7th September 2010

The Edinburgh Festival has wrapped up for another year and Autumn is creeping in. Time for some soulful tunes and Jazz sounds to keep the party going.

The Queen’s Hall has a great line up for the Autumn months and as always the bands and performers cover a wide range of musical styles and sounds. So when The Queen’s Hall asked me if I would like to produce a further collection of designs for their brochure and publicity material I jumped at the chance and suggested that this time we take the designs in a slightly new direction. (See last year’s illustrations here!)

To reflect the eclectic mix of music offered at The Queen’s Hall the next four illustrations are each telling the story of a different musical genre. Starting with the Autumn season inspired by New Orleans Jazz bands, smokey bars and charleston girls, over the next 12 months I will be doodling, painting and drawing along to the sounds of Classical, Rock, Roots & World music. - I can’t wait!

To get the party started here is Jazz for 2010! Stick the Hot 8 Brass Band on Spotify and enjoy

1st October 2009

All the major elements of the first of a series of illustrations I have done for The Queen’s Hall are out now! This includes the fabulous large scale banners at the front of the venue, see piccies here, virtual wallpaper and logos on The Queen’s Hall website, Twitter, and Flickr accounts and now these gorgeous brochures.

Andy Catlin, Marketing Manager at The Queen’s Hall, approached me a couple of months ago to ask me to design four illustrations around the theme of musical instruments for The Queen’s Hall to use in their promotional material and online. You can catch up on the back story and how this fiddles design developed here and here.

Of course this design is only the first of the four illustrations which will be used throughout the following year, culminating with the final design for the Festival 2010 edition of the brochure out next August.

A personal note

You might notice my blogs become a little more irregular over the next few months as I have now officially started maternity leave and my mind and time will be focused on preparing and getting used to life as a new mum. I’ll definitely keep you posted as the projects and collaborations that I have been working on up till now make the jump into the real world with a few blogs here and there. I might even put up some piccies of the creative bits and pieces I plan to make for the baby. For now, I’m off to put my feet up and think about making curtains decorated with little white fluffy sheep…

16th September 2009

The first installment of my illustration commission for The Queen’s Hall is out there on public display! Last week large banners featuring the first of my four illustrations for The Queen’s Hall were put on display outside the venue. I went down to see my work in the flesh and take a few snaps for my blog…

The design started with a trip to  Reid Concert Hall Museum of Instruments for an afternoon drawing the beautiful antique violins that are stored at the museum. After some designing and development work back at my desk the design began to take shape. A little extra colour work on Photoshop, and the design (in a variety of colourways) was ready for approval. Happily, Andy and his boss were really pleased with my offerings and here is the final design…

The illustration is being used throughout The Queen’s Hall materials from banners and brochure of events to their website and recruitment material.

Keep your eye out for the new look brochure with listings of Autumn’s events at The Queen’s Hall, I’m particularly excited about Gomez! For other exciting gigs and the latest news from the venue be sure to check out The Queen’s Hall website and Twitter page which have both also had Carlene Edwards inspired face lifts!

I’ll get some photos up of the brochure here soon…

19th August 2009

I am really excited to tell you all about a great new commission that I’m working on just now!

I have been asked by the wonderful Edinburgh music venue, The Queen’s Hall, to create four original illustrations for their events brochures for the forthcoming year.

The theme I have been asked to design around is musical instruments and each brochure will feature a design created from my own drawings and sketches of a different instrument. The designs will be used as a wrap around print for the front cover of each of the four brochures, starting with the Autumn 2009 brochure which will be out this September.

To get started I went along to the Reid Concert Hall Museum of Instruments which houses an amazing collection of antique fiddles, violins and brass instruments. I sat and sketched to the sounds of a musical show in the background, part of the Edinburgh Festival which is in full swing up here now. I felt like I was sneaking a freebie while I was working! I’ll definitley be going back to do some more drawings for the next three programmes.

The illustrations are well into development now and I will post some of the contenders for the first issue soon.

Meanwhile here are some sketches that have inspired the first designs.