Drawings from this week

This week I've mainly been working on this dream project with a Valletta-based jewellery designer, QUE (Que.com.mt). I don't wish to reveal too much about this, mainly because we're still experimenting, but I will say that the process involves illustrations and contemporary jewellery. I'm doing my bit, which is drawing, and then sending them to Enrique, who will be making the jewellery. 

What I love about this project is that it starts off from a fully-composed illustration, rather than from a drawing made specifically for a product, so Enrique is letting me do my own thing, and then we're brainstorming all these crazy ideas together. I'm so excited and keen to observe and experience this process and to see the final pieces of course. 

Aside from this project, I've also just finished two children's books, which I will be posting as soon as they are printed. I've also designed both book covers, so very much waiting to see both books in print! Below is a sneak peak from both books:​

I'm doing the 'inktober' challenge this year. I rarely do these kind of challenges for several reasons, 1. Usually too busy, 2. If not too busy, too lazy and in a 'cba' kind of mood, 3. Spamming my followers with potentially low-quality / fast work, 4. I don't need an excuse to draw, I draw everyday anyway... but despite all this, I'm doing it anyway because I've just found my brushpen after months of looking for it (and after abandoning it for my iPad) so I'm itching to draw loads of portraits with it. Here are the one's I've done so far:

I call this one 'cowgirl' because it's such a different picture of what comes to mind when we hear 'cowgirl', right? Also it's a continuation on my alternative beauty portraits.

Sometimes I get angry at myself for continuously drawing pretty white girls, so I wanted to draw a cool, pretty black girl with trees growing in her hair and waves on her sweater. Love how this one turned out. 

This one is a take on overdevelopment. I wanted to create an image that shows overdevelopment but without sounding preachy on the subject. It is what it is, and it's part of our Maltese identity and culture.

Finally, I've done an illustration for 'The student', a student newspaper at the University of Edinburgh. The theme was 'home sickness' and I instantly had many ideas for it, mainly because I have experienced home sickness several times, having moved away from Malta twice. What I wanted to do in this illustration is to show that people carry their homes wherever they are. Our home is a part of who we are, and although our definition of home becomes distorted the longer we stay in a different country, we still carry with us, or parts of it anyway.

Us Maltese always think we're at the centre of the universe, so obviously we're bang on in the centre of the image ;)