Jessie Bayliss

Party Animals is my personal series of anthropomorphic illustrations in the Victorian dressed-animal tradition — influenced by John Tenniel, Beatrix Potter, John Vernon Lord and the nursery-book engravings of nineteenth-century Britain.

I work the series in pen and ink, picturing a cast of animals dressed for social occasion — morning coats, bustles, evening gloves — drawn with the fine-line restraint of Victorian book illustration rather than the exaggeration of contemporary cartooning. The subjects recur across my commissioned work, and the personal series keeps the drawing hand sharp for jobs where dressed animals feature.

Party Animals sits within my personal work and has informed commissioned pieces including the Telegraph Luxury Gift Guide mice and the For the Love of Food cookbook animals.