Illustrated Advent #24

Woohoo! Finished in the nick of time. Here is #24. Merry Christmas one and all!

Illustrated Advent #23

Here's #23. Almost there!

Illustrated Advent #22

I'm still playing catch up. My little monkey was an angel in her Christmas play at nursery on Monday, so here she is at #22:

Illustrated Advent #21

I'm still playing catch up. Here's #21:

Illustrated Advent #20

I'm a few days late - another busy weekend delivering presents and shopping.
Definitely a few too many of these being consumed at the moment I think. Here is #20:

Illustrated Advent #19

Here's #19:

Illustrated Advent #18

Feeling much better today! Here's #18:

Illustrated Advent #17

More trees again today! Here is #17:

Illustrated Advent #16

Still feeling rubbishy today, but here's #16:

Illustrated Advent #15

This is dedication people because today I feel very second hand and not at all up for this, but whilst my little one naps, I chose not to nap myself, but to do my daily advent challenge. I am stubborn you see.
Here's 15:

Illustrated Advent #14

Here's #14:

Illustrated Advent #13

Here's #13:

Illustrated Advent #12

Here's #12 (half way there!):

Illustrated Advent # 11

Here's # 11:

Illustrated Advent #10

Here's #10:

Illustrated Advent #9

Here's #9:

Illustrated Advent #8

Here's #8:

Illustrated Advent #6 and #7

Here's #6 and #7 - a little bit late - we had a busy weekend!

Illustrated Advent #5

Here's #5:

Illustrated Advent #4

Here's #4:

Illustrated Advent #3

Here's #3:

Illustrated Advent #2

Here's #2

Illustrated Advent #1

It's December already. I mean, how? This year I'm doing an illustrated advent - chocolate is for wimps. Here is #1:

Kittens in Mittens

Well, what's not to love about kittens in mittens? This is my entry for the forthcoming spoonflower comp.

festive patterns (again)

I'm just popping by today with some more festive offerings from the Mondaland studio. I do love designing for Christmas.

more festive patterns

Here are some more festive patterns that have emerged from my sketchbook recently.
The top two were shortlisted in the recent Tigerprint competition for christmas giftwrap, which was nice. I am working on a lot of Christmas themed designs at the moment so you'd better duck out now if you're sick of seeing Christmassy stuff!

winter wonderland

Happy Friday folks! 
It's been a challenging kind of week here in Mondaland, but I'm still finding the time/energy I need to be creative. I'm working away on festive bits and bobs (still) today...

October girl

I completely forgot to post a picture of my October girl - second in my series of a year long project of an illustration of a character a month, one for every month of the year. I went off piste a bit here and went for collage, ink and crayon, because sometimes I just have to cut things up! Here she is:

Print and Pattern, Designers for Hire

A couple of weeks back I was contacted by the lovely Marie from the Print & Pattern blog with an invite to be featured in her 'designers for hire' directory. A new part of the print and pattern blog which will help art directors, companies and businesses find freelance designers with ease.
The emphasis of the directory is a quick reference guide of quality designers. Those featured are by invite only so I feel particularly honoured to be featured alongside some fellow designers whose work I really admire.

Here is my banner:

You can find the directory here www.designersforhire.net

it's a wrap!

I've been designing for Christmas this last few weeks. This is one that I entered into this months Tigerprint comp for Christmas wrap. My design brain is well and truly in Christmas mode, even if I am not quite there with it yet.

bauble bling

I've revamped/reworked an old design for this weeks spoonflower comp, which is for gift wrap with the theme of ornaments. It's only 8 weeks until Christmas you know! Are you feeling festive yet? The extremely chilly weather in the UK today certainly helped it feel a bit more like autumn/winter.

New Products and a Special Offer

I have some exciting news.
I've been collaborating with a friend who also runs a small business on a new product range which will be available exclusively for sale on notonthehighstreet.com NEXT WEEK!

