Beautiful beetles

'Beetles' was the prompt word for one of the drawing challenges from The Tuesday Collective on Instagram recently, so I decided to work up this colourful beetle design into a repeat pattern. Each beetle has a stylised pattern on it and a variety of colours that make it sing! To top it off, I used a rich teal background to help the colours jump out. I'm looking forward to adding this print to my Spoonfliwer shop soon. Watch this space! 

The colour palette I chose was a rich jewel tones palette of reds, oranges, yellow and pinks. It was a lot of fun to work with.

Best Nine of 2025

 I love joining in with the drawing challenges that The Tuesday Collective sets on Instagram. It's a great way of honing my illustration skills as well as doing something creative that's not work-related. The last challenge for 2025 was to collate our favourite nine images of the year, so here are mine! As you can see, I love colour. I also love to involve something fashion-related. And I use a very graphic, stylised feel. These images look great together as a set of nine, but scroll down to see the individual illustrations.

The prompt for this challenge was 'turtle neck' so I chose to draw my model up close. She wears a dark burgundy turtle neck with a dramatic pair of geometric earrings.

The prompt for this challenge was 'pencil skirt' so I chose to draw this stunning sequinned lip print pencil skirt from Le Superbe. I love the matching lip sweater.

The prompt for this challenge was 'pleats' so I chose to draw this fabulous voluminous-sleeved dress from H&M. I struggled with the see-through nature of the sleeves but was happy with the final result.

The prompt for this challenge was 'purple' so I chose to draw a dress from Me and Em that has a pretty tonal floral print. I like the jaunty bob haircut that I gave my model and her cheeky grin.

The prompt for this challenge was 'narcissus' so I drew a beautifully patterned shirt from Luv Boutique.

The prompt for this challenge was a gorgeous colour palette of corals and pinks. I chose to draw this fabulous floral coat.

The prompt for this challenge was 'beach chic' and I used my inspiration from a black and white 1950s photograph. I designed it in a stylised design and used colours associated with travel posters from that period.

The prompt for this challenge was 'jewel tones' so I chose to draw this floral dress from Farm Rio, one of my favourite shops.

Christmas cardinal

Last week's drawing challenge for the The Tuesday Collective drawing challenge on Instagram was a pleasing colour palette of red, pink, orange and green. After some backwards and forwards and some designs that didn't quite work, I decided to rework this cardinal design. I created it in a folk style and surrounded it with flowers and leaves.

The colour palette was fun to use once I got the hang of it and placing the images on the dark background gave it drama and allowed the other colours to sing.

 

Drawing challenge

For the month of October I joined the drawing challenge called the Galoween Art Challenge 2025. It was hosted by a number of artists on Instagram and included some fun prompt words that inspired me. Each week, there was a choice of three prompts and you could use as many as you wanted within that week. I only had time to do one a week, but still enjoyed getting involved. 

For the first week I chose the prompt words 'Skeleton Sisters'. I decided my sisters were going to have matching peroxide blonde hair and each of them wearing sunglasses. I always like to include a fashion element in my drawings so I researched skeleton sweaters and found two perfect choices. One has an outline skull placement on a black background, and the other has a tossed skull motif on a cream background.

It's also fun to choose a colour palette for each illustration. The skeleton sisters illustration was pretty muted so I added a vibrant turquoise background to lift it, with a tonal spiders web on top.

The second week's prompt words included 'Meowgical Night' where I drew two black cats surrounded by some of my favourite plants.

I used a similar colour palette to the 'Skeleton Sisters' illustration but ramped up the colours a bit and added a mustard yellow and deep coral colour.

For the third week's prompt I chose 'Pumpkin Pals' and used an existing design I had but put it on a bright, happy coral colour, which I love! It's been added to my Spoonflower shop.

This colour palette was totally bright! I had to include the oranges and yellows for the pumpkin colours but also included reds and pinks to make it prettier.

For the final week I chose 'Batty Besties'. The sisters are back, but this time they have dark hair and are wearing bat t-shirts instead of sweaters. 

I chose a more muted colour palette for this one, in shades of purple and grey.

Which one is your favourite?!

 I often join in on drawing challenges that are hosted on Instagram and love to create stylised fashion drawings using a pleasing colour palette. Last week's drawing challenge from The Tuesday Collective on Instagram involved a very pleasing colour palette. I chose to draw this fashion illustration which includes a geometric floral coat and I used the orange and red for the floral print. The background uses the pinks.

The colour palette consists of corals and pinks that work really well together.

Panda bears

Last week's drawing challenge from The Tuesday Collective on Instagram was 'panda bears' so I decided to draw this fun panda sweater from Cider. I gave my model a 'space buns' hairstyle to match the panda ears and I'm loving the end result.

This is the inspiration for my drawing, a round necked knit short sleeved top with a graphic panda design from Cider.

Bright colours

 I love participating in drawing challenges and try to do one a week. Last week's prompt for the Tuesday Collective drawing challenge on Instagram was 'bright colours'. With most drawing challenges I love to do something fashion-related so I chose to draw this vibrant pose using a coat and wide-legged trousers and made it quite stylised and colour-blocked.

We were given a suggested colour palette which was really pleasing to work with. I loved the hot pink and knew instantly that the coat should be in that colour. The mustard trousers look great paired with the hot pink coat and a touch of red and orange in the handbag finished it off. The dark teal was the perfect colour for the background as it showed off all the bright colours perfectly.

Double denim

I recently created this drawing for a drawing challenge set by The Tuesday collective on Instagram. I love to dip into drawing challenges as it keeps me creative and is something not related to work. For this challenge, the prompt word was 'denim'. I usually like to draw something fashion-related and so discovered a denim jacket designed by Adidas and Farm Rio, two of my favourite brands. I drew the jacket on a fabulous afro-haired woman.

The zip-up jacket is made from denim with an ikat-inspired print. It keeps the trademark three stripes down the arms and still has the Adidas logo on the chest.

It also has matching trousers using the diamond ikat design used in the jacket.