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This was originally posted up on my new illustration site, so I'm linking to it here: Mariana Black Illustration. I'm trying to find some way of being less repetitive with the blogs, and sharing illustrations over both without getting too annoying about it! I may end up putting different ones here and there and just carry on linking to both with different news on each blog ... let's hope that works!

Meanwhile, here are my latest sketches of elephants and pandas, as research for my children's illustrations. Just getting to know the animals a bit better ...

I'll be spending more time this week on my art and college work and posting all of that up here, so please do pop by soon for a peek. Cheers.

I've been hugely busy, and at the moment my life has been turned upside-down while I explore new horizons that lie before me, but I'm also slowly getting back into my work routine ... with exciting projects coming up that I'm already in love with.

I'll elaborate on those projects (that will be incorporated into my coursework for next year as well) a bit later on, but here's a hint:

I'll just add that it's something I've wanted to do for years but never quite had the confidence to tackle before ... It's going to be a lot of fun!

With that in mind, I enrolled in a couple of online classes as refreshers and also to learn something about the practical side of illustrating children's books. I've just started on the first one, Picture Book Illustration: Animal Characters by Eric Johnson, on Craftsy, and have been sketching elephants for the first class. Still need to do more drawings and still need to learn a lot more about them, but here's a bit of a start:

I'm also being reminded of how grounding and therapeutic just having a pen, pencil, or brush in my hand is. I've missed it these last few weeks. As it is, I shall be moving house very soon so things will get slightly chaotic once more, but I'm sticking to my art therapy - I need it.

Cheers.