How I Make Quick Illustration Patterns

Here are two illustrative patterns from my new video that you can check out below! In this video I thought it would be fun to show you guys how I create these quick watercolour patterns :) they by no means tile properly (that's a slightly different method) but it is a fun and easy way to make a decorative piece.

New Office Space!

Greetings all! So for a while now I have had a little room that I normally do my work in. It's a great little size however there's always been an issue with mold (the bane of my life!). Due to this, I feel it's time to not only repaint it with a paint that is made for more damp environments but to also redesign it with fresh new colours and newer storage areas. Redecoration time!!

I've been playing with the idea of pastel colours which includes some sort of graphics. My main thought is to use stripes to elongate the small room but also allow me to use the wall as a feature for my new YouTube channel! I can't wait to get started but first I need to look around at some furniture stores to see exactly what it is that I want to do. So the table above isn't actually my work station, that my friends is where I do my hair and makeup, but these are the designs that I'm considering and I kinda like the middle bottom, what do you think? My working area is actually on the opposite wall but I wanted to see how the room looked in my potential 'video wall' area. Mint green is so beautiful *o*

If any of you have any ideas for my office- let me know in the comments!

Emma Draws: Reinvent Yourself!

Good Morning! Another day and another 'Emma Draws' video is up! I find that reinventing yourself is a very common thing in today's society, changing hair colour, clothing style, eating habits, lifestyle choices (and I have a love for pastel colours!) so I felt I wanted to do an illustration based around that idea. I haven't painted or inked this much hair before and it took some time but i'm very happy with the outcome. If you would like to see how I painted it, check out the video below on my new youtube channel: come say hi!

Emma Draws: Meet the Artist!

This challenge was floating around social media for a while so I picked up my pencil and drew my own 'Meet the Artist' If you want to see how I painted it, check out this video! :)

Etsy store now open!

I opened up my new Etsy store today! I'm incredibly excited! I shall be selling my greetings cards first which showcase seasons and dragons (the usual). I was lucky enough to sell some of these cards at Camden Collective's pop up shop last year so i'm really happy to be able to offer them online :) You can check out my store here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/IllustrationsofEmma?ref=l2-shopheader-name

Christmas Time: The Gift of Giving

So it's been quite a few months since my last post as I've been busy with work and the lead up to Christmas. I'm always excited for Christmas time and especially this year as I did decide to make my friends and loved ones gifts this year; not only to save money but to make them something special that was unique to them :)

For my friend's presents, I wanted to create a series of items that were fundamentally similar in structure but that showed the personalities of each of them. It was a fairly hard task, but I settled on unique framed canvases, each representing them and their interests. I won't explain exactly why I chose each theme as some are self explanatory, however I'll give a quick rundown of how I made them.

The materials and supplies I used were:

• 4 mini canvases with easels 
• A length of wooden moulding
• A cutting mat
• A hack saw
• Saw guide
• 2 clamps
• Acrylic Paint
• Black ink pens
• A sponge
• Craft Foam
• PVA glue 
• Paint brushes

And here is roughly how I made them:

1.  I started off with a rough idea as a couple of sketches (like the one above) to figure out what components I wanted in each and where I wanted to place them.
2.  After that I measured the width and length of the canvases and used that to cut out the separate pieces of my frame from the wooden moulding.
3. I used clamps and a hack saw with a guide to cut the frame pieces at a 45degree angle so that they would slot together.
4. Once all the frame pieces were done I stuck them down as complete frames on each canvas with PVA and once dried, covered them with several coats of white acrylic paint as a base.
5. From there I painted, with either a sponge or brush, the individual colours of each canvas.
6. I cut out craft foam pieces for things such as the signs, teapot, snowman etc. and painted them.
7. I attached the foam pieces on with PVA and once dry added the pen ink designs over them and the rest of the canvas.
8. The canvases are now done! :)

For my parents present I decided to make a compilation of all the videos we took when we went to New York back in 2012 and make a DVD of that.

For Ben's parents I used my new watercolours for the first time to make a painting of their wonderful pets; Kali and Dolly :)

And last but not least, for Ben's present I wanted to make something that was artistic but functional (as I know he has a lot of stuff!). He is a massive fan of Gravity Falls and it took a surprising amount of time for me to realise this and think of the idea. I got a pre-made book box from HobbyCraft and then painted a design of the fantasy characters that represent us, in the style of the Gravity Falls cartoon :)

Overall it was a fantastic Christmas! and I couldn't have asked for anything more :) I have much more to tell you all so stay tuned for my next Christmas blog: Fantastical Models!

Web Re-design

New Web Design! Click here!

Hello again! Just a quick update this time, i've re-designed my website again. When it needs to be done, it needs to be done so i've designed it now in a way that more content can be put in. A flaw with my old design with the cat in the boat was that it was an interesting layout, but it left me with little capacity for growth (not a good thing for design portfolios)

Another thing was colour, I missed colour! And even though in the last design I wanted to leave colour out to focus the attention on my image galleries, I wanted to inject some colour to draw the eye in.

I wanted a frame design that not only allowed me to scroll down and add more room for my work, but also so that it could be aligned better (and that it can now work properly on iPad/tablet devices, yay!)

Adding a personal touch to the frame design was another piece of the puzzle I wanted to solve, so I added in some creative tools here and there as well as myself resting by a tree sketching (as one does).

I'm much happier with it this time and hope you all like it too :)