I was torn between these two covers for The Bloody Chamber competition by Folio Society/ House of Illustration. The folio Society use a lot of traditional techniques, therefore I chose to work with screen printing and lino cutting.  I thought that the first one would make a great lining and that the second would be the design I would end up using. However at the last minute I decided to enter the first as my cover design as it seemed the bloodier of the two. I felt that the colours in the second were too friendly and the design was too neat.  Although I loved the lock and wished I had incorporated it into the lino cut.

When I asked my mum what she depicted as typical food from the South West , she automatically replied ‘A cream tea’. There is nothing she enjoys more than a cream tea in the garden during the summer. This is my entry for the Trenchermans Guide competition I entered in December. The Trencherman’s Guide is a collection of the best restaurants and hotels in the South West. It showcases the best restaurants with and without rooms across the South West.

These are my entries for the Folio Society/ House of Illustration competition. The book we had to illustrate was The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories written by Angela Carter. The competition was to create one illustration for three of the stories in the book; The Bloody Chamber, Puss in Boots and The Company of Wolves.

These were my two favourite lino prints that I am considering to use as the lining for the inside of my book. I loved the ghostly keys on the right hand piece but I have decided to use the other as it would complement the title, The Bloody Chamber. The colours are richer and I liked how you can see the marbled paper through the think layer of dark red ink.

These are the lino prints I produced for my cover design. I printed them on their own and also layered the two lino cuts to create these pieces. I have stuck to the colour scheme of red, blue, black and white as I felt they complemented the theme of the book.

to my previous entry to Anorak Magazine.

Therefore I emailed Anorak Magazine and kindly asked if they could possibly swap the designs. Which they happily agreed. I am much happier with the new composition as I am currently looking into typology of every day objects.

I think the previous entry was too packed in, too busy. I like how the new arrangement allows my work to speak for itself.

I watched the video about them on their website and they came across as a very family based, home orientated company. Which I loved and which lead me to consider ‘what do I enjoy about home cooking?’. Well, for me, one aspect would be getting to lick the spoon at the end.

These are the designs I tried out and discarded.

And this is the final design. As the fudge and spoon was mostly made up with shades of browns and yellows I chose a blue patterned background to complement the text and image. Both of which are hand rendered.

Therefore for the past month I have been drawing biscuits of all shapes and sizes.

I experimented with adding a colour to the background at first. However by selecting a colour that was similar to the biscuits it made the illustration to monotone.

Which resulted in the second image where I added a red border.  Although this made the image resemble the cover of a biscuit selection box.

Therefore I came to this outcome. No distracting background colour or border means the illustrations can now speak for themselves.