elidillonart

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...

I've been MIA from this little slice of the internet for a few weeks. Several reasons... 1. I've been doing a few commissions for weddings, baby showers etc and don't feel it's right to share the artwork as someone has specially paid for it. 2. Little hiccup has decided not to nap during the day anymore, napping is for wimps. Ride or die. 3. We are doing up our house little and often but it often means outings to Homebase, B&Q and Dunelm. However I have managed a couple of personal projects in the hour after baby is put to bed! I'm working on promoting my artwork more and putting together the bits and pieces I need to open an online shop. Sometimes it feels like I'm starting from a mile behind everyone else; this is a new career path, I'm older, I graduated a long, long time ago however I try to stay away from that particular rabbit hole of worries and just keep pushing forward. I try to remember that someone, somewhere will like my work, just as...

I finished a picture this weekend between feeds and naps and the pain of first immunisations for a child's bedroom. Colours were specifically requested to match the room and it is printed A3 size.  Media: watercolour, ink and digital. Hope you enjoy! This has inspired me to crack on with my children's book pitch and finish the artwork for the first few pages. Now stay focused Eli, staaaaay focused.

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...

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...

Trying out the #mermay challenge on instagram this month. I've only done a couple so far so not following the one per day structure but I'm enjoying the hashtag and finding new illustrators to follow!

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...

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!

I made a picture for my sister's birthday. She's likes a good food themed pun. 'Beetroot to Yourself'.

I missed posting on National Relaxation Day! I started drawing a picture about relaxing but then I had to make dinner (a roast) have a drink (red wine) and watch a film (How to Catch a Thief) and after all that it was too late. So I got up early this morning and made some tea, put on one of my favourite background films - Julia and Julia - and finished making a picture. I am normally so busy that relaxing is tricky. I run from the car to work to the supermarket to the gym to dinner, to my desk back to work but sometimes I have these weeks where I can fold all my happy relaxation things into a melting pot of loveliness and calm. These are the top 10 things I do to relax: 1) Sit with a cup of tea in a clean house. Clean is the word, it has to be clean and tidy and possibly sunny, or at least cosy and softly lit. And my tea of choice is posh fancy tea from a little shop on the Shambles in York. There is a space in my apartment, out the back on the fire escape, that gets the best s...

I have started a project documenting vegan food through ink drawings that I then add colour to. I have been vegan since January 2016 after watching some documentaries and being vegetarian for about 4 years by that point. I went in with a lot of research. I had vegan recipe youtube channels on the go, recipe books, blogs, pinterest boards; I was ready! I found it surprisingly easy even though I was living in Abu Dhabi which has quite a meat heavy culture. I found that we ate lots of falafel, hummus, pastas, smoothies and curries. Since we moved back to the UK it has been super simple. All the supermarkets have vegan cheeses and sausages, the restaurants normally have one or two options (and they don't frown when you say 'vegan') which is great. I worried about not being able to have super tasty treats like cakes and puddings and also that main course food would be bland but I have found it to be the opposite. We often eat pancakes, especially on a Saturday morning with...