elidillonart

Hello! Well it's nearly the end of November and my oh my the weather has turned! Dark nights beginning at 3pm, heating on at 6am. Tea on an endless loop to keep warm, always wanting to just order groceries online but forcing baby and myself out into the drizzling rain to trudge around two supermarkets (trying to stick to a budget means a cheap supermarket and a treat supermarket, such is life). On the whole however, autumn has treated us very well. I am always thankful for being able to work from home nowadays instead of rushing out on a dark morning for a hair-raising ride to work down Yorkshire's twistiest 60mph country lane. I spent this month opening my new online shop (hurrah!) and reading back through my diaries realising this was a New Year's resolution of mine for the past 3 years running but also happy in the knowledge that most artists are expert procrastinators. Incidentally you can find my shop here - www.etsy.com/shop/elidillon  It inhabits a quiet cor...

Hello! Today I'm updating the website with some new work - I have posted it on Instagram this week too. It's been a lovely week in York as the summer has faded to autumn and today we went for a brilliant walk into town by way of Clifton. What a fantastic street. I could(/should/will???) draw almost every building on it. The area is closely tied to the Rowntree family and many of the buildings are their old family homes or schools they attended or businesses they supported. Many of the buildings are now privately owned but you can still peek through the iron gates and get a glimpse of old York. We walked all the way into town, past the Minster and on to get a slice of pizza... which I then dropped immediately onto the pavement. Just when the walk was starting to reach perfect...oh well. One of my favourite things to do now the weather is getting colder is to walk into town for hot chocolate - particularly the chilli and peppermint 70% chocolate from York Cocoa House. I sug...

Today I thought I would express my love/hate relationship with browsing the internet. On one hand, it's a great place to find inspiration and ideas. I often save modelling photos and fashion blog photos for inspiration or use google maps to screenshot buildings. I look at other illustrators and feel inspired by their work and it makes me want to improve and learn more and research and try new techniques. On the other hand however, I can be happily clicking around and reading and looking and all of a sudden, without even really realising it I'm feeling as if my work is super inferior to everything else that I'm seeing. This is the pitfall of the art world online. I think it's so great to be able to really quickly see what other artists are up to but if you happen to be looking at a time when you're not feeling so confident about your own output; maybe you've done a lot of not so great sketches that day or a commission just isn't coming along as you would lik...

Finished a picture of local attraction Merchant Adventurers Hall in York. This is the street entrance on Fossgate and the beautiful hall is hidden behind.

Happy Monday morning! This morning the baby has been sleeping for hours as we had a busy weekend so I've been able to begin work on updating my portfolio (www.elidillon.com). I have a personal project called The New York Project. As I've been drawing York architecture being a local York artist I thought it might be nice to pair those pictures with famous locations in New York City. I started with the set from Rear Window - an Alfred Hitchcock film starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly (and my all time favourite film). Though this isn't a real location, it was an epic set building on a multi floored stage, it was designed to be in the Greenwich Village area of Manhattan. I'm updating that project with 3 new pictures - Katz's Delicatessen - the famous location seen in When Harry Met Sally Hook and Ladder Company 8 - the fire station seen in Ghostbusters Holly's Apartment building - from Breakfast at Tiffanys There are others on the horizon, perha...

Now that the ol'baby is getting into a slightly predictable napping routine I can plan my day a little more and be a little more creatively productive. I have finished a portfolio piece for the Food Project and a couple of buildings in York - my usual go to sketchbook work. I have a couple of commissions of people's homes and families to draw in the upcoming weeks so all the nap gaps have pretty much been filled with drawing. This is good as I was a tad worried that a baby would change absolutely everything and though life is definitely different - baby is so chill that I can still retain bits of life pre 4 weeks ago!

So #mermay did not work so well for me. I did birth a baby in May though so that's my legitimate excuse. I managed the grand total of two mermaids and one was pregnant as that's pretty much all that was on my mind towards the end. Oh well! Now that mini-me is here and sleeping soundly for a couple of hours each day I have started sketching again. I keep one of mini's naps for napping myself and then the following nap is drawing time! It's part of the day I love because it links pre-baby and post-baby life, no matter what there is still a pencil and a sketchbook and 100 drawings before you get to one you like. So this week I picked up some magazines and scoured the internet and sketched some food. Most of it is vegan or I adapted them to become vegan because I'm all about saving the animals. The desserts are inspired by one of my favourite youtube channels and blogs @hotforfood by Lauren Toyota. Some of the other food ideas are from the free Tesco magazine (wh...

Another food pun - this time it's Pamela Corrianderson! I quite like watercolour paints. I have never really used them before doing this food pun project but I like the idea of painting quite a simple 'boring' still life then bringing a character to it through digital art. They are some of my favourite pictures that I make. Long live the food pun! This one will be added to the gang of Benedict Cucumberbatch, Pear Grylls and John Lemon. All can be viewed in my portfolio at www.elidillon.com and should be available as prints soon! This week I've been working on a few things. It's quite nice but also strange to have time back after leaving my old job. It has definitely taken me a while to get into the swing of quiet but busy days again and I have to write tick lists of things I want to do so that I stick to it! My last job was a never ending cycle of tick lists and meetings and a never ending stream of tasks that needed doing. I work very well with a list. Here is...