Recent illustrations with Anglicare

Happy 2022!

After a bit of a break on the drawing front during my degree at Moore, I was glad to be offered some more illustration work around the middle of 2021. I ended up completing three illustration projects (of varying sizes) with Anglicare, for the Bible component of ESL classes. We partnered with the Bible Society, and the material should be coming out later this month. 

Here are some of my favourite pics. The images were produced using Procreate on an iPad, and are shown here with filters. They are for lessons on Ruth and Luke’s gospel.

For more regular updates on my art, check out my instagram: @ByJemimaNichols

An artwork for Zegrac Explains

Fairly recently my brother approached me to do an illustration for a fun project he had been brewing, called 'Zegrac Explains' - which is something he was creating with the children of Yagoona Public School in mind.

The brief was to draw an otter and a bear in Victorian-style clothing sitting in front of a fire place. So, I set out to create a digital oil painting on an iPad using Procreate.

Here is the final result:

And here is a time lapse video of the process:

Assorted illustrations

In this post I would like to share a variety of illustrations and drawings that I have done on the side while studying at Moore. I think most of them I posted on my Instagram when I made them, but here they are collected together for this blog.

Elvyn Butcher: a portrait.

The Guimelpod Tractor: designed for my brother-in-law.

#NoEraser.

Camel: a childhood toy. 

Piggy: another childhood toy.

Supremo Merino stars in an art lesson on comics panelling.

Tom Topp is here!

This year has been rather full for me. And this blog, rather neglected. Oh well, that's life, I suppose.

One rather exciting thing I've been meaning to post about is a small children's novel I finally finished illustrating in July this year. It's called, Tom Topp and the great adventure swap, by Lisa Limbrick and published by Wombat books. I like it. It's a fun story with wild things happening, like flying cupcakes and a wheel-chair dog-sled. And importantly, it also has a good message about forgiveness.

Here's a link to the book, and below are some pictures...

And here's some extra flying things that aren't in the book but are related:

Monsters

Over the Summer I worked on a short comic with Karen Bielharz. This was part of a second anthology of comics, this time written for children, and crowd-funded through Pozible. The project was fully funded and is now in print! Wooooooooooooo
It's called "Monsters: an anthology of short comics for children"

Below are some in-progress shots of some of my artwork. There's also a colouring-in book!

A giant flower, a book finished and the MCA Zine Fair!

No, none of the items in the title of this post are linked. They are all quite, quite separate!

The MCA Zine Fair was towards the end of May and I hung out with the Sydney Comics Guild (SCG)! My lovely friend Alex runs the group and we have much fun making comics and selling them together at events like this. (I think the others do a bit more comic making throughout the year than I do but that's just the way it is at the moment!) In the second photo down there are the two short comics I did for the SCG anthologies over the last two years (which can also be read on this blog in the 'pages' section), which my wonderfully supportive and charming father printed off for me, while I was finishing and scanning the illustrations for Fearlessly Madison (and which, incidentally, got sent to the printers last Friday)!

Below are shots of my workspace and some partially completed illustrations for Fearlessly Madison. I'm very excited about this book! I love the story, by Penny Reeve - it's just as good as the first in the series and very much a story in it's own right, while still connecting to Wonderfully Madison in subtle ways. It should, like the first book, be available at Koorong or via the publisher (CEPstore site) once printed.

And did I mention giant flowers? :)

Madison #2

I've just started on the second book in the Madison series! And have been reflecting lately on how illustrating a children's story book is very much like giving birth to a child. That is, it's a nice idea and the end product is pretty great and amazing but gee it's painful! I'm already bracing myself for another long slug of sleep deprivation and RSI... worth it though.

I really like the story of this book too - Penny Reeves is a good writer and she's done it again. There are several particularly amusing moments in the text and I'm enjoying myself finding more in the illustrations (one of the perks of the job, to be sure)!

Here are a few pics of my initial sketches... none confirmed yet.

Blog blog da blog!

So, I've been pretty busy lately, and I have been doing some art stuff - I intended to put up some pics of the couple of oil paintings I finished in July, but I forgot to take a photo of the finished paintings before I gave them to my friends who commissioned them  - oops! I will do this... one day... when I go to visit them. 

It's funny, because so much of the art I do these days is not my own projects, that is, it's usually illustration work to be published, I feel funny about putting up pictures of the illustration work on my blog or facebook. Which is why I haven't (not counting photos of the printed book-covers of Wonderfully Madison, of course). Someone is paying for the exclusive right to reproduce it, after all! (the fact that I can say this makes me feel very special and blessed as getting paid to do illustration work was one of my dreams when I began uni...)

Below is something though that I'm working on that is one of my own projects. It's the rough draft layout of my 8-page submission for the Sydney Comics Guild 2013 anthology - exciting! Though it's due pretty soon, so I should get a move on and draw this thing...

The theme of the anthology is 'the locked door'. My story actually features two characters I have been wanting to write comics about for a long time, so I'm particularly excited to use them... Chloe and Navet. Hopefully these two will see many more adventures together!

 

Wonderfully Madison

I am very excited to announce that the first Christian children's book I've illustrated has now been published!

Wonderfully Madison is a story by Penny Reeves, for children aged 2-5 yrs old, and the publisher is Youthworks Media.

It's about a little girl, called Madison. And her being grumpy about her new baby sibling being born. And in the fun course of things she comes to discover that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made by a loving God.

I've been informed that pre-orders are available from the cepstore website from next week, and it will be available for purchase from Koorong, etc. from the end of May. Buy a copy and next time you see me I can sign it for you! :)

What do you worship?

Many people will associate 'worship' with a religious context, however these illustrations look at the idea on a broader level - namely as something that one may desire or pursue in one's life above all other things.

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where nether moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

- Jesus (Matthew 6:19-21)

Guimelpod T-shirt Quiz

Below is an image of ten Guimelpod designs, two with a variation each. I'm planning to have three printed on T-shirts and I need your feedback! Please leave a comment on this post or send me a message (email, facebook...) stating which are your top 3 (or more or less) favorite Guimelpod designs and what colour T-shirt you would wear. This will be very helpful for me to know in general :)

Pin-up pods!

I'm thinking of turning my lovely new cyborg creatures into button badges... They're so much fun to draw - here are some more!

Money Tree

Over the last year I have been quietly doing the character linework for a short animation. It was a bit crazey time-wise for me to do this in addition to my honours work, but at long last I am very glad to post about Money Tree, an animation by Hawanatu Bangura. The first screening is sometime in December, and then we hope to enter it in various film competitions. Huzzah!

Kinds of Blue

It is a curious fact that during my time in France last year I illustrated my first five-page comic. It was written by Karen Bielharz and was called A Friend In Need. It was one of a thirteen-comic anthology on the theme of depression, titled Kinds of Blue. Almost a year after I emailed the final art back to Australia I am excited to say we're on the verge of publishing it. Karen and others have been working very hard sending the anthology to publishers but without success (although there were many affirmations of the high quality of the work). Now, we have turned to self-publishing and today Karen launched a crowd-funding campaign on Pozible. The book is excellent and I encourage you to both read it, support the campaign that will give us the money to print it and buy it! (You can read it for free on the Kinds of Blue website.)