Happy Spring! Splashy Spring Daffodil Studies in Watercolour

Happy spring! Here are some recent daffodil flower studies. These were done for me personally as a bit of practice, and an experiment with more splashes, as if pollen and the sheer energy and life of spring is bursting out of them. Which do you prefer, with or without the extra splashes?

Artwork © Amy Holliday 2025
www.amyholliday.co.uk

 

Watercolour Flowers Tattoo Design | Vintage-inspired Floral Bouquet

A private commission of a floral bouquet design completed early 2022. The three featured flowers are aster, freesia and elderflower. It was inspired by and influenced by lovely old vintage book illustrations. Each flower had a special meaning to the client.

This was quite the technical challenge to do! At the time I was unsure about how to approach such an intricate design, and considered it would be best to draw and paint each flower separately, then later reassemble into a bouquet digitally. If I were to do this again, I would dive in and draw it all as one piece.

These three flowers were then combined and layered together to make the finished bouquet: 

Artwork © Amy Holliday 2023

www.amyholliday.co.uk

"The Little Book of Bees" // The First Bees and Bee-Friendly Flowers

Illustrations for "The Little Book of Bees" commissioned by and published by Harpercollins publishers.

The first part of the book touches on how the very first bees evolved, from early pollinators to how we know them today. The first pollinators were prehistoric beetles and wasps.

I leapt at the opportunity to illustrate the lumbering legs of a stegosaurus alongside one of the very first bees, who is busily pollinating early species of flowers. Illustrating the 'first' bee was a challenge as there is very limited images available of them. I used images of early wasps and photos of early bees trapped in amber for reference. This one would become one of the larger illustrations in the book, spread over two pages.

The first flowering plants included species of waterlilies and magnolia.

A few bee-friendly flowers: cosmos, Californian poppies, sunflowers, blue borage, squash blossoms, certain species of orchid (Myrmecophila Tibicinis), dandelions, foxgloves, blueberry, cherry and 

tomato plant blossoms.

 The Little Book of Bees is published by Harpercollins and Abrams

Artwork (C) Amy Holliday 2019

www.amyholliday.co.uk

Sneaky Peek #2: Lavender Pot

Another snippet of new work :)

(C) Amy Holliday 2014 please do not use without permission.

Personal: Manuka Flower and Honey Bee

Personal Work. A slightly more botanical/scientific illustration of Manuka Flowers and a honey bee. 

Manuka flowers are native to New Zealand and Australia. Their honey, with its "Active UMF Factor", is considered to have antiviral and antibacterial properties. "Most people who buy Manuka honey simply put it on their toast or in their tea, but where it really comes into its own is in treating wounds. In New Zealand, it has long been used in this way and studied extensively. Now, the NHS is doing the same." 

The honey bee proved quite difficult at first as it took many sketches to get the right proportions...and then when it came to adding colour, I had to first experiment with quite a few different techniques 

in the hope of capturing all of his different textures!

Images are (C) Amy Holliday 2013. Do not use without permission.

"Spring Racing Carnival" // Illustrations for The Design Depot Magazine, Melbourne Australia

In April I was approached by the lovely people at Design Depot Magazine (Victoria, Australia) who asked me to provide illustrations for an upcoming article on this year's Spring Racing Carnival. 

The Spring Racing Carnival is held at Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne every year running from late September to mid-November and is a prestigious event for both sport and fashion!

Websites: The Design Depot | Spring Racing Carnival | Flemington Racecourse

The famous Flemington entrance gates...

Spring Carnival fashion...

Pretty Spring decor ideas...

Victoria, Australia's rainbow lorikeets...

Some of these subjects were a little different for me! The Flemington gates definitely took the longest amount of time to complete, but the most challenging aspect of these illustrations was finding the best way
to portray a glamorous lady dressed in her fashionable racing attire - I wanted to capture a very sophisticated look but also keep it fun and fresh, just like her vivid outfit.

Here are some of my other drawings that were decided not be used and so went unfinished: (Although I would like to paint them at some point!)

A pretty, flower-covered holiday chalet...

 The famously perfect Flemington Roses...

Here are my initial ideas/designs illustrating the glamorous ladies attendance showing 

off their fashionable racing outfits...

All images are (C) Amy Holliday 2013. Not to be used without permission.

Cat Breed Studies: Siamese

The final of my large cat series for now, a very playful Siamese. I used a more subtle colour-scheme for this one to emphasize the delicate neutral colours of the fur. More info on this feline breed series can be found in the previous post here. 

More cats:

Maine Coon

Russian Blue

Ginger Tabby

Silver Tabby

Siamese

New Bird Nests Illustrations // A Sneak-Peak at some details...

I can't share the full illustration with you all just yet - so for now, here are some crops of a bird-nest-related project I have just finished...