Week 5 of my 5-week interrailing trip round Europe

Final wrap-up of my five-week interrailing trip round Western Europe.

Week 4 of my 5-week interrailing trip round Europe

Fourth week of interrailing adventures

Week 3 of my 5-week interrailing trip round Europe

In which I travel from Nice to Valencia, navigating the intricacies of the French rail strikes, and the wonder Las Fallas.

Week 2 of my 5-week interrailing trip round Europe

Some of this was written on my phone on trains while travelling. Some of it was written on Sunday night, with my laptop lying to me and saying…

Ponderings after attending the Bologna Children’s Book Fair

Some thoughts following attending the Bologna Children’s Book Fair for (part of) a day.

Week 1 of my 5-week interrailing trip round Europe

End of first week – Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich Monday Train to London – fine (nice to get an early one without paying a small fortune) Waiting a lot…

One week to go

Getting ready to go on a 5-week interrailing trip around Europe

Planning a big European train adventure

In which I talk about my plan to interrail for a month to celebrate turning fifty (next year).

What makes your heart sing?

Have you worked out what makes your heart sing yet? I actually think this is something that is probably continually evolving for most of us. It’s certainly changed…

Working from home

Working from home? Is it like Marmite (that may be a UK-centric question)? Love it or hate it? I have worked from home (apart from a six-month stint…

Lifestyle illustrator: Hand-drawn type and drawing words

Blog post about my love for creating hand-drawn type and decorative text. With examples of my work. Illustrated by Tasha Goddard.

NEWS: List Happy by Vanessa King, illustrated by Tasha Goddard

Blog post about List Happy by Vanessa King and illustrated by Tasha Goddard, including some spreads, artworks and process videos.

Lifestyle illustrator: Illustrating everyday objects

Blog post about illustrating everyday objects, including sketches and finished illustrations

Life as an illustrator: My illustration process

Blog post sharing details of my illustration working process, including timelapse videos

Lifestyle illustrator: Illustrating people

Blog post about illustrating people, including a variety of examples of my people illustrations

Lifestyle illustrator: Illustrating rooms

A blog post with a selection of different illustrated rooms and talking about lifestyle illustrator, Tasha Goddard’s love of drawing rooms and a bit about her life, too.

Food illustrator: Uses for food illustration

This is part of a series of blog posts about different uses for illustration (particularly focusing on the themes and topics that I like to illustrate). While I…

2022 Word for the year

It’s hard to go into 2022 with a positive attitude when the Covid numbers here are scarily high: And when some of those closest to me are going…

Creative play

It’s so important to include creative play in your schedule. For fun, but also to grow and explore and build y our practice and to evolve your style.

Style exploration

I recently took Tom Froese’s new class on Skillshare, The Style Class: Work Out Your Illustration Style in a Daily Project. (If you don’t already subscribe to Skillshare,…

Memories

A year ago today, Jenny Goddard (aka Mama, aka Jenny Scott Smith, aka Jenny Zamenhof Goddard) passed away. I can’t quite believe it’s been a whole year, but…

Soundtrack to corona lockdown

There is lots of newness (and a fair bit of the same) about this corona lockdown…

Word for 2020; Word for the Twenty Twenties

My word for 2020 and word for the Twenty Twenties

What I want for my kids by the time they leave home

Some of this will be covered at school, some will need to be covered by us and some, realistically, they probably won’t know when they leave home (some of it I’m still working on at 46). But it’s what I’d really like to help provide them with by the time they leave home.

