Illustrated Laser Engraved Day of the Dead Sugar Skull

It’s that time of year again and these fellows are back! …It is the awesomeness that is the line up of Halloween and Día de los Muertos, (Day of the Dead) and what better way to celebrate than a cherry wood laser engraved skull brooch badge?! -Choose from 3 designs, the perfect addition to any self respecting coat or hat!

-Get yours here in time as numbers are limited!

Christmas Owl Illustration

Merry Christmas everyone! Here is my illustrated Christmas owl to wish you all happy Christmas and a little bit of a process post! -from sketching out the rough lines, to working up the details and then the final owl in all his Christmas grumpiness! (with just a touch of gold for a bit of festive sparkle!). I drew him up using 2 shades of blue Karisma pencils (which I love as they are lovely for either heavy or light use for shading) and a gold ceramic pen for the gold highlights. -Merry Christmas y’all!x

Painted Illustrated Easter Egg

Happy Easter (a little late!) This is my hand painted blue bird easter egg with hand painted type and polka dots! It was fun to work on a curved surface and get the artwork working round the egg. …The debate is still out though about which came first, the blue bird or the egg!

 

Illustrated Christmas Bear Card

A very merry Christmas to all! wishing you happiness and success for 2014! My illustrated card this year features a bear wrapped up for winter, and comes in 2 colours with hand finished gold or red details. Ho ho ho and all that!

 

Personal Stationery Design

Just a quick update to show my handmade letter set …long live hand written correspondence! In the age of rapid digital communication, the hand written letter becomes quite a novelty and needs to be celebrated. It is with this in mind I created this letter set featuring my illustrations and a bit of hand painted type!

Illustrations on the side of a building!

Wow! this has to be a little dream of mine come true -to have my artwork printed big and hung on the side of a building! -surely every artist’s (and illustrator’s!) ultimate canvas! -This was a commission through the lovely people at Eye Candy Festival and Southside along with my excellent fellow illustrators, Michelle Turton and Louise Brangwin. It was great to be able to work with the girls before having previously collaborated on projects with Inkygoodness and House of Aces in the past.

The building is Unity House (134 Bromsgove Street) and has had a long and colourful past, and to celebrate this each artist took a period in time from the building’s history to inspire a series of 4 large scale panel illustrations. My period was the Victorian Era and I wanted to tell the story as if from a Victorian fairy tale.

Eye Candy festival was packed with treats for the eyes, and it was great to be able to take part alongside artists such as Jeremyville, Jon Burgerman and Miss Led. -Thanks to all involved!

Beermat Cat!

Hand painted gouache cat for Inkygoodess beer mat character exhibition

Ahh this is the cat that didn’t quite make it as a beer mat for the Inkygoodness Beer Mat character exhibition in London (he just wasn’t finished in time!) poor fellow I was still fixing his ears! But I felt he couldn’t spend his whole life in the shadows so I thought he might make a good (slightly belated!) Halloween post! (He with the freakishly small ears!) -so here he is in all his gouache goodness!

Eye Candy Festival Commission!

One of the most exciting things that I have been working on lately (that I finally get to talk about!) is a large scale commission for Unity House as part of Eye Candy Festival in Birmingham! -Whoop! It seems like it is going to be a grand show, including the likes of Jeremyville, Jon Burgerman and Miss Led to name a few!

I am working with Louise Brangwin and Michelle Turton to create 12 story telling large scale banners to be fitted around the amazing building of Unity House. -Check out the space below…

This grand old building had many uses over the years, most notably as a pub (the Rose and Crown) in the Victorian era, a Tailoring house in the 1950s and then in the 1980s it was the union headquarters for sheet metal workers, lithographers and engravers. It is this rich and varied history that we tried to capture as a story that wraps around the building, told as a picture book fairy tale in the Victorian era to the neon brights of the 80s.

The artwork is installed on the 31st October and forms part of the festival opening on the 1st November, and just to give you a taster of what is in store, here is a sneak peek of the artworks going up!

My work is the top 4 panels following the Victorian era, Louise Brangwin follows with the 1950s tailoring and Michelle Turton adds the neons to the 1980s!

More photos as the project goes up, and come on down if you are in the area to check it out!

http://www.eyecandyfestival.co.uk

or a little bit on my website http://www.vickynewman.com

Inkygoodness Beermat Exhibition

My hipster fox was part of the Inkygoodness Beermat illustration exhibition held at the Coningsby Gallery off Tottenham Court Road in April this year! It was a great exhibition to be part of along with some exiting other illustrators and designers and the kids behind Ammo magazine and sponsored by Sailor Jerry! The show was grand! (take a look at a behind the scenes film of the exhibition here.. http://inkygoodness.com/blog/news/beermat-characters-the-poop-deck-launch-film/) and the show was indeed jam packed of inky-goodness! It was great to be able to get back to gouache and paint my fox horn-rimmed glasses and all! …some more shots from the show…

…there was also another character that didn’t get his paint finished in time! (and sadly still remains un-finished!) ahh I might just post him as a halloween special!

Illustrated Bird Mug Set

Hello to these dove grey and lilac mugs! -again part of the products I illustrated for the Bombay Duck collection, and lovely to see them finally for sale! -each mug is gilded with silver for a little extra decadence! …to update your tea set head over to here …http://www.bombayduck.com/index.php/homeware/eating-and-entertaining/mrs-moore-birds-mugs-set-of-2-dove-grey-lilac-silver-spots.html