elidillonart

Sooooooo. What's up? How are you? I'm tired. And often emotional. And always hungry. But other than that things are ticking along nicely. I have been working on re-doing the ol' Etsy shop and trying to figure out what pieces of artwork I'd like to sell. So far I have some postcards and puns and I'd really like a few prints to make people feel summery and warm. I just finished up 2 A3 size prints which I'm really excited about: Trees and Birds. I spent a long time researching the different elements and details of each and I'm really proud of the results. I think I wanted to make them as when I was a teacher I found that my children couldn't name most of the most common plants and animals found in the UK. It was startling to walk around and discover that no-one could spot an oak tree or tell the difference between a blackbird and a crow. My third print in the series will be 'Flowers' to showcase some of our wildflowers here in the UK but ...

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...

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...

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...

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 haven't posted for a while as it's been a hectic month at work but I've finally had some time to decompress and reflect and make some personal art. I love a sketchbook and have been working on an A5 and A4 sketchbook focusing on drawing the city of York and my connection to it. Here are some of the pages. I've been carving rubber stamps, using acrylic and playing with mixed media. It has been great to get back to the UK and use a range of materials that weren't available last year. I have also been updating my website and have just added these as a project. You can find my portfolio here  

Today I finished a drawing where I added some people! This is a new one for me. Usually it's buildings or people. A set or a character but this time I was drawing a bar/restaurant and felt that it needed some life as it's always so busy. I really enjoyed this process, it was obviously more time consuming but I limited my palette of colours and kept the people super simple though tried to give each a small story within the picture. Judge's Lodging - York Here is just the building itself.

I like lines. Mainly black lines. Lots of ink and felt tip pen. I also like drawing buildings. At the moment I'm working on a few personal projects alongside normal work. One is a poster of York's architecture; a sort of trail of old buildings to take you on a wandering path inside the walls. I think one of the posters will focus on places of worship as there are so many beautiful buildings in York that are either still in use or converted for another purpose. One poster will just focus on brilliant buildings; giving a bit of history and information about them. Here are some of the pictures and sketches I have been working on.

After finishing 'Rear Window' yesterday I had a little bit of spare time so I drew my very late breakfast. I like it very much. It's fried tofu with avocado, sun-dried tomatoes and pesto. This is quite a busy week but I have high hopes that project 'Films of New York' of which the first is 'Rear Window' will make some progress. I have also bought some new pens and drew a lovely old cinema in York which I need to colour. I love colouring. It's my favourite part. I also made a very successful vegan bread and butter pudding last night, with butterscotch sauce and ice-cream. It was dreamy. So dreamy that it may be my full dinner tonight because it's Monday and something has to set me up for the stressful week ahead. May as well be fake butter. Onto the rest of the evening I go! Bye, come back soon! Doorway to my instagram