Fiona Meakin Designs - Draw With Fi

This little illustration is especially for new baby Violet! Welcome! This week's Illustration Friday topic has been chosen by yours truly which is very exciting! It's so inspiring to see everyone's responses. You can see more images by visiting my website www.fionaillustrates.com Wishing everyone creative success in 2013.  Keep striving towards your goals. Happy New Year! Illustration Friday

Well, I have been busy making some more monkeys recently and have tried to waste as little of the left over socks as possible. If you use some good quality socks the cuff will have plenty of elastic in, and be quite thick. These make perfect little wrist bands! Bling them up with some buttons or bows and you have some cute sweat bands...

Lucy and I (at Fi&Me HQ) are very excited about our new collaboration with Jeego! We have had some of our whimsical designs animated! Over the last year we have been playing around with puns. Personally, I love this technique to create captions that compliment the illustrations. Sometimes I will come up with the words which create the perfect character in my mind. Other times I will have had a drawing in my sketchbook for ages and by leafing through the pages an idea will pop into my mind for the ideal pun. Our latest e-cards are available on the app to send to friends and family! What I love about Jeego is the range of greetings, there is something for every occasion. Our images are available for licencing for print/pattern etc, and we have now grown quite a big back catalogue, so if you are a print company and like what you see please get in touch! Isn't it cute? :) www.jeego.me Visit Jeego for many more e-cards!

Help! This little elephant didn't invite any mice to the fancy dress party! I thought I would mix the halloween theme with something that I find scary...MICE. They just move so quickly! I can't believe I had a hamster for 3 years when I was younger. Any kind of rodent freaks me out nowadays! I've just done a couple of quick sketches and tidied them up in Photoshop. Enjoy and have a spooky time this evening! Make sure you visit our fi&me blog for some autumn inspiration and pumpkiness x

Here is one of my latest card design commissions! My lovely Grandma asked me to produce a design for my Aunty's birthday... It's always nice to produce something original for a family member, and it also gives me the opportunity to think outside the box and approach a topic I might not have thought of before. I think I will carry on with a gardening theme because I have a feeling these could be popular! Commissions welcome so don't hesitate to get in touch. Whether you want an original illustration or canvas painting I would be happy to discuss ideas with you.

Very excited to show you the second mascot that I designed and painted earlier this year. This is Business Mandeville, at around 2m tall this smart business woman is ready for a busy day at the office, she was designed in order to capture this element of London life. All 84 official Olympic and Paralympic Mascot sculptures are located at points of interest all around the capital including at Olympic and Paralympic locations and are part of the Mayor of London Presents programme of free cultural activities for the 2012 Games. Image courtesy of memorabilia.london2012.com You can read more, and even bid here: London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games Memorabilia Above image by Sam Kesteven Photography Above image by Stephen King Photography Above image by Stephen King Photography All mascots will be auctioned off with profits going to help fight child poverty in London. www.mayorsfundforlondon.co.uk This Mandeville was created for Stroll Discovery Trai

For a couple of weeks earlier on in the year all I could see were pinstripes floating in front of my eyes, I was even dreaming about them and here's why! www.flickr.com/photos/julesfoto City Wenlock is one of two mascots I was commissioned to paint earlier this year. What an honour to be awarded the opportunity to contribute artistically to the Olympic and Paralympic Games! Details of the project are here and if you live in London or happen to be visiting soon you can go on the Mascot Hunt! Follow the link below for more details: www.molpresents.com/stroll City Wenlock is being signed by Mayor of London, Boris Johnson and it is currently being auctioned off for charity. London Olympic memorabilia You can read more here about the Mascot auction by following this link: www.mayorsfundforlondon.org.uk Stephen Fry tweeted about is favourite mascots and some have been photographed with Dizzee Rascal and Rebecca Adlington !  Members of the public people have

Check out the Fi & Me blog to see what our sister Jen is doing for charity! I'm very proud of her... not long now until Thursday! Pardon the pun! www.fiandme.co.uk/blog You can visit some of my past blog posts about hair and how it has inspired me in my fine art practice hairy-tales-images Hairy tales felt workshop Hair project

So, I'm thinking of having a little re-vamp of my blog to focus more in-depth on drawing...and not just my own. Here are some ideas for a new banner and a cute little pencil character. Let's call her Penny for now! Any comments and feedback welcome xx fionaillustrates.com fiandme.co.uk All images are copyright fiona meakin illustrations 2012, all rights reserved.

www.noodoll.com www.noodoll.com It was my birthday back in May and my younger sister Lu bought me an lovely selection of cute things! I really love the vibe and design of Noodoll items! She bought me the phone holder (a moustache bear!) and a little note book complete with case for jotting down and doodling any illustration and book ideas. This morning my lovely mother-in-law Jan popped round with a few items of clothing for my daughter, in amongst the bundle was a really cute T-shirt with an Owl on it...if you don't know, I'm a sucker for anything strigine! (Todays fact: I have only just learnt this word - anything owlish is known as strigine because owls are Strigiformes.Hopefully that will pop up in a pub quiz somewhere soon!) Twit Twoo xx

