Friday 10 July 2020

Illustrating a Children's Book


Hello Hugo. 
Hugo loves to play hide and seek but his fluffy white tipped tail often gives away his hiding spots. 
Can you find Hugo? 

Hide and Seek with Hugo. Working on this children’s book was so much fun!
I created a character, story, background and colour scheme all from scratch. 
Making it all rhyme was probably the hardest task I set upon myself.

Illustration for Children


As a present to my nephew I created art for his bedroom walls based on iconic animals interacting with classic children’s toys. I wanted them to be gender neutral and feature yellow in the design as the bedroom itself was decorated grey. 





Detailed Backgrounds


Working from a prompt list for animal adventures week I worked on six traditional watercolour scenes. 
I wanted to really delve into a scene or background and make that be the focus. I love how these pieces work together flowing thoughtfully colour wise from one to the next. They are created using watercolour and then detailed with pencil crayons.

I've also started work on a disney/pixar series of fanart showing a little more love for background art.




Location Study


These location studies are very personal to me, there’s three of the most amazing places I have ever been, and three locations in Leeds, the city I live in. This was a series created in lockdown to remember some places that I couldn’t visit at the time. 

The Golden Gate Bridge San Francisco, The Golden Pavillion Kyoto, and Magic Kingdom Florida. Three amazing places, and three amazing holidays I will never forget.

The Corn Exchange, The Grand Theatre, and Hyde Park Picture House are all the Leeds lovelies. 



Fantastic Florals


Across various mediums and end uses I have had the chance to draw many flowers and natural elements, so much that they have become one of my favourite things to draw.

The cake slicer with florals to the right was a card designed for Snowdrop Cakery, a wedding cake designer to send out to her clients as a congratulations card on their big day. 



Wedding Stationery cont.



Some of the more unique wedding stationery commissions I’ve been challenged to design are portrait seating plans and illustrated maps. 

Though challenging they end up being some of my favourite pieces, and make for really treasured illustrations for the couple to keep forever as a work of art.




Wedding Stationery


Over the last couple of years I have been working at wedding fayres promoting myself as a Wedding stationery supplier.

I have had some amazing clients, and had the chance to work on everything from save the dates, invitations, menu cards, and table seating name plates. 


Each design is bespoke and based solely around the couple.




Bar Menu Design


I am one of several artists involved in the new menu for a very popular bar in Leeds, named Below Stairs. The idea was a menu with each drink illustrated by a different artist building up a book that is interesting to look through and read not only about picking a cocktail. 
There’s no ingredients listed next to the illustration, instead there is a short descriptive story filled with sights sounds and smells.


I also worked on this Gin piece for a different even, and loved the rough illustration on each bottle.




Corporate Illustration - Logos and Branding


Several projects over the years have inter-grated illustration seamlessly into the logos, branding or even promotional material.
Eternal Images Photography chose to have a quirky almost folksy feel to their logo re-brand, with a camera and two birds within the lens dressed as a bride and groom.
Grow Better is for a new consulting company who didn’t want their logo to be bland or too corporate, so chose based around their likes and personality. 






The shirt illustration is for a brand named 1 like no Other, which designed shirts so beautifully 
intricate from fabric to trims they needed illustrations that showed off the details.

Then of course the Fox, well that’s my personal little slice of branding.



NHS Keyworker Portraits


This was a personal project during lockdown, I asked for NHS keyworkers to come forward on Instagram if they were interested in a free digital portrait.

I ended up doing 20 portraits, or 22 if you count the mother and daughter in one and the cockatoo, I wanted to do as many as possible in my free time and picked names from a mug at random. 
It was my way of saying thank you to all the NHS was doing, and hopefully spread a little joy during a hard time.

I really enjoyed working on these and wish I could do more. Thank you NHS for all you are doing right now. Each piece was created digitally using ipad, apple pencil and procreate, I love the fact that you can still incorporate texture into digital pieces.



Pet Portraits


I love it when I get to draw pet portraits, it brings so much joy to the owners and it’s a lot of fun for me too. I like mixing my digital style with character and whimsy of the pet’s or sometimes owner’s personality.

Like the house cat in a jungle setting to match the owners decor, the dog hiding in a carved pumpkin, or the set of three family dogs posing. The Latter was a design for a wedding invitation.  


Smores, the pup above is one of my favourite pet portraits. 
Being a close up I was able to capture all the details and markings.





Packaging Design


Illustration and design for a Florists’ debut range of skincare and wellness products.
The brief was to produce illustrations of the flowers that would be used as ingredients in the products. The products were all natural, the owner wanted the design to embody nature and an eco friendly style.

Working on a project with natural elements is great, but then you also get some illustrative freedom with the flowers, colours and layouts it turns into a dream project.
I just love how this range of products featuring skincare, soap bars and candles turned out. Not only do they look great but the smells are divine, and all include the flowers featured on the labels. Made from 100% natural ingredients this product range from fantail designer florist make for extremely lovely gifts for yourself as well as others.




I’ve also produced illustrations and packaging designs for Peter Reed home products, which were even on display in Harrods of London. Working with them for this was such a lovely experience and I think the overall look and feel was a contemporary dream.




About the Artist


Hi, I’m Harriet. 
I love to work both traditionally with watercolour, 
and digitally either using procreate or Photoshop,
and feel each medium can lend itself better to differing briefs or end uses. 
I have been using both digital art and watercolour as my main art forms for the last 15 years.

Each year at the beginning of January I create a self portrait. 
I thought it would be a great ongoing project and a tradition I could keep, 
both to see how the perception of my reflection alters along with my art style.

I take pride in the fact that I’ve always wanted to be an artist, 
from a very young age I can remember creating in any medium I could get 
my hands on with my grandparents. Both of them creative in different ways. 
I've always been encouraged to make art and my family are my biggest fans.