It's a little different to my print based work, but features my illustrations so is still very much Mondaland in style.
Before the new products go live, we wanted to do a special offer for our friends in the UK.
We are launching 3 bespoke, illustrated and engraved oak frames in time for Christmas present buying. The frames come in 2 sizes - to fit either 5x7 or 10x8 photos.
The special offer prices are £40 for the 5x7 and £55 for the 10x8 (they will be £48 and £65 respectively next week). This special offer price also includes FREE UK delivery. I know, we're really spoiling you!
Click here to place your order: www.mondaland.co.uk/shhhhh
Boring but essential info: This offer is only open until midnight on Sunday 26th October and only for shipping to the UK. Payment via paypal is required.

clocks

I had planned to enter this design into the weekly spoonflower comp for a design featuring clocks but it seemed a migraine was to get the better of me and I missed the deadline whilst my head was exploding. Stupid Migraines.
I've also put together a little placement print to go with it.

11 weeks till Christmas!

There are 11 weeks left (just 11!) until Christmas. It's hard to believe isn't it.
I'm working on a new 'something' at the moment. I will reveal all soon but in the meantime, here's a new festive pattern to get you in the mood. Happy Monday folks!

mondaland.co.uk

After having a largely dormant holding page for a couple of years, I'm pleased to say that my new website is now live!

I've been tinkering away over the last few weeks getting it to a point I am happy with. It's still a work in progress, and I will be be tinkering and adding more work over the coming weeks too but this is a fairly big milestone for me so I'm feeling quite pleased for actually doing it all myself. It's also Friday, and I'm drawing Christmassy things today too, so all in all, a very good day indeed.

I've also had a bit of a refresh of my old blog too, which like me and my work is ever evolving. I get a bit bored of things after a time so it was time to refresh my header and buttons and bring it more in line with my new website (if you're reading this via a blog reader you don't see all the fluff and buttons and the like, so I'm posting this just for you!).

more feathers

Just popping in quickly today as I'm still working away on getting my website finished. Here's a new pattern to coordinate with the feathers pattern I was working on as part of the MIID summer school - I'd planned to do a little collection, and as I get time I will add a couple more designs.

I don't know about you but I'm so glad it's Friday today. This week has been challenging and both me and the little lady have a horrible head cold/sore throat too. Bring on the weekend and less germs please!

building

I'm squireling away in the background at the moment building my website. It's coming along nicely but I still have a way to go. The good thing about this is that I'm discovering work that I did and forgot about, or started then stopped and didn't continue with, for some reason. So here is one of those patterns, which was half a pattern that I gave up on, but have now revamped

September Girl

I've set myself a little challenge to draw a person each month, for the next year. This is September Girl - sporting a dress with the feather pattern from my last post. It will likely be seasonal, a visual record of what the months are doing over the course of a year. This one is pretty autumnal in theme.

feathers

The last assignment for the make it in design Summer School was for a pattern featuring feathers.
I loved designing this one and I think I probably worked smarter/harder because I only had a few hours to complete it
I think some coordinates are needed for this so will work on some of those next...

Cute Characters

This months Tigerprint comp is for greetings card designs featuring cute characters. I'm really quite unpractised at character illustration, although love all things cute so this was a good one for me to enter. 
The competitions are a bit like a free brief to me. Regardless of the outcome, it's another couple of pieces for the portfolio, and I'm pretty sure there will be a whole lot of cute to look at in the competition gallery too. Bonus!

the A word

I'm quite a fan of Autumn really. I don't do well in hot hot heat and the autumnal temperatures are much more up my street. That, and as a kid I always loved the time of year when we went back to school after the summer holidays. I suspect this was in no small part down to the fact that I could have a new school bag, pencil tin and stationery. I'm still a stationery nerd now.
We took our little lady (who has just had her second birthday! I mean, how?) to the library this morning and on the way we collected a huge orange leaf and a fallen conker still in it's shell. There's no denying it, it's definitely coming.

These autumnal influences are seeping into my work too, albeit quite unconsciously.