British Craft Trade Fair 2012!

Wow, what a week! Apologies for the lack of posting, again!, but I have been a busy bee. As some of you may well know, apart from producing and designing prints under my own name I also collaborate and produce work with a friend of mine, Jayne, under the guise of Bubble & Tweet. We produce and design all sorts of lovely goodies including prints, cushions and tea-towels and this week saw the launch of our new collection of products at the BCTF in Harrogate. 

We had a brilliant time and met some great fellow designers and buyers. Thanks to all who stopped by to say hello - above is a little piccie of our stand. Although we are currently updating the site, you can find out more about Bubble & Tweet by having a look at their site here. 

Liebster Blog Award!

The very lovely Louise over at Love Print Studio has awarded my little blog the Liebster Award! I've long admired her work and her blog so this is a real treat, thank you!

For those of you who aren't aware the Liebster Award is given to blogs (with less than 200 followers) that you love and that inspire you, if you receive an award you must then choose your top 5 and pass it on!

So today, I'm sharing with you 5 lovely blogs (although narrowing it down to just 5 was pretty hard!) that I think you should all read - fabulous for colour, tips, characters and repeats (my faves) - enjoy!

I really hope you take the time to check them out on your coffee break today! 

xx

Happy Sunday

Beautiful day today, far too nice for working!

Drawing drawing and more drawing...

Trying to get some ideas down for my agent today and my sketchbook has been filling up nicely. Lots of drawings to work with, including these jars of flowers I drew this afternoon!

Today!

I'll be here as part of my collective We Have Beaks - find out more here. 

Artist Book Fair Prep...

Hope I manage to screen-print the book containing this little fella tomorrow night - need to get him printed and the book bound and made for the Leeds Book Fair on Friday-eek! Fingers crossed, tightly.

Amazing paper sculpting

Now, I have always enjoyed paper-cutting and the art of fiddling about with pieces of paper but this video shows it taken to a whole other level - so beautiful!

Mono-printing Friday

It's the Leeds Artists Book Fair next weekend (9th-10th) and so far I've only got bits and bobs made - whoops! So, this next week is going to see some new little books coming into being. Tonight has been mostly spent drawing out some new imagery to work with - hope I don't run out of time!

Yay, window vinyl up!

Excited about the opening tonight now!

New Exhibition at The Bowery, Leeds

This opens Friday - also featuring work by the lovely Moira Fuller and Cathy Brooke - hope you can make it! Preview 6-8pm.

Mug designs

It's freezing today here in Leeds so I'm staying firmly wrapped up inside drawing mug pattern designs for my agent. These cheerful florals are keeping me entertained though! 

Printastic...

It's the Leeds Print Festival this weekend with lots of exciting stuff happening including exhibitions, talks and stalls. Showcasing some great work by graphic designers, illustrators and typographers all working with print processes. I've got a stall as part of the event on Saturday and it would be great to see some of you. Find oodles of information about goings on here on their website.

Find me in M&S

Today I stumbled across one of my designs I'd sold for sale in M&S - very exciting. Definitely buying this for my Mom come Mother's Day!

Woodland trees

Keep getting a little bit obsessed with mirroring things at the minute - great fun!

Yes-colours sorted

I'm off screen-printing tonight and this, along with my new mother's and valentine's day cards, will be making its way onto my sexy new screens! Can not wait - I've not printed anything since before Christmas and my golly do I miss it.

Not On The High Street

Yay! We made the front page, now that was an unexpected treat!

The beginning of new ideas

Been beavering away at a new print design this morning...going ok so far - here's a work in progress but my eyes have had just about enough of this computer!!

It's been a while!

Happy New Year to you all!

It's been absolutely ages since I've posted or tweeted anything-whoops-but fear not I've been busy! Today sees some new spring season cards being prepped for screen-printing and some doodles for 2 new projects I'm working on - more on that front soon!

In my absence I've joined forces with a fellow screen-printer to create some collaborative work and secret projects (secret for now at least) and we now have our very own Not On The High Street shop-very exciting! Please go and take a look! It's currently only got bits and bobs you've probably already seen but should start to include some of our new joint projects in the coming weeks. I hope you like it. More info on secret ventures to follow - soon I hope - just don't want to let the cat out of the bag just yet!

Also, remember this little fella?

Well, over the festive period I sold him to a home-ware company in the States and he'll be appearing on cereal bowls and mugs from May! I've never had designs on ceramics before so that's pretty cool-more of this please 2012!

Next Weekend

I shall be exhibiting work at the following fairs next weekend, get them in your diary for some great Christmas Shopping ideas! Headingley Arts Trail runs both Sat and Sun across various locations in Headingley, Leeds (see The Bowery website for more details) whereas Otley Designer Fair is the Sunday only (13th) 10am - 4pm. Hope to see some friendly faces!

