This is the second of my RedBubble tees that I've received - it's a gift for a friend of mine who recently had a baby boy. He's not grown up yet like this cute model (bribed by a jump on the trampoline - I was shocked at how easy it was!) The colours look far better than they do in the preview image, and I really think RedBubble should do something about that - the previews don't do the real T shirts justice. 'Transport City' was one of the very first designs I created at RedBubble - I'm quite partial to drawing detailed drawings of cities and seeing this in real life has inspired me to make more!

Saturday, June 4 was Drawing Day 2011, an online event encouraging people to drop everything and draw on one day. Their aim was also to get a million drawings uploaded to their site and other participating ones such as RedBubble. I was quite happy to sit inside and draw for the afternoon, as it was a vile day outside and not something to be ventured out in. The last few days, however, have been like spring, and there are reports of daffodils blooming and ducklings being born. Weird weather, everywhere.

Illustration Friday theme this week: asleep, and all the strange, scary and obsessive things that kids have inside their heads. They usually come out as nightmares, and it's happening a lot at the moment (accompanied by a spot of sleepwalking) with a certain child in our house. What else is happening? The first week of winter here in the Southern Hemisphere. A lot of drawing, promoting, emailing, and the occasional bit of blogging. Sometimes it's hard to keep up with it all, and I go on strike for a while. Saturday, June 4 is Drawing Day 2011 - the aim is to create and get a million drawings online, all over the world. A very worthy activity for this wet and rainy weekend!

Practice makes perfect (I'm hoping!), so here's another T shirt submission for the Threadless Kids Challenge. I'm starting to realise that my style doesn't really match the Threadless aesthetic - and I do think there is one - but I'm not going to change what I do just to fit in. What I do need to work on, I think, is being simpler. Everything I do ends up being so detailed, and sometimes that's good, but not always. Here's a collection of T shirt design resources, for those of you who are interested - go forth and create!

30 Outstanding T Shirt Design Tutorials & Tips

T Shirt Design Tips at RedBubble

30 Handy T Shirt Resources for Designers

Illustration Friday weekly theme: Lesson. Important life lessons and great words of wisdom as spoken by Mum – other favourites included: ’Don’t sit on concrete or you’ll get piles,’ ‘If you watch too much TV your eyes will turn square,’ and ’Don’t look at me in that tone of voice.’ Of course I now find myself spouting exactly the same nonsense to L (and enjoying every moment of it). Happy Mother's Day, to those like us who are celebrating it soon!

Illustration Friday theme this week: bottled. Sometimes it's safer to keep all those wayward thoughts (and maybe the kids) bottled up...

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is: toy. I asked my six year old what kind of toy he would have if he could have anything in the universe, and this is the result. It would be made of Lego, fully remote controlled, with several built in game consoles, and bristling with guns and rocket launchers. What ever happened to the good old days when children amused themselves with sticks and made wooden pegs into little dollies? (Not that I ever did, but it's a nice nostalgic thought).

I first looked at Threadless about a year ago - it's a T shirt site where people can submit designs, and also vote for the ones they deem worthy of being printed. I found it a bit intimidating, and still do - I feel a bit uneasy about asking people to vote for me, me, me (that kind of relentless self-promotion isn't really my thing), and the community can be pretty harsh in their judgements. But they do have great tees in a wide range of colours, and when a friend of mine suggested I give it a go, I bit the bullet and submitted this design for a challenge supporting Earth Day. And yes, of course you can vote for it! Found this interesting post at Escape from Illustration Island discussing the pros and cons of voting sites such as Threadless - I'm still undecided.