friendly media, products, and services. The Gold award is the highest level of acknowledgment from Mom’s Choice Awards and I feel so proud to have been recognised for this in the children's book section!

If you fancy your own copy in paperback or hardback, you can get them in lots and lots of online shops (Waterstones, WHSmiths, Foyles, Sainsburys etc) as well as from the Magination Press website direct.

Get Well Bella

Last week I drew this to cheer up Bella, Hailey Restuccia’s four year old daughter fighting cancer.  Apparently she loves princesses, fairies and all things pink so it was a good reason for me to delve back into some girly drawing!

Sometimes it’s good to take time out to do something lovely for someone you don’t know.

Today today

Good afternoon peapods.

Today is the last full day to bid to get your mits on a completely one off piece of artwork, limited edition Florence and the Machine 7" vinyl and a slice of history....WHILST raising money for The Teenage Cancer Trust charity and supporting your, er, favourite illustrator called Emmeline?

What on earth are you waiting for?! Get here now.

I'm determined for it to raise at least £40, which was the minimum donation for the record sleeves sold at the exhibition.

Know anyone who might be interested? Jump on them. Pin them down. Direct them to the link.

Or not.

Just...if you could let people know that'd be over-the-moon-and-most-of-space fantastic.

Here's the full link. 

http://bit.ly/Ik5fEX 

Share it.

You're wonderful.

Secret 7" record sleeve exhibition

Hey Guys! As you may have heard, last week I was involved in the Secret7" charity exhibition. 

My Secret7" Record sleeve illustration.

You didn't hear? You don't know what Secret7" is? You don't know what I'm talking about?

Well, Secret7" is a collection of musicians, artists, record-label officionados, charity-doers and generally nice people who have gotten together to raise money for The Teenage Cancer Trust.

See that pink house? That's Alice Potter's work - she's wonderful.

There's my design in the middle!

Seven bands chose seven songs (one each) and artists were asked to create work responding to the tracks to be made into limited edition 7" record sleeve covers for vinyls of the tracks.

The thing is, the identity of the visual artist and the identity of the track were kept secret through the project, exhibition and sale of the records.  It was only when someone had paid for the vinyl that both were revealed! Ooh hoo hoo!

Tuesday the 17th was the private view/opening night for everyone involved and was held in the Idea Generation gallery in Shoreditch. I headed down from Manchester just to go and join in 

the exhibition shenanigans. 

Some really lovely illustrator friends.

Mark and Jamie of Ohh Deer fame.

Although a lot of the artwork entries were through the competition stage of the event, mine was submitted with Ohh Deer - and so I finally met a lot of the lovely, lovely others in the illustration collective and had drinks, and talks, and generally a ton and a half of good times.

Nicholas Darby's cover - Uni buddy, ex-housemate and Ohh Deer artist.

Ben Farrell and Dave Taylor - Talented graphic designer buddies.

The sale of the vinyls turned out to be a roaring success, with over half of them being snapped up within the first day.  It's not surprising really though, there were some blooming fantastic covers (including a few by the likes of David Shrigley!).

HOWEVER! I still don't know if mine did get sold, I'm hoping it did (if you got it let me know!)- but if not it, along with any others that didn't sell during the exhibition - will be put up on the Teenage Cancer Trust ebay later this week and will be sold on there.  It's all about raising the money for charity anyway, so I'll try not to feel too bad if mine didn't sell there!

This man looks quite cheeky doesn't he? What has he done?!

I hope this was, in fact, interesting for you to read.

If it was, and you're at this point in the blog then I have some good and sort of secret news for you - I've almost finished my second children's book, but the publishers have asked me to do another one and there's the likelihood of another one after that! Yippee! It's good to finally feel a little secure and have some work to keep me motivated.

I hope you're all doing well, keep in touch.

Emmeline 

Sneaky looks, words and pictures

Good Afternoon everyone!
I've been a very quiet little lady recently I know - it's been a very busy time indeed.


I've been working on a new children's book 'The New Year Child' with Far Far Away books. It's a great (and slightly odd!) story, very magical and full of stars and space/cloud scenes.  
I finished illustrating all the colour pages a few days ago (pending a few changes) and so now I'm indulging in my first days off in over a month and a half- there's so much time now! I'm mostly using it to climb through the pages of 1Q84 into Murakami's world.


I can't really show you any of the artwork at the moment (except these teasers teehee!), but as soon as I can I will of course! 

It's been good fun and good for my motivation. I spoke to the MD of the publishers today and we've been talking about the likelihood of other book projects shortly - which is great, great news!


