Incy Wincy Spider...

quite like this spider I did for NMS...
put the leaves in to show it wasn't a massive, big 'ol Aussie man-eater of a thing, but rather a proper little British spider.

A fine looking Toad

Working very hard on the National Museums of Scotland job - I literally have hundreds of animals, birds, insects, fish and flowers to draw.
As part of one of the interactive exhibits in the show, I have drawn 15 animals that all have to be sorted out (by the visitors)as to where they live (or not) in a hedgerow.
These drawings have to be accurate, as they are educational, but still done in my style.
I am rather fond of this lowly and rather warty common toad. Yes - as part of the same exhibit I have also drawn a badger (currently re-doing the badger, as my first version was deemed a bit "weird, possibly too hairy" by the folk at the museum!) and a weasel so all I need to complete a cast call for Wind in the Willows is a water rat - but there isn't one in this show!
I'll get some of the big showstopper garden scenes up soon - just as soon as they are ready. In the meantime - enjoy the toad.

National Museum of Scotland

Finally! I am able to write a bit about this absolute PEACH of a job!
The last couple of months have seen me to-ing and fro-ing to the wonderful, award winning National Museum of Scotland to meet with their very cheerful design team to discuss doing some work for their big summer exhibition, entitled Garden Detectives, which is part of the Darwin200 series of events celebrating all things Charles Darwin.

It was Stuart Kerr who contacted me - he is a D&AD award winning 3D designer and mad keen cyclist by the way - and asked if I had ever done work for interactive, large scale exhibits. Nope...but I'd like to.

Basically the exhibition is aimed at children and will encourage them to discover what lurks, lives and burrows in their own backyard, through the medium of large, custom built interactive garden sheds, flowerbeds and hedgerows...oh and a garden pond too.
There will be plenty of specimens and things to poke at too.

Where does my work fit in? Well,I get to draw and paint lovely, loose garden scenes and hedge rows with bird's nests,curled up cats and pond-dwellers, which will be supersized and applied to walls and to the interactive exhibits aswell. I am also doing a hefty amount of quite technical illustration of the creatures who inhabit our gardens too too. Now, for those of you who know my work, you would be forgiven for thinking "Jill? technical? Neat and tidy?" I did think the same thing myself. However, after doing some drawings of Dragonfly larvae and ladybirds for the Museum's resident entymologist, my style got the stamp of approval!
The brief was to draw accurately, but still be inky - these illustrations are to be educational afterall.

Needless to say, I am very excited about this job - which does mean scanning everything at 1200dpi, as it is going to be BIG!
There will be plenty more updates about this, so watch this space for any more snippets.

Above illustration is a garden cat and also another of part of a dragonfly life cycle. You knew that though, didn't you?