Trick or Treat?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 

Poor little mouse, he doesn't understand why people are so afraid of him...

We're Free!

And the lady birds all ran away... This is another example of the softer approach I'm taking to my illustrations. It was for an Illustration Friday on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/joderuiterillustrations/6248775413/

Little Trip to London

I've currently been working on creating a much softer feel to my illustrations. I've completely taken away the black markings (which I'm the most confident with) and just using colour to create the depth in the pictures. These little doodles are of a little girls trip to London.

The New Town

After the factory had been defeated, and the town unfortunately had been destroyed, the Toymaker and the Toy taught the townspeople how to re-build there town out of parts of the old town and parts of the Big Red Factory... In this last illustration I changed the colour pallet, I introduced blue and made really accentuated the green tones. The red accents in the painting are all parts of the Big Red Factory. Pipes create chimneys and chimneys create roofs...

Destroying the Big Red Factory

As the big red factory began to destroy the town, the little Toy told the townspeople not to fear. She had a plan to bring down the factory...  Once the factory had been destroyed, the town was left devastated. But the Toymaker and the Toy knew how to build new things from old, and taught the towns people how to re-build their town.

My Muse

The little Toy in the story was first created out of a teacup, duster, an old cushion and wire. I could manipulate her movements for each illustration.

The New Town

The little Toy had great plans for the Toyshop, together they made a wonderful team. But they were warned, with every good spell cast a bad one would follow. In their happiness they forgot, and one day, it happened. The big red factory at the top of the hill came to life! But the little Toy had a plan...

The Toy Maker and the Toy

Here are a few of the characters from the fairy tale 'The Toymaker and the Toy". The Toymaker makes special little toys out of the things that the townspeople throw away. The toymaker was lonely, as the townspeople didn't buy his toys, they only bought plastic reproduced toys at the top of the hill. But one day a stranger visited the shop, she sought shelter from the cold and rain, she revealed she had magical powers, and for his kindness, she brought one of his special toys to life...

My First Blog

Ok, so this is my first ever blog. I'm going to show some stuff and hopefully you'll like it. So here goes...

I just recently finished my Masters (I'm yet to graduate), and during my time there I dove into the world of fairy tales and I decided to write a tale of my own. I wanted it to be contemporary but still honouring the fairy tale tradition. So I wrote the Tale of the 'Toymaker and the Toy'. A tale of the seemingly small and helpless defeating the big and powerful (in this tale an evil factory). Here's a couple of the illustrations from the tale...