News and updates...

Also an update regarding this blog - for all my news, updates, projects, sketches and doodles I am maninly using my Instagram for this, so feel free to head over there to @garyvennillustrations to see what is going on! (I will still use this blog sporadically also, but for more regular and up to date info, Insta is the place!). Photo credit: Tim Carter

Brand Merchant Illustration

I recently had the chance to do this pen and ink illustration of a Merchant Cat for the logo of an amazing Design Studio here in Cambridge, NZ. This was a super fun commission as it gave a chance to focus fully on drawing which is always welcome! Big thanks to Katrina at Brand Merchant for the opportunity.

New illustrations for The Spinoff Sunday Essay...

I recently had the pleasure of working on a couple of illustrations for The Spinoff's most recent Sunday Essay. The essay is a powerful piece about a family relocating to New Zealand from a war-torn country, and the contrast between their life as it was, and the new generation growing up as New Zealanders. It was an enjoyable challenge to try to capture something of this in an illustration. Big thanks to AD Toby Morris at the Spinoff, and to the writer, Linh Pham.

My first novel - The Singing Stone - is out...

It has been awhile since my last post, and for good reason: since that time my first novel has been published by Bateman Books in New Zealand! It is a YA novel, about a 14 year old named Miles who has moved to the Coromandel with his family, and finds a strange red stone. Then some very weird things begin to happen. It is a supernatural coming-of-age story about coming in contact with something unknown - perhaps unknowable. It is also about transformations, within and without. The book features spooky black and white illustrations created by myself, and can now be ordered from Mighty Ape, The Nile or Fishpond and is available at all good booksellers. The novel is the result of many years of work and I am very proud that everyone can now experience it. The tone of the illustrations is a bit of a departure from my usual work and I worked hard to try and create images that, together with the story, would become a unique and eerie exeperience for the reader. I will be posting some of the illustrations here soon. Here is a link to great review of the book from the website BOOKTRAILERS4KIDSANDYA.

Popshot Magazine...

Had a great time creating this illustration for a recent issue of Popshot Magazine - a super cool illustrated literary magazine that I am a big fan of. This one was for a story about a woman who is haunted by something as she waits for her kids at the school gate.

Artwork for Kakapo Sanctuary Mountain...

I was recently pleased to donate an original ink drawing to an auction to raise money for the Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari, which is trying to create a safe place for the endangered kakapo bird here in New Zealand. Over 30 NZ artists (including James Ormsby, Elizabeth Thomson and Hollie Tawhiao) donated artworks to the auction. To anyone interested, here is a link to some more info about it and the Sanctuary. Here is my drawing, which is done in indian ink on pistachio coloured paper:

New website!

In other news, I have just launched a new website for my activites as a writer - with some exciting news to kick things off! I have been working for awhile now in parallel with my illustration work at becoming an author, and there so I will be posting news about this over at my new site: garyvennwriter.com.