Picture books, paper goods & pretty things.
I was talking to my sister today about how my love of illustration seems to have almost come from nowhere. I started drawing about three years ago to get through a tough time and it's stayed with me as something I use almost as a meditation...
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My new cards arrived yesterday so it was time for another mini photoshoot! I'm becoming quite speedy at taking pictures now as I have more of an idea of how I'd like them to look. Adding products feels like it is really time-consuming when you first start doing it but definitely gets easier. Now I can copy previous product descriptions rather than writing them fully from scratch and I'm also able to use presets for postage costs.
My latest set of cards is all about the feel-good factor so I set up my cards with flowers and my favourite fondant fancies as props (I managed to only eat two). The light was quite gloomy so I used a white background again and then upped the exposure in Photoshop to make it seem as if it was a summer's day! I quite enjoy the methodical process of tweaking the photos and uploading them. The process also gives me a full set of images to use on social media and to promote the products.
The next challenge is to really start focusing on getting my shop *seen* by new buyers. So far my hygge print seems to be what's drawing people in and I hope some of these new cards will also start to catch people's eyes.
I love taking part in various drawing challenges on Twitter and occasionally post a contribution to the #pinchpunchpost hashtag. Each month they name an animal to draw and everyone posts on the 1st of the month. This month the theme was an owl and although I was a little late I couldn't resist taking part. I was feeling particularly inspired by the fact that the little ones are so obsessed with Harry Potter at the moment. So this little owl has a very important delivery to make... And he's feeling a little daunted!
I sketched my owl on a bumpy train journey and sat down to draw him in Photoshop last night. I wanted to try out some Kyle T Webster brushes that I haven't used very much yet to see what I could do with them. I created the animated gif below so that you can see the layers that went into the finished piece. I'm so excited about the possibilities with the brushes. It's like a whole world of texture has opened up to me!
For those who use (or want to use) Kyle's brushes, I used the following to create my little owl.
* Gouache A-Go-Go
* Gouache Less Dry
* My New Favourite Inker
