I’ve always loved drawing flowers and the very first cards I designed featured some of my flower doodles. My latest obsession flower-wise is Cosmos (cosmos bipinnatus for geeky folks) so I decided I’d share some of my cosmos flower illustrations with you here.
There are so many things to love about cosmos flowers. Their simplicity, their symmetry and the wide variety of colours they come in. I remember seeing them on the sides of the road as a kid in South Africa and they always just make my heart happy whenever I see them here in the UK.
My other half’s mum gifted me a few from her garden last year and this year I have at least four or five cosmos plants in pots on the terrace of my little flat.
First attempts
I did a quick cosmos flower doodle a few weeks back when I first started noticing cosmos flowering…
I even turned them into a sheet of stickers which I used on my last blog post about decorating envelopes!
More cosmos illustrations
Then this week I’ve been spending a bit more time on some cosmos flower illustrations which I think I might use in my next greeting card collection.
Here’s a single cosmos flower illustration…
And here’s a row of cosmos flowers…
I think they’re especially lovely because they’re wild flowers. I really love to see flowers like cosmos, poppies, daisies and buttercups when I’m out walking or on one of my runs. Check out these wildflower drawings I did early on). It’s like a little present when you see a gorgeous flower on the side of the path. Or a field of tiny flowers catching the sunshine out of the blue π
Expect to see lots more flower illustrations here and on Instagram. And for them to be a big feature in my future greeting card collections!
These dog themed cards, a Shih Tzu card and a Labrador card are two brand new birthday designs just added to my shop. I’m going to be working on a range of pet themed cards and these are the first . What do you think?
As with most of my designs, I drew them using Procreate on my iPad. Here’s a little replay video of each one to show you the process. I use layers a lot so when things disappear and reappear that’s me hiding and showing different layers π
This is the Shih Tzu drawing…
And here’s the Lab illustration.
You can see that it often takes me several attempts to get something right π. For example I kept adjusted the Labrador’s head as it just didn’t quite look right. I feel like it’s important to show the real process though, rather than an edited one that looks perfect but isn’t real! It’s a good job I’m an illustrator and not a sculptor using marble or some expensive medium as there would be a lot of waste π€£
Since Brexit, international shipping has become way too complicated for my small online shop, but International customers can buy the same designs in my Etsy shop too.
What other breeds would you like to see in this range? Drop me a message on Instagram or Facebook to give me your suggestions or send me an email – I’d really love to hear from you and I always reply!
Would you like to know what my two favourite card design tools are? My process and the tools I use have both evolved quite a bit since I started, as I discovered new ways to become more efficient while designing cards. I now have a couple of firm favourites – these are the two tools that I’d really hate to be without!
How I started
When I first started designing cards I drew my illustrations on paper, scanned it in and then cleaned it up and used it in a card design on GIMP. GIMP is open source software that is similar to Photoshop, but free. It stands for GNU Image Manipulation Programme and is in no way as kinky as it sounds… I definitely didn’t have the money in the early stages to invest in Photoshop, and GIMP did everything I needed.
This process was fine in the beginning, but it did make designing new cards feel like quite an undertaking. Apart from the drawing, tidying the scan up took ages, and if I needed to change the drawing in some way I usually had to start again, as trying to edit it on screen using a mouse often took longer than just redoing it.
After a while I started doing a lot of custom cartoon portraits and it was especially difficult to make changes to these. I needed a better system!
My absolute favourite card design tool
Last year I finally decided to invest in an iPad (with Apple Pencil) and it is now without a doubt my favourite card design tool.
It took me ages before I went ahead (because these things are expensive!) I asked loads of other people who had iPads whether it was worth it (they all said yes). I also did a lot of research about the different types of iPads and which would be the best one for me to get.
I bought the Procreate app and Apple Pencil to go with my iPad and together they’ve completely revolutionised my drawing process! I can just pick up the iPad and start doodling any time and then AirDrop the design straight to my Mac. Any edits or changes are easily done in the Procreate app and I can copy designs and use layers to create different versions. Can you tell I LOVE this tool?!
