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...

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...

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...

I thought I would share some of the pages of my recently finished sketchbook. It is part of the sketchbook project which is based in Brooklyn, New York. Once you complete the sketchbook it is added to their library and people can look through it and buy prints from it. I was gifted the book by my sister and it has taken a while to get around to finishing with other work commitments but I'm so happy it's now complete and ready to send across the ocean! The theme is 'Home' and I've used a range of media: ink, digital art, paper cuttings and paints. I have now started a new sketchbook that is much bigger (this one was A5) to do with food puns and children's illustration. You can see more pictures on my instagram @elidillonart or on my website www.elidillon.com Enjoy!