Lucy very kindly manned the stall at ReddFest  yesterday and despite the rain the wonderful people of Reddish, Greater Manchester, turned out to support this community event. Reddfest supports and promotes people living and/or working in Reddish and businesses or community schemes based there.We always feel very welcome. Our next stall will be at ARC Community Gallery where Fi&Me will have a stall and I will be doing a drawing demo. Eek! Here's a peek at our wares from yesterday afternoon. Vintage inspired jewellery and leather necklaces by Lucy for Fi&Me Cards, toys and accessories by Fi&Me Purses and iPhone covers in vintage material by Lucy Meakin Owls and monkeys designed and made by Fiona Meakin for Fi&Me Selected purses designed and made by Lucy Meakin for Fi&Me Selected greetings designed by Fiona Meakin for Fi&Me

Here is my entry for this year's Sketchbook Project , I completed this little story back in October after choosing the title 'I Remember You.' You should be able to see it very soon at Arthouse Co-op but I don't think it has been digitized yet. The sketchbooks are on the move throughout the USA and will be coming over to London later in the year! I approached this as a story board having had an idea a few years ago so the sketchbook has a definite narrative which is very different from the sketchbook I have just completed for Sketchbook Project,  Limited Edition . Enjoy!         Story and illustrations by Fiona Meakin, copyright 2012. All rights reserved

Latest Greetings Card Commissions I love creating bespoke designs for clients and jumped at the chance I got recently to illustrate cards for a friend's wedding and a colleagues leaving card. I will upload the wedding card when the special day has taken place...don't want to ruin the surprise! Paper greetings cards are so special; enabling us to keep in touch, express our gratitude, our best wishes or just let someone know we are thinking about them. E-cards can be just as touching but nothing beats opening an envelope to find a hand-crafted, scrumptious piece of art work and messages inside. Monday the 30th of April was a busy day for me! I had 4 deadlines for design projects (as well as actually having to physically be at my actual job as a teaching assistant!) I suppose it has given me a really good taste of how life as a self-employed artist could be and that there will be busy periods balanced out by quieter ones. I have also been working on a really exciti

Not that I need to give myself anything else to do BUT doesn't this look good? Along the same lines as Illustration Friday it gives budding and seasoned illustrators alike an artistic workout, as it were, with different weekly topics to exercise those creative minds. These challenges are really good in order to gain valuable experience of working within a time limit and drawing from topics that you may not normally choose. Will I be able to resist?... watercolorwednesdays.blogspot.co.uk/

Recently I got the chance to get one of my designs printed on a T -shirt and here is the result! I'm really pleased with how my 'love birds' design has turned out and the little Fi&Me logo at the bottom adds a cute touch too. I will be making this design into wedding stationery in a variety of colours very soon. I chose the lady-fit scoop neck T-Shirt in sky blue because I used to have a similar T-shirt back in the 90s, and this style reminded me of it. It's really comfortable, although I opted for medium and it's a little tight fitting so a large may have been better - however, with Easter having just gone by I can probably blame the chocolate for that! The site has lots of choice for both men and women in terms of style and colour and the service was really efficient with the finished T arriving a matter of days after I placed my order. I'd definitely use them again. Lu and I are thinking of getting matching T-shirts that we can wear at

I feel like things are finally starting to happen in my little world of art in terms of making more steps to becoming a full-time artist but it has been a long and busy road! For those of you who are aspiring to a career as a self-employed artist, juggling a real job (I'm also a teaching assistant and full-time mum) you will know that it is really hard going at times and you can spread yourself very thinly. Inevitably you have to burn the candle at both ends, you may struggle to get organised, put sketching your latest idea infront of cooking tea (!), perhaps you are devoting more time to your craft than to your family and friends?...Sound familiar? I will be writing more about these issues soon so do check back! Anyone have any thoughts or feelings on this topic? I would love to hear from you so please feel free to comment  Fi x Beware of the 'burnt out creative type' more like!! Ha! www.fiandme.co.uk www.cargocollective.com/fionameakinillustration

This chunky monkey is made from a woolen pair of socks from 1965. Never worn, I might hasten to add!  I recently made this little fella for my other half in memory of his dad.

view my portfolio: coroflot.com/fionameakin

Ami the bear (the backdrop is my new vintage skirt) Ami and C at the park My latest crochet project! Hoping to make some more of my characters into knitted creations very soon! www.fiandme.co.uk Also, here's what I turned the shapes I created that I posted about in 'Too Kyuuto' a couple of weeks ago! Mushroom Birthday card is available at www.fiandme.co.uk

Embroidered purses by Lucy iPhone, iPad and Kindle covers in vintage fabric Monkey and Bear designed by Fi Owl keyrings made with vintage fabric and felt Assorted jewellery and hand painted badges by Lucy Squidgy vintage owls Raspberry coloured monkey...fancy a monkey tour? I'm sure many of you know that as well as being an artist I run a little craft business with my sister and we are called Fi & Me . This weekend saw our return to the craft fair scene after a two month break after Christmas. We got up early on Saturday morning to travel by train to Sheffield to the university SU.  During the journey Lucy was busy sewing buttons on her beautiful new creations - vintage fabric iPhone covers (see photo below), whilst I played with my sock monkeys and took the occasional photo out of the train window. I was extremely excited to be having a day out! As a busy mum to an energetic 3 year old I don't often get this opport