Laura Mallaghan Illustration

It had been quite a while since last blog, the past few months have been difficult. With my grandma's health problem.  She was admitted to hospital from end of September, returned to care home beginning of October. Her health was in balance for a while, but suddenly decreased. She passed away at the end of October, at the age of 94. I was absolutely heartbroken, she was my favourite grandmother. My mother was devastated as well as my uncle, they're missing their mother very much, they only have each other since both of their parents has passed, 21 years ago with their father, then their mother few weeks ago.  My mum, my uncle, his girlfriend, my brother, my sister and I had been to my grandma's funeral few days ago. There were some of relatives and grandma's close friends there, also my mum's friends for moral support.  It was really hard to think of her gone and saying goodbye, yet the weather was really lovely, despite the fact that it was quite chilly. W

It's Summer Bank Holiday today! I had lovely long bank holiday weekend, as I have spend whole weekend and today some illustrations that I'm catching up. I have missed illustrating very, very much as I'm working on the weekday and most of the weekend I have been busy, as well as felt drained from work that I needed some relaxation. Since the Summer is nearly end and haven't been blogged this month yet. So I thought the topic of this blog is photography.  This photography is all about the insects that I took many photos of from this summer and the past. Here are the collections of each year in Summer. Summer 2017  28th August : I helped this poor Large White butterfly today, he was in the middle of my garden, struggling to fly, I gave him some water from my fingers and placed him on the flowers from large flower pot if he need some nectaries as well as to rest. 9th July : Honey bee collected some pollen from the lavender.  22nd May : I saw thi

Well, I can finally say that... I'm in the Drawn Volume.1 book! It's feel amazing to be in the book, that's one of my dreams, to have my illustrations in the book. All the illustrators' work in there are astonishing.   Here's the sneak peak GIF of inside the Drawn. The hardcover books are only available in Australia, for worldwide, you can purchase online from Amazon, Powell's Books and BAM. Have a lovely day. 😄

I remembered this blog  Discovered My Ancestors' Creativity , that I wrote when I was in Final year in university. The one that mentioned with the handmade owls calendar that my great grandmother made, I remembered my lecturer asked if I have the photograph of it. I told her I found it in Summer 2014 when my family and I packed my grandma's stuff for her to move into care home, then I couldn't find it many months later, for the blog.  Well, guess what, I found it! It was in a small box full of old photos of my family (on my mum's side), as well as really old photos of my ancestors (also on my mum's side) back in the late 1800s. So there, this is what it's look like that my great grandmother made in 1969, a 1970 handmade owls calendar. Have a lovely day. 

Happy Easter! I did this white on black illustration again, as I did the swan illustration . My mum and sister thought it was really cute, I'm very pleased with this illustration look, loves it. Hope you're having nice Easter today, i'm enjoying long weekend.

This illustration is about the awareness of having poor bunnies using for Easter present to their children, and then they ended up abandon/neglect. As well as baby chicks for Easter. It's cruel, really cruel. Rabbits lives at least 10 years, they require special cares, more than dogs and cats. A huge responsibility to take care of them, so definitely not a 'starter pet' for children. Many rabbits are in shelter because of this, also young rabbits wouldn't live to see their first year, sadly. If you want to have a rabbit, it is best to research to understand their diet, health, behaviour and care. So choose Easter chocolates and toys instead of living beautiful furry creatures for Easter.

I was inspired by an artistic friend of mine, who did her white on black illustrations, I was really mesmerising by it. So I tried it out. The ideas I had was quite a long list of birds that are white, that included Avocet, Barnacle Goose, Cattle Egret, Eider, Gannet, Goldeneye Duck, Magpie, and so on. I ended up with the Mute Swan. Here it is. White on black illustrations are very eye-catching, as well as those many details I did. How splendid. She felt honoured that her illustration inspired me, which made me gleeful. If you're in teresting to see her illustrations, follow her main instagram :  @eloisebullen  . She also have illustration instagram account, follow  @harriethadleyillustration  .

This is The Darkest Butterflies illustrations, as the Peacock and Small Tortoiseshell.  The colours from these two butterfly kinds works well on the dark background as this gives some strong contrast. I used the colour pencils for the butterflies, scanned them then onto the photoshop, edited the contrast level to the lowest that gives those effect.  I then worked on the pattern designs, here are the designs; Then put these two butterflies together; I like the last ones, the circle pattern, it's looks like the mandala design. All of these illustrations will looks really lovely for desktop background. 😃