Prints for Sale!

This morning I have set up a Bigcartel page to sell some of my latest prints! My Victorians, Vikings, Trawlermen and Trawlermen's Wives are all up for grabs!
These are perfect ideas for Christmas presents or Birthday presents once framed.

 

http://vickygreenillustration.bigcartel.com/

Demon Cat

I've been having a bit of fun today drawing a crazy demon cat. I've been working a lot recently so grabbing the chance to do a bit of illustration has proven difficult! So it's been nice to do this today!

Trawler Wives

I have finally finished my Trawler Wives/Fisherman's Wives! It seems to have taken such a long time to complete (albeit only 2ish weeks!) but I've had to fit it in amongst my new job.

So I wanted to do a partner image for my Trawlermen and thought what better then their WAGs! When I started to look into the women who stood by their men, even though they where away for such long periods of time, I was amazed at the stories I found. So I tried to incorporate a little bit of the different stories I came across into my image.

The first lady in the bottom left hand corner is holding onto quite a pretty bright and cheerful jacket. Often when Trawlermen came back onto land for a few days with their family, they would get straight down to their local tailor and get themselves an exquisite suit made up from their money earned at sea. This got them the nickname 'dockside dandy's' for their quite out there fashion. However the day the men went back to sea, their wives would form a queue to "hock" a selection of exotic suits at the local pawn shops.

The lady in the back left hand corner is themed on the idea of wives being  'three day princess's' when their Trawlermen came back from sea. They would be taken out to fancy restaurants and treated to new clothing, some would even rent a washing machine for the week to clean the families clothes.

In the middle we have a real local heroine Lillian Belloc. In 1968 Humberside witnessed a triple trawler tragedy, which lost 58 lives.
Big Lil as she was nicknamed organised a 10.000 signature petition calling for better safety condition on trawlers. She even went down to London to meet with the then Primer Minister Harold Wilson!
Big Lil's campaign received international attention and due to her new safety regulations were introduced on the trawlers.
I have depicted her here with her nice big beehive and her petition in hand!

The other two ladies I have drawn out as your general Fisherladies who worked on the docks sorting and gutting fish.

It was so interesting finding out about these amazing ladies, and I'm surprised I didn't know more about them, but I haven't really seen anything locally like in Hull Maritime about them.

Anyhow I hope I have done them some justice here. I have also tried again to show my process, to give you a little insight into how I work.

Sketchbook

I'm still working on my trawler men wives at the minute, so in the meantime I thought I'd put up some of my sketchbook work. 

Most of this sketchbook is just for me to have some fun and draw some weird stuff! I like using my imagination to create bizarre characters, they are my strange illustration alien babies.

I think one of the most important things to do with your mind is to practice using your imagination. Too often as grown ups we allow our imagination to just slip away.

Hull Fishermen

So today I have finally finished my fishermen! I've wanted to do an illustration to do with Hull's history for a bit now, so I did a bit of research by going to the maritime museum and looking at some pretty cool black and white images of Trawlermen.
I am going to be doing some fishwives/lasses next to accompany my trawlermen, so keep an eye out!
I've done a little process image too but because I am often too eager to ink I forgot to scan my pencil version! I will be better organised next time.

The Vikings

Just finished this piece this week. I've been going on about drawing some Vikings for ages, and I've finally done it!
I think having worked in primary schools for the past year and seeing 'Horrible History' books I've got a renewed love for figures from history.

Holidays!

Feeling slightly daunted this week after coming back from my holidays at the weekend! Summer has now ended, schools are back, weathers getting colder and supermarkets will no doubt start putting out Christmas decorations soon!

On a more positive note though I spent two weeks chilling on the Isle of Wight which gave me time to decide what to do with myself for the next year!

If you want a classic British summer hol then the Isle of Wight is definitely the place to go. There's dinosaur hunting, shell hunting, long walks, lots of beach fun (even when it rains). And if you get down for August bank holiday all the old and new Mods are down with their Vespas and Lambrettas for the scooter rally!

Organised!

So I have organised my desk, I have bought an amazing new computer chair....now to do some illustration...

I have some good ideas in the pipeline I just need to start on them, like my mum always says 'stop talking about them and start doing them!' 

Illustrative Arts Exhibition

I am part of an illustration show this coming Friday in the old T K Maxx shop at the bottom of Princess Quay. How exciting you say? Heck yeah it is!
It's going to be really cool having so many talented illustrators, painters, and designers all in one place, nothing of this scale happens very often in Hull.

Some of the people showing are:

Gareth Sleightholme  http://apopheniainc.wordpress.com/
Dominic Li http://domanicli.blogspot.co.uk/
James Fenwick http://jamesfenwickill.blogspot.co.uk/

Samba

I did this flyer for Hull Samba to promote getting people to join in on a Tuesday night. I decided, because Samba originates from Brazil, all the animals would be from Brazil too. So here is my own crazy Brazilian animal Samba band!

I had a fantastic time recently being a part of the Liverpool Bazilica weekend. Hull Samba played in a massive conga line around Liverpool with other samba bands and carnival floats from different parts the UK for 2 hours! Incredible.

MR. Bo-Jangles

This is Mr. Bo-Jangles the most bad-ass cat in town.
Last year my beloved, stinky, often quite stupid, but totally cool cat Reggie died :( I was totally devastated as he was the first proper pet me and James have ever had (excluding Nebula the impulse bought hamster).
So this image is in loving memory of Reggie the original Mr. Bo-Jangles.

Black Widow

Here's one sexy cowgirl for you! I started this a while back and only recently finished colouring it. 

I've put both coloured and black & white up because I'm undecided as to which I like best!

I hope you enjoy this black widow, she's gonna take you for all you've got!

A long long time ago...

Why has it been so long Blogger you say, well I have been all consumed in a PGCE course and now it is over! (Well it was over about a month ago now but all the days are merging into one now I have so much down time!)
Here are some Victorian ladies I did at the end of last year, as you can see good old Queen Vic is in the middle there. I have a slight obsession with Queen Vic and her  holiday home Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, I have to go there every year when I'm down on holiday (as you can see below).

New Treasure!

I have got myself into a very bad habit of buying new books! It's not that bad when you get them through the letter box, your eyes lighting up and you open them and they're so colourful and new.....it's the dent in the old bank account that's bad.
These two books are pretty wonderful though. There is Professor Astro Cat's Frontiers of Space by Ben Newman, which is full of beautiful illustrations and facts about space. You can check more of his work out at http://www.bennewman.co.uk/.
The other book is a Big Mother book by NoBrow I have all three so far: McBess, Sam Vanallemeersch, and this one Riikka Sormunen. These Big Mother books don't have any words they are just amazing A3 picture books!
If you want to see more of her work you can here http://www.riikkas.com/

Flyer Work

Since last summer I have had my work on flyers for the Duchess in York here's some examples!
They look amazing to me I absolutely love them, and there was nothing better then walking into a shop and seeing them on a counter!!