My first ever book “Naturama”,written by Michael Fewer and illustrated by me, came out last year, published by  Gill Books and is all about Ireland’s wildlife. My hope was that inspires children to get outside with their wellies and binoculars and learn all about nature…and from all reports it has.

And now, there is a beautiful follow on, My Naturama Nature Journal, which has projects for children to do outside and field guide notes sections to write and draw in. It gets everyone outside turning rocks upside down looking for worms :)

Click here for all the latest Naturama related news….

A post shared by Melissa Doran (@goradiate) on Nov 29, 2016 at 9:23am PST

Visit Benson Street in Dublin 2 to see my 55 metre long illustration – commissioned by Dublin City Council for a hoarding around the building site for a new park. The drawing moves through the four seasons and is packed full of native flora and fauna, and features some local landmarks too. Here is a timelapse of me drawing one of the foxes from it, and below is a simple animation I made to show you the full thing…plus more photos here….

Like all my work I did most of the drawing by hand in my notebook, then scanned it in and developed it in Illustrator. I collage hand coloured work with vectorised, digitally coloured elements.

Develop your digital illustration skills over one fun weekend using Illustrator in Dublin. I’m taking a little break for the summer, so the next one isn’t ’til September but I have an early bird special offer on from now until August 1st . Learn how to combine digital drawing with hand drawing and bring your skills to a whole new level. 11 CPD point for Architects. I am an Adobe Certified Expert with 5 years teaching experience and my classes are just great!

The two days are jam packed and very hands on but I create a very relaxed atmosphere and you won’t feel rushed. I work from the latest version of adobe Illustrator so that you can get the most out of the features but I also reference older versions and what slight differences you might need to look out for.

Only 6 spaces available so everyone gets lots of help and encouragement. Find out more here.

A little introduction….

This is me, I became an illustrator because I wanted to have freedom in my everyday life and to be able to express myself and spread love and happiness through my work. I really enjoy working with people, young and old, and helping them learn new art skills in workshops. I’m good at making things simple.
I love collaging hand drawn and coloured elements with digital to make my own little wonky world.
My undergraduate degree is in Architecture (B.Sc from UCD) and I have a Masters in Digital Media Technology (DIT). I am also an Adobe Certified Expert in Illustrator.