Busy Bee!

So, here are some pictures from the Manchester Artist Book Fair the other week, it was great fun and I met some really lovely people. Sorry for my lack of posts lately, I've got 2 fairs and an exhibition opening next week so things are a little hectic! Hopefully things will calm down soon though! 

Manchester Artists Book Fair...

...is tomorrow (Sat 22nd).
Pop along if you're in town and see our collection of limited edition screened and bound artist books and other printed treats. It's at the Holden Gallery on Cavendish Steet. Will pop some photo's up when I get back tomorrow!

Ilkley Arts Trail

It's currently the Ilkley Arts trail in Ilkley (surprisingly) West Yorkshire. As part of the event I have some work showing at Cakewalk, a fab treasure trove for all things hand made and vintage. If you're around the area and fancy a lovely day out why not pop along and have a look at some of the art and craft on show! The event runs up until the 16th Oct.

How did you spend your Sunday?

I spent mine painting up papers and cutting out new motifs for some new projects I've got up my sleeve. Who cares if it's raining if you've got coloured paper and scalpels to play with! :)

Doodley one colour prints

It's the Ilkley Arts Trail next weekend (the 8th Oct) and I'm exhibiting some pieces as part of it. I ideally need to bust out 4 new prints for Cakewalk to display as well as some of my notebooks and cards. As time is of the essence, think I might give some simple one colour prints a go, just finalising some ideas now - hmm, what do you reckon?

More abstract forest ideas

So, I have a couple of exhibitions and art fairs on the horizon and have had a bit of a panic about the amount of work I've got to do. Need to get at least 6 design ideas for my abstract forest collection, getting there - playing with this owly one today...how many times has he come out to play!? Still a fave though... plus I finalised my print palette - happy days.

Mirrors have arrived!

My new pocket mirrors have arrived. Busy photographing this afternoon, then they'll be up on my etsy site too. They look so cute in the flesh! 

Snapping some product shots today!

Thank goodness the sun is shining today as I'm attempting to photograph some of my products for Etsy and general press purposes. Finding it really hard to make the photos look good - need to practice my photography skills a bit more for sure. Enjoying my capsicum red tea-towel with some beans out of the garden though, but it is making me hungry! 

Sneeky peek!

Been working on an illustration tonight for Amelia's magazine - a little different to my normal stuff but nice to try something I wouldn't normally do!

Abstract forest number 2

This morning has been spent putting together another print for my series of 'abstract forests'. Looking forward to seeing them screen-printed and all together! Maybe next week with a bit of luck.

Notebooks ahoy!

I have been super busy during my Summer vacation from work, making and printing lots of new stock for forthcoming events! Really excited about putting the finishing touches to some new 'Pink Parakeet' items and a rather fun new venture I'm embarking upon - more of that soon!

Today has been spent binding and trimming these little boat print notebooks, whilst munching on copious amounts of coffee and cake! The perfect way to spend a productive afternoon. Just 40 more to go!

Yay a new print!

Finished a little screen print this week - and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Like the thought of having a selection of pattern/abstract prints within my forest theme collection alongside some more 'illustration' prints. Time to fashion a few others to go with it now - happy days!

What to do in a thunderstorm?

I always turn my computer off when there's thunder about - paranoid maybe but I don't want my precious Mac dying on me because of a power serge! There has been plenty of rumblings this afternoon here in Leeds so whilst the skys were going a little crazy I took the time to make up some cards.
These I screen-printed a little while ago but thought they looked a bit drab so have been 'colouring them in'. Now they look like a just doodled card ready to send - perfect for my next craft sale!

Work in progress.

Been cutting out bits of paper today for some simplistic/abstract woodland scenes in contrast to the busy illustrations I started on yesterday. Still a bit of a way to go though. At least I've got my colour palette sorted!

Might these be the colours?!

So hard to know what they'll look like just by seeing them on a computer screen - every monitor makes them look slightly different which is very annoying, much prefer mixing paint in a pot. 

Something bright and cheerful with a touch of autumn is what I think I'm going to go for. Maybe a little bit of changing when I see them together in paint on paper but along these lines - hurrah! 

What a productive day.

Hooray for Mr Fox!

Hmm, which colours? Going to keep tweaking...

Finally Mr Badger comes to life!

After drawing these guys a few weeks ago I've managed to finally get around to making them into print designs - will start screen-printing them tomorrow with a bit of luck - yippee! What do you think - shall I leave the text on or not? 

Tigerprint Competition

Been seriously slack on these competition briefs of late. Just managed to throw together these for the male pattern brief, with 1 hour to spare! Will try and consider my entries a little more next time.

Unseasonable work...

Busy working out some simple xmas ideas for winter 2012 - which seems a little weird as today was lovely and warm. Never-mind, I still enjoy drawing Christmas trees - whatever the season!