I could just answer the brief… There’s a venerable oak in Bruce Castle Park that I’ve drawn over the course of designing a visual identity for Bruce Castle Museum & Archive in Tottenham and returning as a visitor and a researcher. It’s been just part of growing my knowledge about this … Read More
My lockdown project turned blog has sprouted a collection. Dispatches from a Small World reports from my urban garden in sketches. There have been forays into garments and cards. But there are enough sketches now to find themes for products. Hello roses! A classic, you would think – but approached … Read More
The Christmas gift guide… Two of this year’s projects have generated large bodies of illustration work: 26 Habitats and my lockdown project turned illustration blog Dispatches from a Small World. So “What else can we do with these?” questions have come up. Et voilà: Christmas cards from my Dispatches from … Read More
“How does Lydia do this!”… It’s always a delight when a client enjoys the work from a live sketching commission, here, an assignment for long-time client Ideas Foundation covering the Disrupt Space exhibition at The Department Store, Brixton. And this time, my client Heather’s comment set off a stock-take of … Read More
What can a garden teach us? In times of restriction, what can a garden teach us? Born in the stillness of lockdown, my illustration project Dispatches from a Small World has been documenting the growing season in over 200 sketches. In a feature for sustainable lifestyle magazine Sublime, I write … Read More
How personal projects help clients… In a flurry of activity very much of these times, my lockdown illustration project turned blog Dispatches from a Small World has sprouted a Teemill shop. It’s launched with two collections of illustrations, printed on demand on organic cotton t-shirts. So far, so peripheral. Or … Read More
26 is a not-for-profit organisation for writers and anyone who believes in the power of words. Which includes me – words are part of my creative work and my ideas process. Its creative projects bring together multiple writers to focus on a particular theme. Following its hugely successful 26Wild project … Read More
Reporting in miniature… My late father and I had a standing joke: that his ideal scale to work at was the size of a building and mine was the size of a postage stamp. So he’d be laughing like a drain that I answered The Correspondence Collective’s open call for … Read More
A flâneuse with a sketchbook… I am never without a sketchbook. Most walks turn into sketchwalks as I spot interesting stories or places on my way. So signing up for the St Joseph’s Hospice Great East End Walk, I hand-bound a sketchbook, filled it with the walk’s landmarks and a … Read More