My other favourite design tool
My other favourite card design tool is still GIMP. Once I’ve done the illustrations, I use it to create the actual card designs and I’ve got no plans to change this. While Photoshop may be more powerful, there’s nothing I need that GIMP doesn’t provide. So I’d really begrudge spending Β£10 to Β£20 a month on a tool that I use in exactly the same way as a free one!
I’ve set up card design templates with the correct sizing for my cards and my logo inserted on the back of the card. I just drop the illustration into the template, add some text and then play around with the layout. Now that I’m not actually trying to edit the illustrations in GIMP it’s a much quicker process to lay out the card designs. If I need to adjust an illustration I just go back to my iPad, quickly make the changes and AirDrop it back to be inserted into my GIMP template.
So there you have it – my two favourite card design tools – my iPad Air (together with Apple Pencil and Procreate) and GIMP. Both make the digital side of designing cards a breeze. Now if only I could find a tool that could come up with all the ideas for me now too π€
It’s been a while since I showed my illustration process here on my blog, so I decided to share a mojito drawing I did back in April. There’s nothing quite as refreshing as an ice cold mojito, so it seems especially appropriate to show this now while we’re in the middle of a mini heat wave here in the UK π
I initially created the illustration as one of two designs for a competition. It was run by Ohh Deer in conjunction with Sainsbury’s and the brief was to create Valentine’s card designs. I might share the other design with you at another time. Spoiler alert… it’s also a cocktail recipe design!
My mojito drawing process
The mojito drawing was hand drawn on my iPad with an Apple Pencil using Procreate (an amazing drawing app). I’ve exported a time lapse of the drawing process so you can see the drawing process. There was quite a bit of faffing around, especially at the end when I realised the limes were all wrong π. I thought it turned out pretty well in the end though!
I then created a square card template in GIMP (open source software similar to Photoshop, but free!) This was the format required for the competition and is quite different from my usual A6 card designs. I wanted to include the recipe to make the card more useful and fun. I tried a few different layouts before settling on the one I liked.
Here’s how the final card design looked with both illustration and text…
And here is the design as a square greeting card…
I hope you found this peek behind the scenes interesting. Would you like to see more of these types of blog posts? Let me know by sending me a message on Instagram or Facebook π
As well as selling greeting cards and doing custom cartoon portrait cards, did you know I also do custom illustration prints that make great personalised gifts? You may already have seen some of the cartoon portrait prints I do, but enjoy doing other custom illustration too.
I was approached recently by someone who had seen this drawing of Tower Bridge that I did a while ago. She want a collection of specific landmarks and places in the same style to put in some new frames she and her husband had bought, including the Tower Bridge illustration.
Here’s what I came up with. She chose the subject of each custom illustration print and let me know what size they each needed to be to fit her frames.
Each of those places was special to her and her husband in one way or another so now every time they look at their prints they’re reminded of the memories associated with each illustration.
I loved doing completely different illustrations to my usual for this order – I do enjoy doing the cartoon portraits, but it’s nice to have a change as well π
A custom illustration of a place or topic that is special to the person you’re giving it to would make a really great personalised gift that you know they’ll love. And I’m happy to adapt to a variety of different styles to suit your tastes, from the detailed monochrome drawings above to my usual cartoonish style, or perhaps something in-between.
Here’s an example of a custom cartoon family portrait I did earlier this year for a wonderfully loyal customer – this would be ideal as a Christmas or birthday gift for parents or grandparents. If you’re interested in the process behind this particular portrait then I wrote about it here: My custom cartoon portrait process.
So if there’s anything particular you have in mind then please feel free to get in touch. My cartoon portraits are all available to order in my shop, but if you’d like something more customised or even completely different, like the landmark illustrations, then I’m always happy to quote based on the time it will take to complete.