Four things about me

I've been invited to be the next in a long line of bloghoppers and answer the four questions below. I'm not usually drawn to this kind of thing, this blog is mainly about the pictures, but illustrator-extraordinaire Nicky Linzey asked me to, and I like her and her work a lot. Also, I'm going to take the opportunity to tell a bit more about myself because, up until now, I've been pretty anonymous here.

See? Illustrator-extraordinaire! I love this picture. © Nicky Linzey

Why do I write / illustrate what I do?

I've always loved to draw and paint so at 18 I went to study art at UCA and specialised in textile design - I loved it! In my 20s I spent quite a few years in seasonal jobs across Europe (some of the more interesting ones being pear picker, EU helpline operator, campsite receptionist, flight school sales administrator and épicerie manager!) and although I was still drawing when I could, my mind definitely wasn't on future careers. After a summer driving around France, my partner and I drove through the medieval city of Bruges on our way to his family's home in the Netherlands and we've been here ever since. After a lot of work and dust our old house is a bit more comfortable (giving us back our free time :D) and I so want to see if I can make a living by returning to what I love. Four years ago I thought that starting a blog and learning from others through their blogs and other social media would be the best way to start.

This design is based on the history and buildings of Bruges in the style of a medieval woodcut.

Poortersloge (detail). I made this watercolour when we first moved here. It's not a myth about the light being
special in the Low Countries - it's especially beautiful in the autumn.

What am I working on now?

Right now I'm working on inventory for an Etsy shop; it's scary and there's a lot to it but.. see above!

Clockwise: Palace Garden in Indigo - Zipped pouch featuring a Hiroshige woodblock print - textile paint experiments - Migrate in watercolour

How does my work differ from others in the genre?

All my work is based on the natural world. It's a popular subject but I think everyone has different thoughts and feelings, a different take on it. There are so many tiny decisions and lucky accidents made when you're drawing or designing that it's inevitable for the results to be unique.

How does my writing / illustration process work?

I've got a lot of (very messy) sketchbooks with little doodles, drawings, ideas and lists; the biggest limitation is always time! A few years ago I taught myself how to work with vector graphics and found it totally absorbing; it's especially addictive to use the texture fills, they add instant depth and warmth to a design. If I'm not painting or making, I prefer to scan in drawings to use as a base for digital work - I don't think there's any replacement for the kind of marks you get when drawing by hand, no matter how versatile the program. Then I play around with the colours and composition until I'm happy.

Thanks for reading :) If anyone has experience with Etsy or selling online elsewhere, I'd love for you to leave any tips in the comments. Have a good weekend!

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It's the usual thing to pass on these questions to someone else. If you'd like to have a go at answering them and would like to see your link here, email me!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

@forest_and_sea

From Instagram (clockwise):
~ a greeting card in watercolour
~ one of the pencil sketches for the Arabica Cherry pattern
~ block printed cotton
~ autumn leaves in the park
~ Benny's paw (and some Nilofar on denim)
~ working out the repeat for Palace Garden

I've been posting regularly over at Instagram and I've met some amazing people over there! If you're interested, come and say hi - my user name is @forest_and_sea

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Illustration Friday: Wings

Misty mountains for this week's Illustration Friday. To see all the other 'wings' illustrations, have a look over here :)

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

IF: Tree

Flowering Horse Chestnut

See many beautiful tree illustrations here!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Forest Garden

I ordered some proof swatches from spoonflower a while ago - for some reason it takes weeks and weeks for the post to get to Europe from North Carolina but they're finally here. First up in the shop, as requested, Forest Garden!

Forest Garden

This one's based loosely on the deciduous forests of Asia and I've decided to donate 10% of all commission earned on this design to BirdLife International. They work with local charities all over the world preserving bird habitats and thereby improving global biodiversity. Forest Garden is available on 10 different fabrics here!

I hope everyone's enjoying their last little bit of summer in the northern hemisphere. Wouldn't it be great to have a house in both hemispheres so you could have summer all year round?

Forest Garden sample on cotton.

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Semifinals!

You may have already heard that the lovely peeps over at Spoonflower have teamed up with Robert Kaufman Fabrics on their latest contest with a pen & ink / watercolour theme. The judges have been working hard this week on narrowing down over 750 entries to just 100 semifinalists and I was so happy to find out that my design got through!

I would really, really appreciate your vote if you have a minute or two :) Click here!

Forest Garden

11th May:
Thanks to everyone who voted and congratulations to the finalists, whose beautiful winning designs you can see here!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Barn Swallows

Birds of a Feather..

