South Africa - Part 3 - Bo Kaap

 

 

Google Cape Town and you will probably see photos of these colourful houses in Bo Kaap, the Malaysian quarter of the city. They are a bit of a tourist hotspot, but quite wonderful nonetheless.

Have a happy weekend.

Public Health

This is a commission that just went to print for Cambridge University's Research Horizons magazine. The issue was on public health, and various aspects relating to it. I had fun drawing all the strange elements, and it was lovely to be able to handle it as a real thing. Exciting!

South Africa - Part 2

 

I miss this place, it was so beautiful. Various shots from Table Mountain, Sutherland, Infanta and points in between.

South Africa - Part 1

 

I got back last week from spending a fortnight in South Africa. To say it was beautiful would be an understatement. We drove from Cape Town through the Western Cape to my auntie's house on the coast, then north through the Karoo to see South Africa's large telescope near Sutherland. After hours and hours on dirt tracks, we drove through some of the most impressive mountain passes, then headed back to Cape Town. More photos soon..

Jacqueline Ayer

I've been talking to a few illustration students this week about the beautiful work of Jacqueline Ayer and thought it would be nice to share some. This is one of my favourite books by her called Nu Dang and His Kite, and was written and illustrated in 1959. I've talked about Jacqueline's work before and have since found out that she trained as a fashion illustrator in Paris, before moving to the far east with her husband. I love her observations of daily life in Thailand, and her use of line with flat colour.

About Town

On Friday I was photographed with my work for the Cambridge University Science Festival. The illustration I did for the brochure has popped up all over town in the last few weeks as posters, and will soon be a huge banner too - how exciting! You can check out the Science Festival's events here, and see more wonderful photos (including all those above) of Cambridge University life on the Flickr stream.

Alphabetty

On my Fridays I try and do some illustration for fun. This alphabet of daily items came about after reading an article about life kerning that had caught my eye before Christmas. 

I quite like it, and enjoyed the challenge of making letters out of everyday things. What do you think? Any letters that work well, or not so well?

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Update:
I've swapped the F for a hairdryer and made the icing and candle on the V cake pink - excellent idea Alex! I hope it reads a bit clearer now...

Pretty stuff

I partook in ill-advised vintage fair shopping today. I scored a lovely 1960s cropped tweed jacket, it's super, but the experience has left me wanting more stuff. So I made a treasury to get it out of my system. Meee wanteeee!

Science Festival

I've been doing some work for Cambridge University's Science Festival brochure 2012. We decided fairly early on that it should nod to the Olympic games, but still needed to be fun and sciency. I went with bright colours and visual puns, and really enjoyed such a fun brief. Plus, beards and moustaches were to be encouraged. Hooray!

Lovely plants

I'm spending today mucking about with freshly painted paper to make jungle plants. It's not for anything in particular but I recently read a great book called To The last City by Colin Thubron about a group of people who travel along the Inca trails in Peru. It contained some lovely descriptions of plants and birds in the cloud forests. I'm just not sure what to do with these yet, any ideas?

Have a great weekend!

Arcades

These were some photos I've had on my computer since Bonfire Night when we went to Southend. I love arcades for the colours and lights. I thought I'd share them as it's so grey and horrid outside today.

In other news, I've been interviewed by the lovely Stephanie Levy for her site Artists Who Blog. I'm a big fan of Stephanie's colourful work and I love that she takes the time to get to know other artists. I hope you enjoy it.

Have a lovely weekend!

Matchbox labels

I bought some matchbox labels and have been having enjoying playing with them. It's fun working out what order the colours were printed. This weekend I also made almond biscotti and a robot costume. Hope you had a good one!