Balach Na Bonaid (The Boy and the Bunnet)

It’s been forever since my last post.. so much has been happening!
I’ve got lots of exciting news and things, but the most exciting of all, is that

‘The Boy and the Bunnet‘ (or Balach Na Bonaid!)
A brave boy, a wee bunnet, a big adventure.

(a children’s book illustration project that I’ve been delighted to be involved in, and working on for a while now with Celtic Connections and Big Sky)
…. is actually being performed as a musical! How cool is that?

You can get tickets here, and see more about the project here!

I’m actually coming up from Nottingham to see the play in Feburary, so exciting!
I completely can’t wait, and it’ll be so lovely to be back in Scotland!

That’s all for now folks, but watch this space!

The boy and his troublesome cloud

I’ve been experimenting with inks and crumpled papers recently for my book,  I want to give it a really weathered battered look. (Yey that rhymes!) This digital and ink image shows the boy being washed away on his boat by the troublesome cloud.

On the rough sea

Fox Prints

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Francis and Me

Francis and Me

For a recent project about ‘the future‘ I’m in the process of illustrating a (very short) children’s book about my future pet, Francis Bacon, a potbellied pig who’s been sabotaging my recent children’s books.  I’ve been using some recent images of mud paintings by Elliott Burns (see his blog here) as edited and coloured backgrounds to get this muddy textural effect. Thanks Elliott! ^ – ^

Page 1

Page 2

Children’s Book Experience

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some character designs for a recent children’s book collaboration opportunity, unfortunately my work wasn’t chosen, but I ended up being one of the last two illustrators being considered!  But either way it was an excellent and valuable professional experience for me and I’m really happy with the work I produced for this. I’m really interested in the textural markmaking of the paint work, (where I’ve scratched back into the image) and the layers of different mediums such as paper and ink as the backgrounds. I also did a lot of digital editing on the first image, as I wanted to make it much darker, and erase areas to help create the atmosphere.

More uploads to come tomorrow!  Off to bed now. Night night!

Wal-r-us!

Well.. I decided it was time to finally get some of my work into print, so I’m now selling tshirts and prints of these rather lovely fellows:

Wal-r-us!

I’m screenprinting these beautiful creatures tomorrow onto plain white tshirts. They’ll be A3 size on the shirt,  looking up lovingly at you from the bottom half of the shirt. (See the pictures tomorrow!) These are 3 colour, limited edition prints so if you’re interested you’ll have to snap them up quick! And If they’re proving popular I’ll print more! Sizes come in S, M, and L.

Please email me with the size you need! jojonorris@hotmail.com (or just give me a text/facebook message) Its a first come first serve basis at the moment!!

The shirts will cost a mere £16 and you’ll be able to buy them off my etsy account.. which I will have up and running by tomorrow!

The 2D prints cost £8 each! They’ll be window mounted (slightly larger than A3 size)  and popped in the post along with a piece of strong card so they dont’ get bashed on their journey!

Please get in touch with any orders!!

Final Alphabet book images!

P is for Pufferfish

W is for West Virgina Northern Flying Squirrel!

U is for Unau

It’s done!!! Check out the Animal Oddities Alphabet Page on the left hand side to see them all in a slideshow!

So That’s all for now folks! yay! So I just need to bind them into a post-card-book now..and then ta da! (hopefully soon you’ll be able to buy my printed books on folksy/etsy, so keep your eyes peeled!) Nightnight!

Duality 2 Arrived!

I thought I’d take a few photos of the finished product which arrived this morning!

(I’m also quite excited by the new tiger hat I just bought..)

Duality 2!

Back Cover

Story Illustration

My Illustrations for Duality!

Illustration for story ROYGBIV by Christine Stoddard.

Front Cover Illustration for Duality 2 'colours'

The Front cover illustration had the title ‘supporting’ the typewriter so it wasn’t floating in mid-air like this!

The book is now available people! http://www.dualitythebook.co.uk/home/buy-the-book

On another note I’ve been failing a bit recently with the Alphabet Oddities!

(But I finally made a start on the sketchbook project!)

Oh and some more recent news is that I’m going to start contributing my illustrations regulary to ‘Leaf Writer’s Magazine’. Yay!

(http://leafbooks.co.uk/magazine/HomeMag.htm)

Also, check out this really cute project called ‘Shoe tales’ (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=11794230451)

That’s next on the agenda!

O is for Okapi

O is for Okapi

Most closely related to the giraffe, the Okapi have these bizarre markings to help camouflage them in long reeds and dappled light in the dense rainforests. They have a very flexible long blue-ish tongue about 30cm long, it’s tongue is long enough to be able to clean its own ears and eyelids! They produce a tar-like substance from their feet which is used for scentmarking territory. There are only around 10,000 – 20, 0000 Okapi left in the wild, and can only be found in 40 zoos worldwide.