Sorry Agnes...

can't wait to add some colour to this :D

ink it

A very swift bit of PS inking practise

Ride a Snowflake

“Lives are snowflakes - unique in detail, forming patterns we have seen before, but as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, reallylooked at them? There's not a chance you'd mistake one for another, after a minute's close inspection.)”

Neil Gaiman

Salon Love

I <3 ELK

www.elksalon.com

Pretty Little Things

I am working with my dear friend and fashion designer Emma Warren on a series of illustrations for her line of exciting accessories,
here is one I completed a little while ago...won't be long before I post a whole bunch of them!
I find her creations incredibly inspirational and feel very lucky that she's trusting me to create imagery to promote her brand :)
Check her stuff out on Asos !

x

Cornelia Funke's Ghost Knight

Last year I had the priveledge to illustrate the new cover for Cornelia Funke's brilliant book Ghost Knight. I was very inspired by french artist Bernard Hislaire / Yslaire and his epic comic book Hugo et Iris...perhaps this shows in the characters of the children, I don't know..
The artwork is a combination of pencil drawings and digital work. It was a very fun, experimental process!

Knight times are fun ;)

x

Time Hunters

I've been working on a series called Time Hunters recently, through the amazing illustration studio Dynamo Limited!

I just discovered that they are now on the shelves in WHSmith! So go grab a copy! Literally the best humour ever, and very informative, written by the brilliant Chris Blake! I adore the main characters Tom and Isis, who I concepted before christmas and have been drawing ever since! I have also totally fallen in love with the cat Cleo, to the point where I might just get him tattooed somewhere on my body after the series is finished! Awww his little face!! He's just an epic feline creature and I'm so glad he appeared out of my imaginings haha! He will shortly have a post entirely dedicated to him...

The story goes that Isis, a young and recently deceased princess from ancient egypt, hides one of 6 amulets she's meant to be handing over to Anubis, the god of the afterlife...because it's pretty, of course!  So as punishment the very angry Anubis hides the amulets throughout history and tells Isis that she will only get into the afterlife if they are returned to him, and then he locks her up in a sarcophagus. Thousands of years later, Tom accidentally knocks this sarcophagus over whilst hanging around in his dad's museum one evening. Out comes Isis and her pet cat Cleo, and she asks Tom if he can help them find the amulets. He agrees and they get whisked off by the Winds of Time to their first adventure in Ancient Rome...

Below is the process of how the cover for the first book came to be. It has been such a learning curve and I feel really honoured to have had so much creative input and freedom with the illustrations for both the covers and the insides!

Go grab a copy! The first four books are out now!

x

Dry shampoo rocks

I was contacted a while ago by an advertising agency to do some illustrations for a well known brand of dry hair shampoo. I completed the above illustration, as part of a set of images to show how the product vamps up and volumises your locks. Unfortunately, as is sometimes the case, the client decided not to go with this particular style and opted to go down another route. As much as I would have loved to get this gig, I still had a lot of fun creating the above image ;)  

Love drawing hair, me!

Colouring

I've finally got around to colouring up one of my character sketches from ages ago...here it is so far, after putting down the basic colours. Obviously still quite rough, bits and bobs will change but I'll try and stick to this kind of pastel-y palette...

Character sketches

Quick character sketches that were drawn as a sample for a new Orchard books children's fiction series a while back! Although I didn't get the job, I still enjoyed drawing these! My fave's the owl!! May have to colour one of these guys up...

In progress

tiny teasers from current work-in-progress 

:)

found these sketchbook pages - they belong to my old website...unfortunately I haven't come around to putting it back together since my competency with Dreamweaver has gone way downhill over the last couple of years. Might hand that task over to my dear, talented friend Joe Sutton instead!

ah....oldschool!

a few recent pencils :)

ELK Salon

A small promotional doodle for ELK

I am doing a bit of fundraising for World Wildlife Fund, doing what I do best - drawing! In February I decided to doodle a tiger every day, to raise some awareness for their current campaign to save wild tigers from extinction. I encouraged everyone (or anybody who were willing to listen to my eco-warrior / crazy illustrator cat-lady ramblings ) to give drawing a tiger a go themselves...and I actually got a pretty good response!! It was incredibly heart warming to watch the pictures flowing in! People were wanting to pitch in to help raise awareness, taking a small step to attempt to make a big change in our understanding of nature and how to preserve and respect it! It made me very happy to see!

Check out the facebook group:

DrawATiger

On Saturday 9th March I hosted an exhibition, Art Auction and Creative Fundraising evening at ELK Salon in Exeter. It was a dROARing success ;)

Here are some of the best bits of what was on display:

(above: examples of my own work; below: examples of work submitted by other artists - Adam Quinton, Neil Price, Emma Randall, Joe Sutton, Vince Knight, Vera Johansen, Matthew Taylor, George Flint and Oscar Flint)

Please keep dROAR going by sending me your tiger drawings via osonju@hotmail.co.uk (or post to the facebook group!)

Also, please visit my just giving page to dontate to WWF, an awesome charity who work tirelessly to provide clear and accessible information and actionable steps to protect our planet and make it a better place for all! 

Thank you so much to everyone who have so far contributed and donated!

Thank you also to WWF UK, who cheered me on and sent lots of stickers and posters to put up on saturday!  Also Thank You to Pukka Herbs, who provided me with tea and support to help create a beautiful world ;)

xXx