Happy Days, Peaceful Nights

Bible Stories

I have been working on two religious themed illustrations for my portfolio this week. I found some great reference material online, in the form of 14th - 15th century medieval paintings and bible illuminations, which are the kind of thing which I love to reference in my work. I find old paintings to be a great source of inspiration for costume and character. 

Forever With You Would Be A Dream Come True

I have been keeping up a 'Doodle a Day' sketchbook this year after seeing friends do it and thinking it looked like fun. It's actually really hard to remember to do it each day and I have been struggling a bit, but I am determined to keep at it - it's only February! I am finding it a nice way to get characters down quickly and work on things like character interaction, background scenery etc. I drew this pair a few weeks ago, and thought they had potential to be worked into a finished illustration, so I gave them a cat, a couple of armchairs and a rather garishly decorated living room. I hope they will be very happy together for many more years. 

A New String to the Bow

I've recently started a job designing graphics for websites. The sites are for Primary Schools who want something illustrative to add a bit of fun to their websites. My first site has been a challenge as I am finding my feet, and has taken much longer than anticipated, but I'm hoping to get quicker as I get more used to the way they have to be put together. Here are a couple of details from my illustrations. I will post the link to the finished website once it is live.

Icon Designs

School Building

Treasure!

I finally finished my pirate themed illustration for my portfolio. Here it is in all it's shiny glory. The hermit crab is based on a crab i recently met in Thailand. I think he was called Gerald.

 

Pirates!

These are some character sketches for a Pirate themed illustration which I am currently working on for my portfolio. I had lots of fun putting together a Pinterest board for this project. I find it a really useful tool for gathering reference and inspiration, although it's so easy to get lost in a world of lovely pictures! I tried to choose bright, exciting colours for this illustration as I am aiming it at young children. I was attempting to create a limited pallet, however I have pretty much used every colour in the rainbow so wasn't quite successful there. I just really like all the colours! 

A Bat's Life

Who knew it would be so fun drawing bats! Here are three flappy guys, which I hope to finish off very soon. In the mean time I thought I'd bring them out of the dark cave of my hard drive and let them flap about for a while. If you want to find out more about these fascinating creatures head to the Bat Conservation website. 

Bird Spotting

Henry VIII

I love the details which are captured within the portraits of the Tudors and find them totally fascinating. I think it's nearly time for a trip to the National Portrait Gallery.

Autumn Time

Although it's still sunny outside, Autumn officially began yesterday, so here's an illustration to celebrate the start of cosy nights in, and windy walks in the park. The words come from a funny little song from my husbands childhood, which gets sung each year as the leaves start to change colour.

The Six Wives

I love the Tudors and have wanted to draw portraits of the six unfortunate wives for a while now. I wanted to experiment with some black and white techniques, and used a dip pen to create these drawings, colouring them using photoshop. I am trying to learn to create layouts with Adobe Indesign at the moment so this was a good chance for me to practice with a variety of new techniques!

Build a Canal Game

I have recently been working an exciting project for the Canal and Rivers Trust. Along with Muddy Publishing and Elizabeth Newbery we developed an interactive game which had to be completed within a month! It was a lot of hard work, but a really fun challenge. The game explores the idea of 'why' and 'how' canals were built in the UK. It is aimed at key stage 2 children, between the ages of 7 and 11.

I love the researching process involved with a project like this. It is very interesting to look back at the lives people who lived in Britain 300 years ago. I feel sorry for the poor navvies who had to work in such awful conditions to dig out the canals!

It was really nice to see my illustrations come to life through the animated sections of the game, there's a good bit where you get to poke a cow in the bum with a stick!

You can play the 'Build a Canal' game HERE, as well as lots of other fun interactive games too!

Frogs, Dragonflies and Newts

I recently worked on an illustration of a dragonfly lifecycle. These are a few of my sketches and character designs. I am going to use some of the plant and animals for a repeat pattern design - when I get around to it!

Love Fish

I was clearing out some old folders and came across this drawing I did for a friend a while ago. As valentines day is approaching and I was feeling soppy, I turned it into a card design on illustrator. 

Fish, Poultry and Pork

Where does the time go?

Wow, it has been a long time since I have updated this blog! I have been learning (with the kind help of my good friend Olivia) some basic Illustrator skills. It is a whole new world of vector fun, and I am looking forward to mastering the program (with lots more practice!) 

Below are some of the pieces I have been working on. I started with a poster depicting the phases of the moon. I experimented with texture overlays, and started playing around with colour and typography. 

I then moved on to experimenting with the pen and shape tools to create some character designs for an animation project. I enjoyed recreating some old characters in illustrator, and using colour rather than line to define shapes. The colours are a bit crazy, but I like the way these guys look in vector form! 

I decided to have a play around with some ice-cream themed typography. I brought in some little ice creams from photoshop to see how the vector and pixels work together. This was a fun exercise, I tried to create a different style for each word. I am going to explore this further!

Below are some basic patterns put together in a grid, I used the pen tool to create some free flowing shapes, and the pen tool for the more controlled ones. 

I combined my typography experiments, with some shape and pattern tools to add the background for these girls, which I coloured in photoshop. It was interesting to use illustrator and photoshop together to see what effects I could create. 

Mmmm....I think I may go and have an ice cream...

Mermaid

Leah's Woodland Painting

This is a name painting I produced for a little girl named Leah. It was her first birthday so I was commissioned to paint a woodland themed painting including her name. Here is the final painting and my sketches and character designs.

I hope to do more work like this, it is so enjoyable to get the acrylics out and spend time over a painting. I usually work digitally for illustration commissions as it is fast and can be easily amended if the client needs things changed. I love being able to paint at my own speed. The hours just disappear, I look up and find I have been painting squirrels for 4 hours! Not a bad way to spend an afternoon!

If you want to commission me, or know someone who might, please don't hesitate to email me to discuss themes etc.

sophie.foster@yahoo.co.uk

Perseus

I absolutely love the ancient greek heroes and mythical monsters, so decided to use the characters in a little project to help me develop some black and white work for my portfolio. This is the first character Perseus in his helm of darkness and winged sandals. 

Jubilee Crazy!