Skip to main content

My Five Favourite Blogs #BEDM Day 4

Today's challenge is to write about my five favourite blogs. Each blog provides something slightly different along the lines of illustration, the first two I mention, Lynne Chapman's and Holli Conger's are the staple blogs I always refer to. A good blog should obviously resonate with your interests. My favourites offer that glimmer of hope that becoming an illustrator (with a lot of hard work and determination, and obviously very good work) IS possible.

Never Give Up on Your Dreams!



An Illustrator's Life For Me

I began following Lynne Chapman's blog after she visited our local library during a summer festival that our town holds. Lynne's passion and enthusiasm for illustrating, sketching, sketch crawling and anything creative is completely infectious. She visits a lot of schools and library and talks animatedly and entertainingly about her work. She even drew a Koala character in front of the children's very eyes which astonished them! She is a testament to how much hard work you have to put in if you want to make it as an illustrator or author, she never seems to stop – even sketching on train journeys across the country with very beautiful results. The way she captures character is extraordinary.

Holli Conger

Finding Holli Conger's blog was a revelation for me and marked the beginning of my journey.
Here is someone who is living the dream! Holli's wonderful work extends into licensing, character design, typography and I find her style really appealing. She also talks really honestly about taking that step from a regular day job into the scary world of freelancing; in fact she documented a whole year of her life when she made that decision which you can see here.

The Owl Club

Now, I lurve a good owl! In fact I am currently designing an owl puppet for a new children's theatre production. This opportunity arose from making my small squidgy owls so it just shows you where crafting can lead you.
The Owl Club is aptly dedicated to all things owl so bob over if like me you're into anything ornithological!

Twit Twoo!

Illustrated Jam -Jam Grantham Illustration

Ooh, I kind of came across Jam Grantham's blog by accident but I'm really glad I did. I think I blogged about making some damson jam and how I planned to give it away as gifts, thinking that a nice addition would be to illustrate labels or lids for said jam. Anyway, I must have Google 'Illustrated Jam,' and Jam's blog page is exactly what I found! Jam has an incredibly friendly style, absolutely perfect for illustrating children's books. I particularly like his Monster and Me illustration. I definitely recommend checking his work out.

Water Colour Wednesdays

If you like a challenge (and if you're here from BEDM you probably do!) you will like this concept. I found it through Illustration Friday and although I haven't submitted to WW yet, I really like seeing what everyone comes up with each week.


So, these are my top 5 blogs! I'd like to say a big thank you to them all for providing such entertainment and inspiration.



Comments

Unknown said…
I only just caught up with this post (new baby disorganisation!) - thanks for featuring my blog! Your owl puppet project sounds awesome, I'll look forward to checking it out! Suki x

Popular posts from this blog

Arc Community Gallery - Reddish

Congratulations to ARC who have won the 'Life-changing' category at the 'Proud of Stockport' Citizen Awards 2012! Anyone who has visited an event or taken part in a class will certainly know this is a well deserved award. ARC is nestled in the heart of Reddish's community and is so important to the people who attend. Can you see my owls debuting in the top right hand square? Exciting! If you're looking for an beautiful gift as an altenative to the high street (without the queues and crowds) why not visit the gallery shop?

Pencil Themed Blog Design

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.

Illustration Friday - Safari

This little giraffe is a sketch for a character idea, from a story I'm working on, and this week's topic (IF) has kick started this project again for me. I like to do rough drawings and block-colour them in photoshop to give me an idea of how to develop the picture further. For me, this is an efficient way of sketching on the computer if I want to get ideas down quickly.