Waitrose Kitchen May 14.'

It's around that time of the month again to share a few foodie pics from my regular feature for Waitrose Kitchen magazine. Penne pasta, courgette, red cabbage, orange, basil and walnuts. I love working on this little commission each month :) 

Inspired by: Flowers

This time of year feels so colourful and vibrant. I love witnessing the seasons changing - I appreciate it even more now that I have a dog and walk her daily. There's a woods close by us that we sometimes go to and it's been amazing seeing it change from bare, frosty branches to a crispy coating of autumn leaves and now the floor is covered in a beautiful blanket of bluebells, it's so pretty. I find flowers so inspiring and I love having fresh flowers in the studio while I'm working. I really like the energy of the above photo's from my 'beautiful things' board on Pinterest (Here are the original sources for the top & middle photo, the restyled chair is unknown.) Below is an illustration I created for The Financial Times last year for the Centenary of The Chelsea Flower Show, this year the show is held on 20th May, you can buy tickets here. What are you currently inspired by?

Illustrations for 'Edible spots & pots.'

Late last year I had the pleasure of working with Christina Gaugler from Rodale inc. on a number of illustrations for Stacey Hirvela's new book 'Edible spots & pots.'

The commission included drawing 66 edibles and 16 projects - it was so much fun! The creative challenge was drawing the vegetables and herbs in a realistic way but retaining my own illustrative style and using only two spot colours! It was my first time using spot colours and I really enjoyed having the restriction and I think it's helped the edibles to look that bit more sophisticated. That is if you can make kale look sophisticated! It was also fun creating the project illustrations as it was a theme that I hadn't illustrated before. Chris was really helpful and sent me some little bamboo sticks to construct mock-ups of the some of the projects to draw from. Here are some selected drawings from the book. (You can buy the book here!)

My favourite edibles to draw were the ones with unusual textures, little details and shapes. Some of them included horseradish, Tuscan kale and jerusalem artichoke. I hope you like them! 

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Waitrose Kitchen April 14.'

This months feel-good food illustrations for Waitrose Kitchen accompanied recipes for Smoky chicken mole with green rice, Ray wings baked in parchment and Japanese noodle broth. I recently made the sweetcorn fritters and the banoffee peanut butter cake from last months issue - both were delicious, the sweetcorn fritters will be making a regular appearance to my weekday meals, yum!

There are some really lovely illustrations in this months issue from Charlotte Farmer, Annick Poirier, Alan Batley & Kate Sutton & its the chocolate issue, check it out!

Here is a selection of the little food illustrations I've been creating for this regular feature.

Spring is here!

...Longer daylight hours, flowers in bloom, daffodils everywhere, green, warmer days, blossom, days spent outside, afternoon walks and drinks in the sunshine x

Illustrations for '365 Reasons to be proud to be Irish.'

Last year I worked with Anova books to illustrate one of their new Portico titles '365 Reasons to be Proud to be Irish,' by Richard Happer. The book is part of their popular culture and humour section and their 365 series. The book takes a look at Ireland's rich history, heritage, traditions, landmarks, culture and more.

I enjoyed working on this project and I really liked the fact I was restricted to using only black and white, it was a fun challenge! This was the first book I illustrated (now I'm on my fourth) and I absolutely love working on book projects and in the publishing sector - it's nice to have projects with a lengthier timeframe and I love seeing the final product!

Icons used throughout the book

I hope you like the final artwork, there were 18 illustrations in total so here are some of my favourite images from the book. Please feel free to get in touch if you would like to see more. 

Waitrose Kitchen March 14.'

This months feel-good food illustrations were all about sweetcorn, lime, flat leaf parsley, cauliflower, puy lentils and sweet potatoes. I can't wait to try out the recipe for sweetcorn fritters with avocado and cherry tomato salsa, sounds and looks delicious.

What's on my bedside table?

Here's what's currently on my bedside table... Perfume, a comb, hair slides, hand cream, fresh flowers, my phone, mirror, a teacup containing a bird necklace and night serum.

Waitrose Kitchen February 14.'

I'm really enjoying working on this lovely commission for Waitrose Kitchen 'Feel-good food.' This month it's all about mushrooms, turnips, fennel, mussels and kalamata olives! I made the Italian baked aubergine whilst working on this and it was delicious! 

Waitrose Kitchen January 14.'

At the end of last year I spent a good couple of months immersed in drawings of food, lots of tasty veggies, herbs & more. One of the commissions I worked on was this one for Waitrose Kitchen magazine. I'm a big fan of the mag, I pick up a copy every month so was really pleased to work on these illustrations with their lovely art editor Kat. I really like the whole art direction of the mag and the colour themes running throughout the pages, this month there's a lot of blue tones and it's nice to see some other great illustrations throughout the mag too! I've also created a few illustrations for the February feel-good food feature so keep an eye out!