Life Update as a book illustrator, surface pattern designer and animator for April

Raichu Goldfish Pattern

Haaaaaa!  Well, it was another busy month.  What can I say?  I feel like the months is just flying this year and it's a bit scary to be honest.  The days have been a blur.  Thank goodness for instagram stories and posts, if I didn't have that to re-jig my memory am not sure how else I would have been able to keep track.

Work in progress

I have also been working on a private book job which is looking great and has helped keep me busy as a freelance job that was suppose to start in March got severely delayed.  All good though since it gave me time to do my own thing.  I finished up the first book in march and am currently trying to finish the second book this month.  I do hope to get more jobs like this as it's enjoyable and I do enjoy drawing up sea creatures.

Private book job 

Books wasn't my only job this month though, I also did a few animated loops for another private job. I have no idea where the animation will turn up.  It's good to keep the animation skills sharp.  Out of all the artistic endeavours I've done so far, animation in commercials and freelance illustration on educational and private projects have been the most profitable thus far. 

The Licensing Expo is also this month and I've been preparing my patterns for submission as am being represented by Artshine licensing.  Make sure to check them out at booth F87 if you do find yourself in Vegas for the expo.

Patterns submitted to Artshine Licensing

The Drop into the Ocean book is almost out too!  Not long now and I'll be doing a book launch with the author Karen Wasson on June 08, Saturday at Readings. My first book launch, this should be a new learning experience.  It's been a little stressful since it turns out that the author and I are pretty much on our own with events like this. Working in books in general has been quite the learning experience and I come out of it a wiser person and a better artist.  I am also saving my more extensive thoughts for another post.

My partner, Rob and I also had a few weekend adventures in April too. Notably we tried the Pigment Squad and spent like 3 hours painting our chosen figures in Melbourne.  It was a lot of fun though neither of us are quite finished with our figures yet.  I am still working on my one! Trying to give my kitty as much bling as possible

Pigment Squad painting

Pigment Squad painting

Jealous Hanzo, he doesn't like my lucky cat collection

We also went to Clunes which was nice.  It's always good to get away from doing any art to come back more inspired.  I like visiting quiet country towns to re-charge.  The problem with country towns though that even if google says their open the may very well be shut when you get there.  Most of the town had an unofficial long weekend when we went and visited. We went and checked out the bottle museum which was luckily open and I came out of there with some illustration ideas with bottles as the main feature...unsurprisingly.  It was a surprising large museum and we spent over an hour in there and there are a lot of bottles to look at and history to read.

Well, I think this sums up April for me!  I'll do my best to write up more extensive and specific posts for this month.