My Lovely Horsey

love this

Oliver Jeffers is one of my favourite illustrators. His childrens books are so lovely. 

I especially love this image.

Race for Life

On sunday I completed my 3rd ever Race for Life. In previous years I have only walked it... taking about an hour to do so. A while ago I decided that I was going to jog the whole of the 5k, and that I would train for it. My training was LAME! I was rubbish at going for jogs on my own so ended up only going jogging a few times in the build up before the race. This was not good as I am nooooo runner! So I figured I would probably be walking it again this year with maybe some bursts of jogging at the start and end.... but! I suprised myself! I jogged the whole thing, apart from maybe 500m of traffic jams where the track got thinner and everyone slowed down. I managed to do the race for life this year in 36 minutes. I am so proud of myself! 

Afterwards, feeling great (before all the aching set in) I realised why people get so addicted to running. Although I dont think I will be becoming one of them just yet! Will try and keep the jogging up though....now that I know I CAN do it (even with my horrendously dodgy knees) No more excuses for me!

(Me, Sue, Aimee, Sarah and Mum before our 3rd Race for Life together)

Folksy

I have decided, while I am job hunting (unsuccessfully) I will set up a folksy account and update my etsy account to hopefully earn some income from there. So far I have only set up a folksy and listed one set of cards, but its a start! will be updating my etsy and adding more to folksy sooooooon! 

Wouldnt it be lovely to not have to job hunt and just earn all my money from selling my illustrations? yes. yes it would. I can dream. 

oh nearly forgot! my folksy is:HERE!

AUCB Illustration Degree Show

Please come visit our degree show at the Arts University College at Bournemouth.

It will be open from the 24th June until the 1st July - 10am - 5pm. All are welcome. 

I have my book in the show, it will be found by the sofas so get comfy and have a read!

Come take a look at all the beautiful work in our illustration studio. 

by the way

I am not sure what is going on with the layout of this page. I will be sorting it out in the near future (or trying to!)

Coming to the end

I graduate on the 2nd of July. Exciting! 

Get my final grade on the 25th June. Terrifying! Thats next week!

and then off into the world of work I go. wierd!

in the process of looking for and applying for jobs at the moment. Anything I can get will do for the moment because I just need the money to keep me going and then once Im settled then Ill start looking for a grown up job. I WILL be trying to get my little book published. that would be a dream come true. The dream situation would be that I could work as a childrens book illustrator. 

In between job hunting and stress/nervous breakdowns about finishing uni, I have been dreaming up some illustrations for a competition for a new publishers. The winner gets the job of illustrating a little series of books about a little dog. I am very excited about this. I have been having trouble getting the little dog to look like how I imagine him, but I think I have found him now. 

Will put some pictures up soon to get some opinions :) 

Anyway, the deadline is next week so i better get a move on! 

Got a lovely weekend ahead... going home for my lovely boyfriends birthday and then we are going to London to watch some cricket and then we are coming back to bournemouth with his friends to play cricket at such on the beach and then I'm going back home for sunday because I am taking part in the race for life (which i was meant to be jogging, but training has gone badly so maybe a bit of both walking and jogging)

and then I have the rest of the weekend to spend with Pepperlump. (my big grey lovely horse) cant wait to see her. I miss her so much.

Right! back to little dog illustrating!

website

website is finally working. Made it a few weeks ago and thought it was working, but it wasnt so finally got it working. yay.

its very basic at the moment, and does something strange for the first few clicks, but then it sorts itself out. I will be sorting that out and also adding more work onto it soon. 

address is.... www.holliemcmanus.co.uk

website making!

Just making my website, hopefully it will be up and running soon!

Its kinda basic, but hopefully more beautifully simple.

Exciting!

eek!

I have just ordered my book for my Extended major project. I feel wierd, because I have 2 weeks before the deadline, and I feel like I have finished (technically have), but I feel like something is definatley going to be wrong with my book, and I will have to redo loads.

plllleeeeaassee turn out ok!