Beetle and Toad (Жук и Жаба) is a first-reader picture book in Russian which I have written and illustrated. It is specifically designed with bilingual children in mind with most words under 5 letters long to make for a seamless reading experience. It is now available to buy on Amazon.
I have also worked on book covers for two publishers. My '50s Housewife' Nesting Doll was used for the front and inside cover of Editura Humanitas' Romanian translation of 'Girls. Poor Relatives' by the critically acclaimed author Lyudmila Ulitskaya. And I have illustrated book covers for Hopscotch Books for the titles 'The Victorians' and 'Famous Journeys'
Rated highly by the The iMums and Best Apps for Kids, Theasaurus was a children’s app which was available to download on the Android and Apple app stores 2013-2015.
The app was an educational game, featuring a humorous dinosaur character and over 900 words, designed to expand kids' vocabulary one bite at a time! Children gained points by selecting the correct synonym out of a choice of four words in a classic word-matching game format with three levels of difficulty available.
I made the app in collaboration with a programmer, Dale Markey. I created the graphics, animations and a custom-made font, plus compiled the words and glossary, while Dale coded the game.
My range of limited-edition contemporary Russian dolls were on sale on the Eyestorm Gallery website 2010-2014. I was influenced by the traditional nesting doll, comics and cartoons. My Illustration background fuelled the narrative nature of the dolls and I liked to use the form of the Russian Doll to tell a story with each unfolding piece. The dolls are hand-painted using tempera paints and are finished with a lacquer glaze.
As part of my communications role at Acland Burghley School, I design all of the school's publications. These include the magazine-style Newsletter, weekly family and staff bulletins, as well as Open Week adverts and various booklets, flyers and posters for internal use.
I have also created the joint logo for the school’s partnership with the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment and the logo for the Hall for All fundraising campaign.
On this page I have included examples of my non-commercial illustration work, as well as work created in response to competitions and open briefs. My main interest is narrative and children's book illustration. I work mainly with coloured pencils on coloured card or paper. Other mediums are watercolours, pen and the printmaking techniques of etching and lithography.
"The loveliness of the day, and of the view, he felt like herself. They often stopt with the same sentiment and taste, leaning against the wall, some minutes, to look and admire; and considering he was not Edmund, Fanny could not but allow that he was sufficiently open to the charms of nature, and very well able to express his admiration."
"Julia was the first to move and speak again. Jealousy and bitterness had been suspended: selfishness was lost in the common cause; but at the moment of her appearance, Frederick was listening with looks of devotion to Agatha's narrative, and pressing her hand to his heart; and as soon as she could notice this, and see that, in spite of the shock of her words, he still kept his station and retained her sister's hand..."
"A week had passed in this way, and no suspicion of it conveyed by her quiet passive manner, when she was found one morning by her cousin Edmund, the youngest of the sons, sitting crying on the attic stairs. "My dear little cousin," said he, with all the gentleness of an excellent nature, "what can be the matter?""
In celebration of the London night tube launch, a wholly digital poster showing the 24/7 nature of the city, across the seasons.
Artwork based on my Great-Grandmother's life
Looking down through the window in the floor, the Savage could see Lenina's upturned face, pale in the bluish light of the lamps. The mouth was open, she was calling. Her foreshortened figure rushed away from him; the diminishing square of the roof seemed to be falling through the darkness.
The Savage violently started and, uncovering his face, looked round. Five khaki twins, each with the stump of a long éclair in his right hand, and their identical faces variously smeared with liquid chocolate, were standing in a row, puggily goggling at him.
They met his eyes and simultaneously grinned. One of them pointed with his éclair butt.
"Is she dead?" he asked.
A humming overhead had become a roar... He looked up, startled, from his digging, from his thoughts; looked up... and saw, close above him, the swarm of hovering machines. Like locusts they came, hung poised, descended all around him on the heather.
I created 'Playtime' as the typeface for my first app, Theasaurus. I drew the typeface first to create a more natural cut-out effect and then traced each character in Illustrator to vectrorise them.
