Still Exciting!

I've been illustrating for Derwent for a few years now, but the excitement of seeing my work on one of their tins never dies down.  This week sees the arrival of my sample tins of the new Inktense set with the above painting on it.  They should be with me tomorrow and I can't wait!

I painted this last year and have had to 'sit' on it since then.  It's wonderful when you get a brief that involves all your favourite things and this one certainly did - a bear, rushing water, and lots of splashes and dribbles with the ink.

Yesterday I met up with an old friend who knew me twenty-five years ago when I lived in Greece.  When we first met, I was a housewife struggling to come to terms with the birth of a baby with Down's Syndrome in a country that had no time for the disabled, and dealing with the resultant fall-out among family and friends. A few years later, I was penniless after my husband walked out on me leaving me with two small children in a foreign country, and we had to come back to the UK with just about nothing, leaving a whole life behind us.
So to see how things have changed since then, especially when my work is in shops and magazines, my friend and I agreed it is more than a little mind-blowing at times!