Friday 29 January 2016

National Breakfast Week

In honour of #NationalBreakfastWeek this week (24th-30th January), here are some breakfast-y drawings. All of these are from my Drawing a Day books. 

First up, an oldie... boiled egg and soldiers

www.AliceDrawsTheLine.co.uk :: Boiled egg and Soldiers

And next we have another favourite drawing (and breakfast), Pain au Chocolate (I know two is very greedy, but they are fairly small...)

www.AliceDrawsTheLine.co.uk :: Pain au Chocolate


And lastly, the drawing I did on Tuesday to celebrate #AustraliaDay, some Vegemite, delicious on toast for breakfast (or any time!).

www.AliceDrawsTheLine.co.uk :: Vegemite

Monday 25 January 2016

Burns Night

It seemed only right that today I should choose words by Robert Burns for some hand lettering. Here is the song 'One Night As I Did Wander'...

www.AliceDrawsTheLine.co.uk :: Robert Burns

And yes, it was the tree that sold this one to me!

...and should you want the standard English translation (not nearly so prettily written!) it's

One night as I did wander,
When corn begins to shoot,
I sat me down to ponder
Upon an old tree-root:
Old (river) Ayr ran by before me,
And hastened to the seas;
A wild pigeon cooed over me,
That echoed through the trees.


According to this website.

Sunday 24 January 2016

Joining the dots

I can vividly remember sitting in the careers room at school, being asked what job I'd like when I was older. I wasn't sure. I was told to have a look at the helpful A-Z of Careers poster on the wall above the desk and say which ones appealed...
www.AliceDrawsTheLine.co.uk :: A-Z of Careers

I looked through them all and read out three that interested me. The careers man asked me to go away and have another think.

After A'Levels I did an Art Foundation course, I loved Art and it gave me some thinking time before making a career commitment in the guise of a University course. At the end of this great year my tutor decided I was destined for Mixed Media Illustration... I decided Education was where I was heading, and that I'd keep Art as a hobby (although I was very tempted by a degree in Calligraphy, my favourite wild card at the time).
I'm now 11 years into my career in Education, more specifically working with children, young people and adults in woods through Forest School. I love it. Being outside is part of me. It doesn't feel quite right if I haven't had my daily dose of fresh air. Checking in on what is happening outside, where we are in the year, what is growing, blossoming, coming into leaf or going over. 

www.AliceDrawsTheLine.co.uk :: Hawthorn Drawing A Day

Illustration has remained a hobby throughout. I have done a Drawing a Day for several years now as regular blog readers will be all too familiar with! Now however, with a change in my hours at work, I've decided to see where the illustration can go. 
So, I'm going to join the dots and combine the two... here goes!

www.AliceDrawsTheLine.co.uk :: Larch card

And finally... I'm braving the world of Facebook, do 'like' my page 




Wednesday 20 January 2016

On your marks, get set... MAKE!

I had a wonderful long weekend with one of my best friends and chief motivator- Louise of  Louise Mary Designs ... a talented Jeweller and Silversmith based in South Derbyshire.

We spent a lovely long time in her fab studio (that she runs Jewellery making workshops in, which is the best fun!). We were both busy making, she in beautiful silver and gold and I with pen and ink. Often we were both silent and engrossed, but so nice to have each other's company. 

Louise has taken some fantastic product photos for me that you can see in my shop!

It seemed only right that I should do one of my Drawing A Day sketches of her hard at work at her desk, from sitting at mine! 
www.AliceDrawsTheLine.co.uk :: Louise Mary Designs
Louise Mary Designs working on her beautiful Love Grows collection


Saturday 16 January 2016

A Shop!

Very exciting times here! I have opened an Etsy shop, and designed a new range of hand drawn greetings cards. 

Each card is hand drawn using my dip pen and watercolours. This design can be personalised to include a name of your choice, in a colour of your choosing too.


www.AliceDrawsTheLine.co.uk :: Personalised Happy Birthday


There is also Thank You, Hip Hip Hooray! and Happy Birthday! or... all three in a collection!  

Friday 8 January 2016

Hand Lettering

I've been really enjoying working with my dip pen recently, particularly when doing all the addresses on my Christmas cards.  This is something I'm developing this year... watch this space!
I'm catching up on radio programmes while I draw and write at the moment. I love this quote which Dermot O'Leary said to describe Guy Garvey during an interview before Christmas.

Friday 1 January 2016

Happy New Year!

The drawing a day will continue! I missed two days in 2015 and filled 4 sketchbooks which I'm looking forward to looking through again as a reminder of what I did last year, where I went and who I saw.

Here is a little bit of New Year fun (link below) from one of my Christmas card designs from this year. Next year there will be cards for sale so do watch this space!

Happy New Year!