Apples, arrows & stripes

Follow your heart & you will fly straight and true
Emily Hamilton
(ink & watercolour)

Last month I was racking my brains to work out how I could incorporate the striped style from my 'Surfer' series. I really like the way they look & have been attempting numerous creations, from wooly jumpers & fruit to sail boats and palm trees. Below is one of the pieces which I've added a snippet of typography to, along with some more wood block printing recycled from my pineapple & watermelon pieces earlier this year. 

 

 

 

 

'Stand Tall'

Emily Hamilton

(ink, watercolour & wood block print)

and to finish off, here's a share of the beautiful JF Shapes board I was asked to add a few lines to. It really didnt need anything to make it look better, but I just added some light, unobtrusive detail to the amazing wooden fins.

 

 

Oh...il pleut...

With the changing seasons I felt like throwing together a bit of sunshine, paint and rounded clouds...

Vintage paper, fineliners and taking a break from using it on furniture, the brilliant Annie Sloan Chalkpaint.

 

 

'Il pleut'

 Emily Hamilton

 

Foxy little number

This little sleeping fox is part of some sketchy pieces working towards this years collection of Christmas cards. Nature, geometrics & pastely hues are the inspiration behind them - yummo.

Neon brights

Today is a grey day. A grey day where I got completely soaked in a torrential downpour with no form whatsoever of waterproof garmentation.

So what was a girl to do, apart from quickly buy a neon jumper then go home and get some neon paints out.

I love a bit of neon. Its pretty good at tarting up some nice hairy manilla, and giving something plain & simple a nice little bit of pow...

 

(Oh and it also happens to be the name of the very excellent wetsuits made by my talented friend Elsie Pinniger...)

 

 Apart from my obvious excitement at everything neon, I also had a very good morning meeting the lovely ladies at Nalu Beads headquarters. I spent it peering into their amazing ocean-inspired lampwork beads & getting excited with Lisa & Rae about all the potential ideas they had.

 

 

More on that to come soon...

 

Until then, I recommend getting some neon in your life (although note, please be careful when photographing neon paint. Josh doesnt know it yet but I managed to drop his iphone in some mid snapping. Oopsy).

birds and beasties

I've been back on the animal trail lately - nature is always one of my biggest inspirations, along with some intricate doodlings and so I always enjoy combining the two.
This week I've been working on some Christmas card designs (sorry, I know its too early to talk about Christmas). Needless to say, animals, birds and doodles are involved, but I got a bit side-tracked with this little robin. I liked him so much that he got his own piece of work and I think the other creatures will be following in his footsteps over the next couple of weeks...
So I'll save the Christmas card viewings for a little bit longer (its not even October yet dammit) and here's matey bird instead...

'birdling sing'
Emily Hamilton

roar

Leaping Hares

'Leaping Strata Hare'
Emily Hamilton

Geometrics dissolvings... ink and watercolour

'I'm a little pineapple'

My little girl's phrase of the moment...and why not?!

 

'I'm a little pineapple'
by Emily Hamilton

5"x7" block print, ink, watercolour, collage

 

 

 

 

Weeks in pictures...

summer days

flower love

sketching

wedded

flower pop

new cards

sunshine fun

Crafting in the sunshine

 

Another amazing sunny day in Devon, I spent it eating pasties & stem ginger ice-cream whilst selling my wares at Croyde craft market with Yonderland Clothing. Also there, was the beautiful artisan jewellery by Oseyan...just lovely.

 

 

 

 

Oseyan jewellery - beautiful artisan pieces from the island of Haiti

Inky fingers & triathlons

Another late blog post...the weeks are disappearing too fast!

Things have been busy lately, I'm still on post-wedding/holiday catch-up but hopefully next week things will almost be back on track...

 

So to give myself a break from triathlon training (don't ask - it's not as impressive as it sounds) and crossing off things on my giant to-do list, I took some inspiration from my lovely craft-tastic friend, the super creative Phoebe Gander (check out her blog, its brilliant) and made myself up a little wood block. This week I have been busily printing, folding, stanley-knifing & cello-wrapping loads of cards (usually a job for the printers but due to circumstances I've taken it into my own hands this week!) so these block prints were a fun addition to the card collection.

Simple but effective.

Lovely Day

'Lovely Day' by Emily Hamilton

hearts, hello's & water ladies

HELLO!

 

 

Part of a new range of cards & stationary coming soon from Emily Hamilton Illustration

 

...along with new prints & cards from my 'longboarding ladies' collection

 

 

(prints also available here) 

Busy getting hitched

A blog post is way overdue...!

The last month or so has been mostly spent making things, painting things, hammering things, sewing things, sourcing things, hanging things, drawing things and generally being a bit busy on doing anything for our DIY wedding...

...and now its all over!

So finally its back to the drawing board (literally) and time to get on with some real artwork. For those who haven't seen them already, my most recent pieces are this little trio of surfers - taking much inspiration from my favourite female water ladies, Kassia Meador and Belinda Baggs. I even had a message back from Belinda, and I quote:

"your art is amazing!"