Word for 2018 | Listen

Rather than New Year’s Resolutions, which always (in my experience, at least) tend to fall over within a week or two, I’ve spent a few years picking a…

Escaping the social media bubble

  I’m at the end of a voluntary (and now I’m thinking I totally could have done something extra with it like got people to sponsor me in…

Self-portraits and daily practice

After Inktober I felt the need to keep up some kind of more focused daily practice. I do pretty much always draw or paint something every day, whether…

Illustrated recipe: Refried beans

We love tacos and I came up with this homemade refried beans recipe a good few years ago and use it every time we have tacos now. It’s…

Travelling while vegetarian

And here’s Part 4 of my trip review. Part 1 was about holidaying with srprs.me, Part 2Part 2 was about holidaying alone and Part 3Part 3 was all…

Visiting Malaga

Part 3 of my trip review. Part 1 was about holidaying via srprs.me and Part 2 was about holidaying solo. This one’s all about Malaga, and Part 4…

Holidaying solo

Welcome to Part 2 of my trip review (and sorry it’s taking me so long to write it all up – somehow that vision of being a travel…

Travelling with Srprs.me

I’d decided around Easter time that I wanted to go away for a city break in Europe on my own some time soon. I’d been doing a lot…

Kokeshi Doll Colouring Pages

It struck me the other day that I haven’t created a new downloadable colouring book in absolutely ages. So I’ve put a new one up on Etsy –…

Inspire in 2017

I don’t think I did a word of the year last year – or, if I did, I didn’t record it. I have a feeling it might well…

Printable Floral Colouring Bookmarks

I have a tendency to just grab a sticky note to mark my page when I’m reading. I have quite a few bookmarks – the ones that come…

Happy Weekend Free Colouring Page

Lots of people have been coming to this page recently, so I thought I’d give you an extra Happy Weekend colouring page, that I created this week (today…

Christmas Colouring Book (printable) available now

A little later than I’d hoped, but I’ve finished my Christmas colouring book and it’s now available from my Etsy store. Jam-packed with 25 festive Christmassy designs to…

Inktober Colouring Book now on Etsy (plus free sample)

My (digital) Inktober Colouring Book is now available on Etsy to buy for £4 (plus VAT, if you’re in the EU). It contains all the drawings I did…

Free Sugar Skulls Colouring Page

Happy Halloween (or Day of the Dead – sorry, far more scope for pretty colouring!) Time for a little one-off freebie. And watch this space (or the Etsy…

Going with the flow – floral pattern

Part of the new calmer lifestyle I’m trying to adopt, I’m throwing out all my design career goals and schedules and plans and ‘going with the flow’. That doesn’t…

Peace, calm and embracing single-tasking

I’ve been suffering for a year and a half with numbness down the left side and almost constant dizziness. The severity would change, but it would be there…

Holiday Flowers: New Colouring Book and FREE sampler

While on our holidays this year (in a very beautiful Cornish pair of villages – Kingsand and Cawsand), I did quite a bit of drawing full pages of…

Another colouring book – and a free sample

Well, it’s taken a while, sorry, but I’ve uploaded my second printable colouring book to Etsy. And I am, of course, offering you a free sample as a…

Colouring for grown-ups

So… it seems grown-ups are getting totally into colouring now. Awesome! I’ve always loved colouring, and used to spend hours as a very young child colouring in Altair…

On gratitude and the blues

This weekend, Chris and I both had to do a lot of work. This meant we didn’t have time to take the girls out to cinemas or swimming…

When it all just flows

I don’t really have a problem with artist’s block (touch wood) but sometimes it takes a while to get into a brief, especially if you’re trying to do…

The Landlady – Patternmash project

I joined up for Hannah’s Patternmash project at the start of January. Hannah provides monthly briefs to create patterns/collections for. Not hugely unusual, I suppose, but… her briefs…

Drawing, drawing, drawing

Much of my December designing was all done in Illustrator – though almost always starting with sketched ideas and plans. I then squeezed in some painting at the…

Goals, tasks and accountability – NOT resolutions

Continuing on the ‘I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions’ theme, I am still looking to start the new year with a fresh attitude and raring to go. Because…

Word for 2015

I used to make New Year Resolutions. I’d resolve to give up smoking, lose weight, save money, learn to drive… And I’d quickly fall at the first hurdle…