The Princess and The Pea

I love this story so much and years ago of bought the most beautifully illustrated version of it. The version by the talented Lauren Child, whose other works include Pippi Longstocking, Goldilocks, Charlie and Lola and Clarice Bean, I love the details that has gone into building these miniature sets and the paper cutout dolls. 

Check out Lauren's website too... It's beautiful... I especially love the 'about' page even thought it's not even finished... http://www.milkmonitor.com 

Device Reconstructed

A wonderful book has been brought to my attention... Device Reconstructed. The book is full of various artists and their inspirational sculptures. These are some of my favourites... the book is now on my Christmas wish list! 

Olivier Pauwels

Viktor Koen

Tom Haney

Stephane Halleux

Inspiration Morning...

On Sunday I decided instead of a lazy morning in bed, I'd get up and make the most of the beautiful (and slightly spooky) morning mist. So I took my push bike and cycled around Woburn deer park with my camera. These are my favourite shots...

More Inspirational Work

The work of the talented photographer Phillip Toledano from his Hope & Fear series. Check out the rest of his work at www.mrtoledano.com

I'm Not Alone...

I stumbled across the amazing work of Margaux Lange whilst looking on Pintrest (great website) and it would appear that I'm not the only one chopping up Barbie!! Her jewellery is amazing I have totally fallen in love with it... go check out her work at www.margauxlange.com 

Dismembering Barbie...

I decided to try two different approaches to building the doll. Both have wire frames but I made one with limbs from a Barbie doll and the other I built on the wire frame with air drying clay. I felt quite disturbed as I chopped Barbie up with a hack saw!!

Jessica Joslin...

The wonderful inspirational work of sculpture artist Jessica Joslin who will be part of the Wild Life exhibition held at the Stolen Space gallery from 2nd - 23rd Dec. Absolutely love her work, reminds me a little of Svankmajer's bone animals.

Doll Ideas...

One of the reasons I was having trouble getting started was the doll I had in mind to illustrate the story was too stiff to animate... when I realised that if I made a doll myself with fully bending limbs, the ideas really started to flow. These two dolls were great inspiration for my dolls design.

Visual Inspiration...

These are some of the visuals that I found to be very inspiring when coming up with the ideas for some of the scenes in the story.

The Story Begins...

My first entry into my new blog. I wrote the rough outline to the Scarlet Butterflies whilst on the train coming home from London back in Feb 2009. I've always wanted to illustrate it but never felt ready....I'm ready now. I'm at the very early stages, these are the first of my sketchbook entries...