This little fellow is a fox character created for the covers of Oxford University Press' Math Plus primary school workbooks. The original brief was for groovy aliens but changed to a clever inquiring fox detective as the authors were not keen to associate learning maths with being an alien.

I've posted an alien illustration using the characters I had in mind at the time and used in this little tickle the piggy illustration. It has the aliens bringing 'self-awareness' to the little porker with just a touch.

Redheads are Cats

I have been putting together images this week for Oxford University Press. I've done quite a number of images for their Maths Plus primary mathematics workbooks over the last couple of years.

These images started out as flat characters to supplement the text or explain concepts. I've taken a couple of the characters and gave them a bit of dimension and an entirely different context and environment for them to live in.

Coffeetime

This image is a combination of two. I was commissioned to create a logo and avatar images for a chatroom site called Coffeetime. The logo appears here along with a sample I created for the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority for a promotion to bring more lunchtime officeworkers into the Rocks area of Sydney. Photography was the solution used in the final production but I still love the style of this woman and the 'coffeeness' of the whole.

TRUE BLUE magazine

This image was created for a Text Pacific Publishing. They produced a magazine called 'True Blue' which if I remember right was an employee magazine for Nestle. This was produced for a fun piece called 'Save me Santa' about remembering some of the trials we go through around the festive time of year. The final printed piece had little type blocks in all the empty spaces.

SUDS

'Suds' has come from the reworking of an old image. In the 90's I had been commissioned to create a few characters interacting with water for Sydney's Maritime Museum and their kids' summer-fun waterpark. The images were small vignettes of a character and a prop. I liked the composition of this little fellow here having his bath and was interested always in modernising his look. The original line work was black and the colouring was flat illustrator colours and shading. Here I have created a washroom environment based on my Oma's (Dutch for Grandmother) tiles that I remember from childhood of her bathroom in Canada. I have based the typography on a funky typeface from http://www.pizzadude.dk called 'Cream and Sugar' (Click on 'Suds' title for direct link). This work is unpublished.

IA Book 11

Book 11 of the Illustrators Australia is going into production now. Illustrators can upload their page image directly and preview what it will look like immediately.

Book 11 is going to be a swatch book in the same vein as the PMS colour swatch books.
This should allow art buyers a speedier process as they will be able to sift through the artists styles very quickly, picking out what type of imagery is relevant to them at the time.

Contact details and an indication of an illustrators' particular specialties are indicated at the top. These are the images for my page.

Handwriting Made Easy - detail

Detail from Handwriting Made Easy.
I just like this little guy. His boat is just large 
enough to accommodate his tail feathers comfortably.

Handwriting Made Easy

Handwriting Made Easy

This image is one that I have reworked from the straight vector art that was originally published. This image was created for Thomson Nelson Publishing's Handwriting Made Easy series. There were seven versions published. Each used the same image but with a different coloured background for each Australian state. I like this one as the green background 'sea' makes it appear that the characters and their little paperboat are sailing around on a little pond in a rich green plain.

Star

Here is another image that came from a similar headspace as the Ophelia image. This one is simply entitled Star. 

Illustrators Australia

I've been an active member of our professional association here in Australia  (Illustrators Australia) since the NSW illustrators were invited to join up and create a national association back in the late 1980's. The main goal was to create a culture of awareness for illustrators and their clients in regards to artists' rights.

I have been both President and Vice president of the NSW branch working for about five years with my colleague Lew Keilar on behalf of Australian illustrators. FYI: Current President is Christopher Nielsen and Vice President is Nigel Buchanan. Email them at nsw@illustratorsaustralia.com for info.

Have a look at my folio page there as well which will inevitably have images of a different bent to what is published here.

http://www.illustratorsaustralia.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5&Itemid=55&user_id=484

1st post - latest image

OPHELIA
Since this is the latest image I was having a play with, I thought it a good one to upload for the start of this blog. This image has been created as a completely digital image.  It has started life being built using Illustrator's vectors but then has been finishing using Photoshop.