This repeat design of Barn Swallows was adapted digitally from the original Illustration Friday watercolour for the feather contest at Spoonflower. These birds and this colour remind me of the time of year when the night sky doesn't get darker than indigo until after midnight - one of the few pros of northern life!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Ditsy

At Spoonflower this week everyone's designing ditsy prints. I was definitely getting into the spirit of it and being really ditsy.. and indecisive but that's normal :) I did a lot of drawing and painting, toing and froing, and found ditsy prints are quite hard to keep fresh and will happily evolve into your gran's old wallpaper if you don't keep your eye on them.


See?

I decided to simplify the colours and here's what I came up with:

Summer Meadow

Click the details for a bigger image.

Have a look at the other designs and vote for some good ones here!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Taoyuan, Taiwan!

Google Street View is such a great tool but it never occurred to me to paint from it before I found this ingenious contest.

Taoyuan County, Taiwan. Click for larger image.

I came across some amazing views and finally chose this one; it's the Dahan River Valley in Taoyuan County, Taiwan. What cinched it for me was the cloud fall over the mountains (top left) and terraced fields (left bank). The Chinese characters say Taiwan.

Have a look at some amazing entries and leave a comment for your favourites right here!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Java Sea

Illustration Friday: Soaked

Java Sea I

Java Sea II

This inter-island area of the Pacific was flooded at the end of the last ice age and now its warm, shallow waters support an estimated three thousand species of marine life. I'll admit, I often sketch from the telly, mainly nature and travel programs, and these drawings were taken from film of the rich volcanic waters off Krakatau (Globe Trekker on the Travel Channel).

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Illustration Friday: Duet

Monkeys fly on parrots' backs - it's true! OK, I wouldn't believe me either, so have a read about this lazy squirrel monkey and his parrot compadre. I think they make a most excellent duet for Illustration Friday this week!


Lazy Monkey

Click on details for larger image.

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Recultivate

Take two of this entry for Illustration Friday.

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Illustration Friday: Cultivate

Fertile Crescent

According to Wikipedia (I know, I do not hold back when it comes to research :) ) people first began to cultivate plants for food around 10 000 years ago in the fertile crescent.

I included in my painting:
* some patterns from ancient pottery found in the region
* grains, chickpeas (or garbanzo beans to those of you over the pond), flax and papyrus, some of the first crops to be grown
* the pre-cuneiform pictograms for fish, pot, bird, ox and plough (in the sky)

I really enjoyed painting this one, I hope you like it! Head on over to the Illustration Friday website to see what all those talented peeps have been up to this week.

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Equinox

Flowering Horse Chestnut

Springtime for the northern hemisphere: flowers, longer days, sunshine and a new year in many cultures. Love it.

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Illustration Friday: Reverse...

...deforestation.

Click to view larger.

My painting is based on the rainforests of Madagascar, fourth largest island in the world and sometimes referred to as the ‘eighth continent’ for its unique and diverse wildlife. Only an estimated 10% of Madagascar’s original forests remain.

The following links are some brilliant ongoing projects for reforestation around the globe. Have a look!

• Eden Reforestation have planted 10 million trees.
• The WWF are working on reforestation and the restoration of degraded forests.

There are loads more out there and I'll update this list as I find them. Anyone got any favourites?

Added on the 15th February:

• The Plant a Billion Trees campaign is an initiative by The Nature Conservancy to restore Brazil's Atlantic Forest. Long isolated from its more famous cousin the Amazon, the Atlantic Forest is unusual in that it comprises a wide range of forest types and habitats. For this reason it is remarkably biodiverse and supports many highly endangered species.
  The aim of the campaign is to reforest 2.5 million acres and connect more than 12 million acres of existing, fragmented habitat with new forest corridors. One Dollar plants one tree!

Added on the 18th March:

• David Attenborough's recent series on Madagascar featured Feedback Madagascar an organisation working on a number of projects which include the Wild Silk Forest Appeal. They aim to plant 30 000 trees to support the local wild silk industry and so encourage protection of the endemic tapia forest. And for those concerned about animal rights, unlike the cultivated silk industry, the cocoons for wild silk are collected after the moth has emerged.

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Illustration Friday: Dusty



Oasis

Oasis detail: camels and lizards. Click to view larger.

Cool water at the oasis after a hot, dusty journey! Visit the Illustration Friday website to see everyone's hard work this week.

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Illustration Friday!

The Illustration Friday theme this week is Chicken, suggested by ChickenGirl (of course!)

I was reminded of this big chicken:

You can read all about him here.

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Waterlily

The wildlife garden of someone I know. The pond isn’t this big but artistic license is a good thing :)

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Autumn Sunshine

Some of the blogs I read are written by fantastic, committed people who, although hard to believe now, claim they used to be unorganised procrastinators. Being a bit of an unorganised procrastinator myself, who'd like to actually do some of the things I've been dreaming about for a while, this may be just what I need: a place to show my work, ask advice and all the other brilliant things you can do with a blog. So, to dip my toe in the water and get the ball rolling, a picture I painted a while back of the amazing array of colours you get at this frosty time of year:

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware