Here are of my favourite illustrations made for use in the graphics for BBC2 gardening show, Big Dreams Small Spaces, Series Two.
I scanned my watercolours and sometimes reworked them in Photoshop, and then sent them to the team at Flock who wove into the graphics to explain 'garden as envisaged by owners before Monty Don' and then 'garden plan with Monty's input' which they animated to voice overs.
I have nothing at all to do with the animations, and generally see them on TV for the first time - an exercise in letting go of creative control and just kinda seeing what happens.
Episode 2 is still on BBC iPlayer if you feel like watching (and as long as you're based in the UK). If you want to save time and just move the slider to the plant animation bits, they come up at around 07:48 - 9:51 and 15:35 - 17:20.
Hoping to save my faves to video in time, in which case they can be viewed by all. If you haven't already seen it, here's a link to the title sequence from Series 1 which should work wherever you are. (Animation was by Room60 for Series 1, and the programme is produced by Lion TV for BBC2).
I loved working on this last autumn with animation company Flock, who did the graphics for Lion TV's Series Two of Big Dreams Small Spaces with Monty Don on BBC 2. It's on tonight at 8pm, or here on iPlayer soon afterwards.
Looking forward to watching all the love, hard graft and heartache that went into transforming each of the tiny gardens mixed in with a good dose of Monty's cheerful interventions.
Of course, I can't wait to see my watercolours whizz by - keep an eye out for the plants in the animated 3D garden plans(which show the gardens before and after Monty's suggestions for improved designs and planting.
Above are two of my favourite elements, an olive and an apple tree. No idea whether they made it in the final cuts, but I was happy with the way they turned out. More plants to follow, now that I can share more of this commission.
Wow, what a fantastic week for my illustration! Landscape animation whizz Matt Parker over at room 60 turned my plant watercolours into 'Before and After Monty' sequences for a gardening show with Monty Don on BBC2. That's the title sequence up above there with Matt's butterfly making magic with the 4D effect.
It's on from Monday to Friday at 7 p.m. all this week.
While I love seeing my work in print, and also watching it develop on paper when I'm painting, seeing it unfold in garden vistas on TV takes it to a whole nother level, I gotta tell you.
Wow, the glowing box in the living room with my very own agaves and astilbes populating the screen!
Heh heh. I am loving that. A lot.
So much the better that it's a gardening programme featuring real people with their very understandable struggles to match idea to plot and to reality, with the ever cheery and affable Monty dropping by to deliver solid good advice and, occasionally, a hand in the digging and planting.
Nice work if you can get it, eh, being a gardening rock star? Here's a review in the guardian.
For now though, I'm happy to stick to watercolour plant illustration.
Warm and cosy and (mostly) indoors works for me at this time of the year - my South African hands have never quite been able to deal with planting onions in November.
Below, a keyframe from the series, which is how I supplied the illustrations originally.
