The Eighty Fourth Doodle - a trip to Paris

Well goodness, I'm terribly sorry I've been absent for a while. I am just incredibly, incredibly popular and have no time to type.

LOLZ total lie, I have like 3 friends.

ANYWAY so I went to Paris last week woop! I have heard that some tourists get the dreaded 'Paris syndrome', where they are so distraught that the reality of the city does not live up to their ridiculous dream-like and nonsensical envisions that they become almost depressed, but thankfully I did not suffer from such a stupid syndrome. Because it's stupid.

Paris was ineed very beautiful and had a lovely vibe to it, and we had a marvelous time rambling around. I created this wee illustration just before we went in anticipation -

 I definitely did eat too many pastries, drank a lot of red wine, went up the Eiffel Tower and walked so much my feet hurt like buggary.
Good times :)

 

The Seventy Fifth Doodle

I recently took on a groovy commission to create an illustrated banner for a new tourism site promoting Sherwood, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. As I'm from Melton (not far from Nottingham) I jumped at the chance, I know the area really very well. 

Mr Pearson, my commissionee (?!) wanted aspects of Sherwood, such as the Great Oak and a reference to the infamous Robin Hood, but also cosmopolitan references to the city incorporating hotels, shopping and leisure. 

I began building up the different aspects of this collage type image. Mr Pearson really liked my urban illustrations (such as the one for the actress Charlotte Salt- see it on my Facebook page here) so I kept the same layout plan and focused on highlight colours, as opposed to full colour.

I began with the Great Oak as a strong central feature, and built the other images around it. The statue of Robin Hood (of course!) and Nottingham Castle were easy icons, and after a bit of research the other componants, like the tram, the church and the fairground ride, began to appear. 

I really enjoy creating these collage type illustrations, you can build in all these different images and piece them together like a jigsaw. Is it odd I find that fun?! How tragic!

The Sixty Seventh Doodle

The tube is an amazing place. (Before we go any further, I of course mean the London Underground, not like a tube of cardboard from the middle of loo roll.) You see all walks of life down there, it is quite marvellous. Mwahahaha.

This illustration came from a girl I saw on the tube who was pretty funky. Now, she didn't actually have a weird blue aura and I am certain her real life face had an outline - I used artistic lisence 'o course. But she was a hellova lotta fun. Trying to capture that nonchalant, effortlessly cool way she hung from the pole, her funky outfit and hair, her general groovy vibe. 

I mean, I don't know, maybe she is actually a total cow in real life, and I'd find that I'd rather chew glass than draw her. But in my head, and on the tube, she seemed funky. May as well draw funky people when you see 'em ey?