Illustration: Competition Shortlists.

So in the past week I have made not one, but TWO shortlists... can I have a woop, woop. The latest Is with the above card illustration for a competition held by one of the greeting card giants, Hallmark. The brief was to doodle a birthday/ celebration greeting card. So what better for a party than the obligatory party favourite... the humble party ring. I realise if you are not English you may not be familiar with these biscuits, as I discovered when one King Kwak asked why I had drawn doughnuts and was found muttering words along the lines of  "I Don't get it??". Charming. They are biscuits and they feature rather highly at all children parties here in the UK, well the parties I went to as a child at least. Here is the shortlist the colours of my entry have gone a little crazy on their website, fingers crossed it is being judged upon the true colours. Even if I make it no further I am overjoyed to feature in the final six, woo hoo. Here are the four other entries I submitted. The above I drew specifically for this competition, the others are cards I had previously illustrated, which fitted the brief.

Birthday Cupcake:

Birthday Trifle:

Birthday Sausage roll: Why not?

Birthday Jack in the box:

Last week I was also on another shortlist for a Tigerprint competition. The brief was to design a love/ wedding/ marriage themed surface pattern. I chose to illustrate lace as lace and lace trim have featured widely in weddings for many a year and date back to at least 1840, at the wedding of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Lace has featured at many a wedding in dresses, accessories and decoration ever since. I did my research, can you tell? This time I was one of 30 with this lace trim illustration. Here is the shortlist, alas I did not win, but I am super overjoyed to be on the shortlist. 

Lace trim Surface Pattern:

I did a couple versions along the same theme, and the above lace trim design was accompanied by the lace fabric design below. I prefer the below design to be honest. I am really enjoying designing surface pattern and have many more idea's  which I am working on. I hope you like these designs, if you have any comments or suggestions about any of these designs, please feel free to let me know. Have a super weekend.

Lace Surface Pattern:

Artwork copyright of Queen Kwak.