We recently moved into a new little flat (as me and Andrew had been living at his parent's house for 10 months!). It's, well, cosy...but we don't need anything bigger at all. We're slowly filling the place with bits and bobs but our bed is still just a mattress on the floor (everyone comments how Japanese style it is!) and I've been working on a tiny fold out metal table for the entire book.  We did finally get a fridge last week, we'd been using a one foot high camping fridge for about a month and a half - there was an awful lot of food tetris that had to be done there.


'Shhhh!' I hear you say, 'I just want to see some drawings!'. Well, if indeed you did say that, here you go...

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Amy Millan from the band Stars (incidentally, one of my favourite bands, go and listen to them) who wanted to commission me to illustrate a painting for her daughter and nephew's first birthday.  I felt absolutely honoured to do it and it was really nice to do a full gouache painting, without a hint of digital- back to my roots!  Amy told me when she saw it she cried because she loved it so much. You can't really get a better response than that can you?
I'm really happy with it and it was a lovely commission to work on. Hurray!


That illustration is also now up on my website, as well as some new downloadable tear-sheets of my work (on the about me page) and a photo of my real life face instead of a drawing.
You can also get 10% off all the pretty postcards and sticker sets in my shop with the code SPRING10 until Friday, so let everyone know about that if you can!


Oh! I recently jumped over the 10,000 views on my blog hurdle - that's amazing, thank you all so much for supporting me.


For now, that's all.  I'll hopefully get back into the swing of other illustration work again soon.  There's some hard and very upsetting things going on with my family at the moment so I'm at least going to take a week off to be with them down in Cornwall.  I'm hoping things will get better and I'll post lots of illustration updates for you soon.


Have a lovely week, okay! x

I M P O R T A N T bad news.

Hi everyone, it's been a while - I've been very, very busy moving into a new flat and working on a new children's book which will be out later this year!


But, important, bad news first...


I found out today that someone's been impersonating me on the website grain edit and writing crude, offensive and potentially reputation-sabotaging comments on articles about people's work.
There's one for almost every article it comes up with on Google for Emmeline Pidgen and grain edit.


I'd like everyone to know that it was DEFINITELY NOT ME writing those comments!


Someone's been using my name and website address to make it look like I'm writing them, but seem to have ignored the fact I'm nothing like that, have better things to do and have a reputation to keep as a children's book illustrator!


It is rather stressful thinking that potential clients, publishers, employers etc might see those search results and think twice about working with me.  I'm hoping that all the positive internet presence I've built up over the years will over shadow it and no one will believe that it's me writing them.


I've contacted grainedit and hopefully they'll be able to do something quickly. I hope they'll make their commenting system a little more secure too...


Please remember I'm nice!


Emmeline x

Viv Schwarz's character design workshop

Hello lovelies! 
Long time, no see.  I hope you're having a good new year so far.
(hmm, what date does the year stop being new?).


Anyway, this afternoon I've given myself a bit of a fun break from Photoshop and emailing clients and I've been following some fun character design idea instructions from the wonderful Viviane Schwarz's blog.


It's a really simple and refreshing way to get a new perspective on character designing and you can end up giving life to characters you didn't know were hiding in your brain. 
Parts of the process were developed by another immensely talented illustrator - Alexis Deacon.


http://vivianeschwarz.blogspot.com/2011/09/character-design-workshop.html


That's the link just above my head.
I won't type the process through step by step, but I'll post the photos of my adventures here for you to see what I've come up with!

Snip, snip, snip, snip.

Switch and swivel and swap.

My three new best friends

Oh dear, sweet, admiral seagull - I never knew you were so sensitive beneath your harsh exterior!

May you fare well on your adventures Sir.

So, yes, I didn't ever really expect to draw a seagull admiral with deceiving appearances and a heart of gold... but that's the beauty of this exercise! 

Go and get out your paper, scissors and pens stat! There's so many new friends to make.

p.s. Take a look at all of Viv's beautiful work http://www.vivianeschwarz.co.uk/

p.p.s I have a hoard of new work to show you soon.

The Flyaway Blanket book giveaway competition!

Hello sweetpeas.
I hope you're well.


I'm  running a competition at the moment to win a signed copy of my new picture book 'The Flyaway Blanket'.


All you have to do is follow this link to my website -> http://www.emmelineillustration.com/competition.html
and click when you find the flyaway blanket to be in the draw!


The winner will be selected randomly at 5pm (GMT) on Tuesday 15th November (The release date of the book).
There's only one copy available to get your mits on so make sure you enter!

The book was written by Alan Peterkin and published by Mangination Press/The American Psychological Association.
It's a sweet story about a child's favourite blanket and includes a 'note to parents'.  Age 4-8 years.


