Bramble and Burdock

Hope everyone is having a great Christmas and New Year with plenty of cake, chocolates and sparkly lights!

What with all the snow we've been having, delivering the mail has got more difficult. This is a quick one for IF which was originally an illustration for a calendar. It was drawn in my sketchbook and then digitally coloured. Click here for a larger version.

Do you like owls? Of course you do! Want a 2011 calendar made up completely of the little feathery fellas? Of course you do! Well, look no further than My Owl Barn , where you can download a customised owl calendar with lovely illustrations by different artists. And it's all free! Update, November 2011: The lovely people at My Owl Barn have kindly provided new and exciting owl illustrations for the 2012 calendar. Check out the sidebar for the updated version.

Very icy and cold but very picturesque nonetheless. These pics are from February. I wonder if we'll have another freezing winter this year?

I have now opened a shop on Etsy selling some of my greeting card designs - printed and handmade. I'm planning to add some other bits and pieces in the future too (once I get my crochet skills up to scratch..!) www.knightstour.etsy.com In the meantime, why not pop over and have a look...?!

I was lucky enough to travel on a ship through the bay of Biscay in the summer. The deep waters out over the Continental shelf are inhabited by many different cetacean species. I didn't manage to see any near the surface, but sometimes I wondered if one of those huge mammals was down there, hundreds of meters beneath us... For IF - watercolour on paper.

Just stumbled upon this video showing a fantastic paper animation. Check it out!

The immovable mountains... A quick one for IF . Acrylic paint on paper.

For this week's IF Drawn in my sketchbook, then digitally coloured.

Soon to be sold at a charity stall on behalf of Cats Protection , these slightly weird looking cats are part of my first batch of greeting card designs, printed by Moo ! The original pictures were made in pen and watercolour.

You may remember this post way back, involving Karl Marx and... well, Karl Marx. I'm shamelessly bringing it up again not only to illustrate the topic of "Double" for Illustration Friday but also as a way of celebrating my very first batch of printed designs! The lovely people at Moo did a great job with them and I'm really pleased with the results.

Always lick yourself clean after breakfast... A tenuous one for Illustration Friday yet again. This is one of a number of designs for greeting cards that I've been working on recently. Some cats have a habit of getting distracted whilst washing and forgetting to put their tongue away! This is one such cat...

A flock of early birds for IF . The birds' "plumage" are the patterns found on the inside of envelopes.

Some great typefaces from my recent trip to Berlin.