Discovering old sketch books

We recently moved home and as part of settling into the new house I decided it was about time I finally sorted through all my art boxes and got them all organised.

It turned into such a trip down memory lane because I came across so many of my old sketch books! It also made me realise how many times I’ve attempted to follow my illustration dream over the years, and how many times I lost confidence in myself!

I found a set of “Surf Girl” drawings (including a fabulous one of a mermaid that I had completely forgotten about!) and it’s inspired a collection I’m excited to put into print. I’m going to make these prints even more special because each print will be individually hand painted with some extra touches in various media; no two will be the same.

It was such a treat to rediscover my surf inspired pieces.

I’m still a surfer girl at heart but now, because I’m a busy mum, it’s just not a past time I get to indulge in anymore (living 3 hours from decent, regular surf doesn’t help either!) I used to draw and create surf inspired pieces constantly during my surfing days, in fact I had a piece of mine printed in Surf Girl Magazine in January 2012 which was a visual documentation of all the surf trips I’d been on during the year before. I remember at that time my creative spark was really flowing and I allowed myself to explore the idea of pursuing my illustration ambitions again, seeing my work in Surf Girl magazine was a huge deal to me!

As usual though, I lost confidence again and the sketch books were put away until I found them the other day. I’m so happy I have finally taken the leap and pushed through any doubts because now I’m finally living my dream! I’m delighted to share these here and look out for a future blog post detailing the unique prints of these images that I’ll be selling.