 

Which obviously made my year!

 

 

 

(available to buy here)

    

I have new works in progress which I will be posting up shortly, but in the mean time I'll be reminiscing about last weekend and my (not so?!) hot dance moves....hm!

photo: phil stanier



Lamono, element and navajo...

I thought I'd post up my entry for the Lamono magazine / Element Eden Art Drops competition. Have a look at all the entries here - there is some amazing work, if you need some good inspiration then you'll definitely find some here! Click here to see my piece...

My entry for Lamono magazine/Element Eded Art Drops competition

and a little bit of Navajo inspiration this week...

Dandelion geometrics

Mixing up pastel hues, nature love & geometric scatterings.
Illustration - By Emily Hamilton

Laura's board - spray paints & poscas

I did the artwork on the lovely Billabong sponsored Laura Crane's new board this week, who's just back after 2 months of travelling in Indo.
I love working on boards - they are such a good surface for drawing on, its always really fun...and nerve-wracking because you can't get rid of any mistakes or start over - one chance only!
I'm super keen on pastel and geometric inky designs at the moment so I thought I'd combine the two and see what I came up with...
For anyone who wants to do some board art, here's a couple of tips:

- Brand new boards get the best results, but if you're drawing on an old board make sure the deck is as clean as you can possibly get it. Clean & buff as much as you can so its as smooth as possible.

- When you're using spray paints, mask and cover the board EVERYWHERE then check & double check everything is sealed & covered properly. Spray paint has a really good habit of getting in the tiniest cracks & there's nothing worse than peeling off your tape & paper and finding a big paint stripe somewhere you didn't want it.

- Sketch out rough design of what you're thinking before you start. It helps you work out where things might go and saves on big mistakes. If I've got a difficult shape, I sketch it out really lightly with a pencil first so I can follow the lines.

 

 

Colour Drops

Colour drops - be happy

Oysters & waves

Collection of Oystercatchers - March 2013

Ocean rollers - March 2013

Custom Cards

The last few weeks I've been working on my new collection of greetings cards for Blue Island Press. I'm waiting for the proofs to fly over from Sydney, I love getting a little parcel with some nice foreign stamps and a bundle of cards all with my designs on.
On the subject of cards, I've had a few local commissions as well this week - here's a little triplet of cards that were ordered for a new baby - one for each relative!

 

I love taking custom orders so if you want a personal card for a special occasion, drop me a message on my illustration facebook page or email me at mellyhamilton@hotmail.com

Cold fingers & Amazing People

 

I've spent a bit too much time inside this week. Work has been piling up a bit so every spare minute I've been sat at my desk with a pencil or pen, or sat at my desk staring at the computer screen (square eyes).
I was starting to feel like a bit of a slug so this morning I dusted off my bike, wrapped Sunny up in a sleeping-bag style outfit & cycled up as many little hills as we could find. We made it to the beach where we checked out some rock-pools with the freezing northerly blowing our fingers & faces to ice until Sunny's little cry of 'cooold!' made us cycle back over the hills & home.
Now she's in a warm bed with warm milk & I've got a hot green tea & a list of drawing to-do's. My fingers might still be freezing but at least I'm feeling focussed - it just takes a little bit of (very) fresh air...
This week I've got a big thanks to Dr Charles Margerison, founder of the Amazing People Club, for writing this lovely blog post about me here - I really enjoy illustrating for his Bioviews & am looking forward to this year's new projects with the APC team.
They also sent me this collage of some of the portraits I've done over the last few years, weirdly I can remember every single one which is pretty amazing seeing as there are over 500!

Happy Sky Hearts

'Happy Sky Hearts'
7" x 8" print - ink, collage & illustration on archival paper

 

 

Make bunting while the sun shines

 

Here are a few of this afternoon's cards from my 'making-in-the-sunshine-session'.

 

 

These are especially for the lovely National Trust Tearoom, Sandleigh (who are now open again after being closed for the winter - which surely makes it official that spring is nearly here!)

but you can now also purchase them from my etsy shop.

 

Sea'orses

Number 3 of  'Seahorses' series 

It's all gone Moroccan

It's February tomorrow - where did that go?!

I also haven't posted since before Christmas - which is a good few weeks ago, although I have been sunning it up in Morocco for most of January. We arrived back to the wind & grey last night thinking of camels & couscous and wondering why we hadn't stayed a bit longer...

(that's me at the back in case you were wondering)

 

 

It's been very nice without internet for a month but now I've got some serious work to knuckle down to. My greetings cards with Blue Island Press will be exhibiting at the Spring Fair International at the NEC, Birmingham from the 2nd Feb - whoopee!

Other than that, I've got a pile of canvases to get finished for a local cafe, some wedding invitations to design, and a new & exciting project on the blocks which I'll post more about soon. It involves lots of elephants & an excellent international charity and I can't wait to get started!

So I'd better get off the computer & get my pens & paints out. I might just go and have a little cup of my new addiction first though; minty minty moroccan tea. Mmm.