'Pidgen’s cheerful artwork [in The Flyaway Blanket] is reassuring, with a bright palette, loose, sweeping lines, and plenty of attention on mother-child tenderness, human and animal alike.' - Publishers Weekly '11


I will also be adding in a mini-competition later in the week so keep checking in!


-Emmeline x


Please note: You must be following me on Twitter to be eligible to win.  The one winner will receive the handsigned paperback edition of the book. Only one entry per person. Shipping is available worldwide.

Bringing back some atmosphere.

Good Afternoon chaps!


Recently, with a slab of spare time on my hands, I've been working on personal portfolio work and delving back into the world of atmospheric work with deep, rich, yummy colours.


I've always loved working like this, but recently all my commissions have been for cheerful, bright illustrations and unfortunately I've ended up having to veer away from this other side of my work.
Don't get me wrong, I love working in vivid colours with cute characters - but I never want to be penned in to one style.


Anyway, since Halloween was on the horizon, I decided to roll with the theme and created this pretty witchy girl and her cat.

 This piece, unusually for me, is entirely digital.  I didn't really plan it, there wasn't even a preliminary sketch...it just...happened.  But I must say I'm really pleased with it.


It was featured on these blogs/websites on Halloween-

Illustration Rally Amelia's Magazine Creature Magazine 

and it's also available as a print on Society6 (which has free shipping 'till Sunday) http://society6.com/emmelinedraws/Witching-hour_Print


Next up!
An illustration that I've literally just finished.  Again, it's super-atmospheric with deliciously deep colours.
I wanted to illustrate something with a hint of romance and magic, as well as interaction and connection between characters.

And finally, not very atmospheric...but for a good cause none the less.

This illustration is for the Think Act Vote anthology, a book based on the futures people of the country are hoping for.  The book, which will be published next year, is going to be presented to the prime minister and other political big shots!

The future I illustrated was written by Lucy Shea.

I've also been emailed by the lovely Sombras Blancas about me and my work.  The interview's even been translated into Spanish!

Have a read here

Hope you're all well! Drop me an email if you fancy a chat or want some work done hello@emmelineillustration.com

Manchester and Salford Illustrated

Hello everyone!

I had a busy and brave few days last week!

Last Thursday (the twenty-seventh day of October to be exact) I was involved in the Manchester and Salford Illustrated / Wood Street Mission charity exhibition.  

http://www.manchesterandsalfordillustrated.co.uk/         http://www.friendsofwoodst.com/

The main premise of the exhibition was for illustrators to create a piece based on the phrase 'What does Manchester mean to you?'. 

I, sadly, missed the deadline for this but good old Jez from Riot Clean Up Manchester phoned them up and asked if they'd like one of the Riot Clean Up screen prints that didn't sell in my previous charity auction. (More info on that here)

They, kindly, said yes and the print was put up in the exhibition as a slightly aside thing, but with all the money raised from the sale of it going to Wood Street Mission charity.  

There were pieces of work in the MASI exhibition was incredibly gorgeous like this print below by Robert Shadbolt.

Some of the prints had fantastic stories behind them, in particular Emma Reynold's piece which was inspired by a busker she met in Burger King writing what she thought was a letter.  She offered him a stamp and he told her that infact he was writing a sci-fi novel!

There were lots of lovely people milling around, a ton of sparkly cupcakes and many glasses of wine!

Towards the end of the evening one of the organisers Steve, made a speech about my print and the reasoning behind it, which made me rather bashful, but hey - I managed to speak loud enough when I was asked questions about it with everyone listening!

Straight after the speech the print was sold for a respectable £50, adding to the £2000 raised for Wood Street Mission that night.  Apparently there'd been a lot of interest in it throughout the night!

The lovely lady who bought the print came up to me after the speech and asked me more about the print and it's back-story.  She was thrilled to have got it as it was the last one available.  She said 'We came in and as soon as I saw it I knew that was the one I wanted' (vague quote).

It was really flattering and it's fantastic that the print could go on and help out another Manchester based charity aside from the roughly £1k we raised for Leap Confronting Conflict and Reclaim Project Manchester with the original screenprint auction.

The exhibition's on from the 27th of October - 10th November so if you're in Manchester pop down to 52 Princess Street and have a nosey.

In other news...

Last Tuesday I went to the first Draw North West illustrators meet up event in Manchester organised by @thatmadden .

I didn't know anyone there (well, a few people through twitter but not real life) so I felt very brave biting the biscuit like that and meeting everyone.

It was fantastic to meet lots of very lovely and very talented illustrators, a few of which were in the MASI exhibition too!

If you're in the North West I highly recommend you come along next month :-)

That's all for now peas.

Emmeline x