It was a Saturday afternoon in late 2020 when I illustrated my first Otter. And here it is above. I love the playful and carefree nature of these fury aquatic animals, and its safe to say, I was obsessed with capturing this onto a page. I dashed to my local art shop in South London, picked myself up a Winsor & Newton watercolour set and returned home eager to bring it to life.
The result turned out better than I thought and from then on, I was hooked. Over the next few days, weeks and months my A5 sketch pad filled with illustrations and watercolours of this lovely animal.
Illustrating an Otter takes a few hours. My tools are simple and light, an A5 sketchpad, travel watercolour set, 1 brush, 3 pens, 1 pencil and an eraser. I sketch out my otter using basic shapes, slowly filling with watercolour and ink the outlines thereafter. Those few hours are bliss. It’s the most peaceful moment of my day. Every illustration brings me joy and happiness and, in some ways, has helped me through life’s struggles. This has never been truer than over the past year.
I posted a few illustrations of my new found friends online and to my surprise they received a lot of attention. I had found a community of like-minded and fanatic otter enthusiasts. And from that moment, I decided to take things to a new level and showcase my work for others to enjoy.
And then I realised something! When looking for otter greeting cards online, I could only find the boring, mass-produced and generic otter artwork you usually find in large commercial shops. And that meant other otter fans were also likely to be uninspired as I was.
So that's why I started Otterly Madness - a place where I illustrate unique, otter watercolour cards, prints and stickers for the obsessive otter fan, that captures the fun and playful essence of all things otters, or "otterly-ness" as I say.
Now, my otter cards, prints and stickers offer a unique piece of otter artwork made with pure otterly love - worthy of gifting to friends and family. I know they make otter fans feel so otterly special, plus gifting will make you feel otterly original too! Win-Win.
If you want to feel otterly original, and make an otter fan feel otterly special, browse through my collection where you can buy my unique otter artwork as gifts - or just go otterlymad and keep them for yourself!
