House Illustration Commission

Another house illustration for a lovely client. They own a cute little cottage in my local area, complete with two cute pups. I found just the right cardigan cuff to use for the corrugated iron.

Pretty in Pink – The Marie-Louise Salon, Enmore Road

The Marie-Louise Salon has been an interest of mine for some time, (call it an obsession if you will), I was so taken with it that I had to draw it for my exhibition 'The sun Sets in the West' in 2010. For as long as I remember, it had been closed, every now and then the little knick-knacks in the window would change or be decorated with scarves and tinsel… I had always wanted to see what it was like inside. 

The shop had recently sold and on Sunday, the new owners had an open invitation to walk through and make an offer on some of the memorabilia that had been hidden behind closed doors for years. Here's a few pics from my visit to the Salon. 

Marie-Louise kept old bottles of Flex conditioner, vintage boxes of blue hair rinse and hair die (ouch) and of course retro hair roller sets. There were a few of the original hair setting chairs left (the rest had been claimed) and the original 1950's pink wash basins were just charming.

I'm very interested in seeing what the salon becomes, but I'm very glad that the famous facade is heritage listed. 

Commission to Draw a Historical House

I haven't published a lot of my house illustration commissions but recently I had the pleasure of completing a commission of a local house of historical significance. It was a District Governors Cottage, built to house gas workers in 1894.

The owner of the house wanted a good representation of the house and it's original features. I've enjoyed drawing the shape of this house, with the decorative brickwork on the facade. With the combination of fabric, lace, water colour and pencil, this was the result.

Doing the Fruit Fandango for Food Fight 2013

This year's Food Fight theme for Sweets Workshop's annual exhibition and publication is 'The Festive Feast'. My festive idea for this is 'The Fruit Fandango', ie. fruit pieces dancing. I used water colour and played with the structure of some water melon piece to create a female figure. What could be more masculine than a hunk of green melon? Huh?

The Fruit Fandango

Sketches, practice runs and fun.