Folio

I completely forgot to put this on my blog but this is my entry for the Folio Society's book competition 2015. The book selected this year was a collection of ghost stories. 

Doorstep Adventure

A quick little editorial I did for an article entitled Doorstep Adventure. The piece was about how we are much more likely to travel across the world for our adventure holidays than to find it in our own countries.

Post!

Packages are the best. I received some of the printed Christmas cards which I created for the V&A yesterday. I'm really happy with them; they've been printed onto this lovely thick, porous paper that's weight and grain makes them feel a million miles away from your generic disposable greetings card. 

I've also been lucky enough to be the first artist/ Illustrator featured in Reyker's brochure's this month;  two out of three of the brochures can be found here where you can read all about my interview with Jay Grosvenor.

Open Sesame

Open sesame. You may be pleased to know that you can now buy selected prints of my work from my store and if you'd like something thats not on the store give me a shout (or email if you're not in shouting distance) and I'll see what I can do. Check it out.

http://gracerussell.bigcartel.com

Santa...I know him

Promise fulfilled. Exciting new Christmas cards commissioned by the V&A museum to send out to their high profiled clients. It was a pretty quick turn around with less than a week between the first email and the submission of final pieces but it was fairly exciting actually, plus it gave me another excuse to visit the V&A (like I need one). 

I'm really happy with the finished piece, the idea was to have the Chandelier symbolise a christmas tree. I tried to capture the essence of the museum with the grandeur of the vast dome entrance and sum up its wonderful collection with the Rotunda Chandelier, and marry it with a quietness, peacefulness and almost spiritualness, much like midnight mass on Christmas eve. 

This was the chosen piece

However I do love the snowman in this one

4 tribal headdresses, 3 ghost stories, 2 bears who makes my heart melt and a partridge in a pear tree.

My face right now...

Things are going swimmingly, working on some really exciting new stuff that I'm trying to push the boundaries with little. Fun both to create and to look at.  Pre-warning of some new work to be up next week too. 

On the third day of Christmas Grace gave to me...

... the promise of more work updates. I've been/I am snowed under at the moment with lots of new work and commissions so this promise shall be fulfilled in the near future. I've had the wonderful opportunity of working with a very high profiled client on an extra special Christmas card commission recently, and excuse me while I blow my own trumpet, but the client has since come back to me and said that it is the best they have ever produced! Christmas has definitely come early. That will be up on the website *fingers crossed* just before christmas. I'm also involved in another project at the moment along with an amazing group of illustrators (most of whom intimidate the crap out of me) working on perhaps an illustrators dream brief really. Its so cool and should be all ready to show in the new year with the promise of an exhibition at some point. And finally I have a super top secret project (it literally hurts to not be able to tell anyone about this) on the go, its amazing and fantastic and I could go on but I won't and I again don't know when this will be shared but it will be amazing. So yeah, end the year on a bang lets hope. To be continued. 

For now though I'll leave you with an illustration to accompany Joelle Taylor's poem 'No Man's Land' as part of SLAMbassadors poetry anthology. I't also on the website: http://www.gracerussell.co.uk