Winter Wedding

I am currently working on another wedding stationary commission for a couple planning their winter wedding. It's a really sweet theme and colour palette to work with. So far I have been playing around with their wedding invitations (A6 double sided)

Secret Santa

For my connect group, with upcoming christmas and a last social meeting before the holidays, we were all set the task of giving each other a £1 Secret Santa, but to be as creative as we can be. 

I'm not sure mine was quite £1... but it was fun to make and I don't mind having spent a bit more. I thought it looked really cute, and having a guy to give a present too, it can be quite restrictive in possibilities. However I think this gift idea is great for anyone.

I got my recipe from allrecipes.co.uk - However my jar was a little smaller, so I just halved all the ingredients, which would make 12 cookies.

Three labels: A generalised 'Merry Christmas'; The recipe card which explained how to make the cookies and what to add - because the jar only contains the dry ingredients; and then the third was something I came up with, where it gives some examples of what to do with the jar when it is empty: make a snow globe; pen pot etc.

I wanted a red and white Christmas Knit pattern, which I painted on with gouache.

'The Blue Pet'

We were all given the same piece of text and given the task of interpreting it into something suitable for a 5 page baby book [including the cover page]. Each page was 16.5x16.5cm and we weren't allowed to use any text on the pages. They had to purely be illustrations which would easily convey what the character was going through. 

COVER PAGE - Rendered text will go in the clear space without the snow

PAGE 1 - Lonely and Lost but finds the house

PAGE 2 - Inside he meets the dog by the fireplace

PAGE 3 - he then meets the cat on the sofa

PAGE 4 - he finally feels comfortable sleeping in the washing basket

It was a very interesting task because you'd think simplifying something for a young audience would be quite easy, but because you were simplifying things that you knew about it made it tricky. I especially had trouble making the animals fit in with the style of my blue pet character which was very "blobby" and made up of rounded shapes.

I ended up taking the Christmas setting from the text and the meeting of all the different animals, but then having it that the Blue Pet was lonely and lost on Christmas, and he's wandering around in the snow and finds the house where he meets a few of the animals. He tries out their sleeping positions and places but doesn't feel very comfortable; until he finds his comfortable sleeping spot which ends up being the washing basket.