Here are my happy little garden gnomes which I decided to paint.

As you can see, they were tired and faded after a summer in the sun so they needed new outfits.

I used acrylic paints and I’m going to varnish them before they go outside to make sure they’re extra protected. I want my hard work to last a while.

Being ill has really drained my creativity and sometimes I need to do silly little projects like this to get myself back in the mood for making things. It was a lot of fun. I’m going to be on the look out for gnomes at carboot sales this summer :D

When I don’t feel well, I find it difficult to be creative. I still feel the need to draw though and often get frustrated. I solved the problem by following a tutorial in Digital Artist Collection so that I didn’t have to think about what I was doing and could just play around.

The perfectionist in my is freaking about all the randomness and messy bits but I still had fun and it’s totally different to my usual style. I think it’s good to break out of comfort zones sometimes.

Last year I blogged about the auction that Cats Protection put on every year selling the ‘paw prints’ of celebrities. This year they asked me to join in!!

This is my paw print, it will be available to bid on from the 29th November with all money raised going to my favourite charity in the world – Cats Protection.

Check out the Cats Protection site for more information.

Lots of people ask me what software I use to create my drawings so I thought I would show you how my work develops and what I use. I taught myself to use all the various different programs and I still don’t know what half the functions do. I have used online tutorials and books as well as a lot of trial error.

It’s only two months till Christmas! It really has arrived too soon, I’m not ready!! I’ve just finished off my card designs so they’ll be off to the printers next week. It’s a Christmas costume party time for the Doodlecats this year.

I really love creating patterns. I hope to make wrapping paper one day but it’s a huge investment that might have to wait for a while. Until then I’m going to use the patterns I create on cards, notebooks, journals etc.

I started off drawing some kitties in Illustrator. I wanted the lines to be finer than in my usual work. Lots of dark lines can make a bright pattern seem darker than I would like it to.

Then I wanted to create something more colourful so I used one of the cat drawings, started a simple pattern and then changed the colours so they were all different

I liked it on white but it’s not a practical colour for things that get a lot of use like notebooks as the white starts to look grubby. Plain blue looked nice but I was even happier when I added the subtle spots.

Last night I had my first go at screen printing, it was awesome!!! I have been wanting to do it for so long and I can’t wait to get experimenting with t-shirts and bags.

This was my first attempt so it’s a bit patchy. the drawing I used to print from wasn’t quite black enough so some light got through which has created the slightly faded look. Lesson learnt, I know what to do to sort that out now. It’s quite a nice effect on these prints anyway so I’m not worried.

I’m doing a class next week to learn how to screen print and I’ve been designing some cats to try out the techniques with. With screen printing, the colours are limited (as you have to do a screen for every different colour) so I am working on some designs that will work in just one colour. Once I’ve got my confidence with the printing I hope to go on a try with more colours. I can’t wait!

I was recently commissioned to draw zoo animals. My first reaction was that ‘I can’t do that, it’s not cats!’ but I’m glad I said yes because it was a lot of fun and I’m pleased with the results.

Many people assume that I’m totally a cat person, well that’s not entirely true. We don’t have any dogs (at the moment) but I do love them. I grew up with dogs and didn’t have any cats till I was in my twenties. When we move out of the city I expect there will be a canine addition to our family.

I thought it was about time I drew some dogs. The thing with dogs is that they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Cats are pretty much similar but the variations with dogs are huge. A Great Dane and a Bichon Frise couldn’t be more different! I’ve decided rather than try to capture different breeds of dogs I’m going to do with them what I’ve done with cats – a simplified cute version. That way you can tell it’s a dog but it’s not really any specific type of dog. I might have a play round with different breeds at a later date.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with my dogs yet but so many people have requested dog cards etc so there will be something in the pipeline.

This is Pip who was my best friend when I was a teenager. She died a few years ago and I still think about her every day. Just writing about her now brings tears to my eyes. She was the best little dog you could ever ask for. I think she will be my inspiration for some of my dog characters. I miss you little Pippy.