Make and Mend Market

Saturday 6th March the lovely little Make and Mend Market will be invading the Grainger Arcade in Newcastle Upon Tyne. We'll be in residence from 9am - 5pm with around 18 stalls from some of the best creative talent alongside some wonderful 2nd hand and vintage traders. So you can avoid all the usual high street dross, pop in and say howdy and possibly pick yourself up something unique or a 2nd hand bargain.
I'll be there selling some of my prints and handmade goodies alongside:

• Dolls and Molls (http://www.dollsandmolls.co.uk/)
• Angelina Charnley offering hand knitted alpaca hats
• Jennifer Lilly bags (http://www.jenniferlillybags.co.uk/)
• Chocolate Mummy with their yummy yum handmade chocolate
• Pet Lamb Patisserie (see their tasty treats here)

Plus loads more great stalls.

Also i'm pleased to announce that the Market is fast approaching it's 2nd birthday and we'll be having an extra special event on the 28th March to celebrate. With some guest musicians/bands to give us a tune or two. Confirmed so far is Phil Tyler and a couple of members of the Monster Ceilidh Band. We'll also have some party nibbles for you to enjoy while browsing the 20+ stalls. This will be at the new time of 12 noon - 5pm at the Star and Shadow Cinema

Heres the new poster below:

Creaturemag banner is up!

Yippee!! My banner is up on the Creaturemag website and the lovely folks over there have written a little article about my work and the Make and Mend Market (on Facebook: here) which i co run and founded.

Creaturemag is an online art magazine which encourages creativity and aims to develop a network of creative people. Its a great read and is very useful in finding out about other creative projects to get involved with. To take a peek at the article and view other Creaturemag news visit http://www.creaturemag.com/
The banner is on rotation with two other wonderful works of art so you may have to click refresh to get the full effect.
Hope you like :)

New glasses cases for Folksy

Just a quick update on my Folksy mini-shop which is fast growing into a not so mini shop ;)
I've added 2 new glasses cases to the fold and a very cute rubber duck sponge bag.
Please take a look on the shop for more details: http://www.folksy.com/shops/lucyfarfort

Heres some pretty pictures, which of course is the best bit -

Critter Banner

FINALLY i have finished my critter banner (as i've just decided to call it) for the online art zine 'Creature Mag'. Been meaning to do one for a while as its an ongoing project they have, but something else always came up and although i probably should have been making up more stuff to sell at my forthcoming market, i just thought screw it this is much more fun.

Not sure when it will be put on the creature mag site as they rotate all the banner submissions, but thought i would post it on here so it can get an airing now.
I have put the initial sketch of the monsters and the finished product for you to view so you can see the transformation and get an idea of how i work.

Sample of original drawings:



Finished banner:

No rest for the wicked

It was a mega busy day yesterday and one of the things i managed to do was create a mini shop on Folksy. It took me ages to decide which to go for Folksy or Etsy but after much umming and arring went for the UK favourite.
My choice was mainly based on reading one of the Folksy forums about which online handmade retailer to go for and one of the things which came up time and time again was that Folksy was friendlier and easier to use. Also after getting into silly arguments with people on Threadless (US based) as oppose to the UK based t-shirt design contest site - Tee Tonic i decided to stay this side of the Atlantic.
I think the enormity of Etsy put me off a little too as my work might just get lost in a sea of creativity.
Anyway please take a look at my Folksy shop, will be adding more stuff soon:
http://www.folksy.com/shops/lucyfarfort

First illy

I've now finished the 1st full illustration of one of the main characters for the up & coming children's story . I've uploaded a cropped version of the full size image as a preview.
Now for the other 19 illustrations....yikes! Keep checking for updates and sneaky glimpses into the story itself.

Victor (rough image)

Good morning. Yesterday saw the start of a massive new project in the shape of doing the illustrations as part of a collaboration on a children's book. The story written by my friend Andy who has been slaving away at it for the last two years is almost ready and its time for me to contribute.
I have decided to publish my progress via this blog. Its is expected that the story and illustrations will finally be ready for submission by this summer, so from now until then i will be updating my blog with the preliminary drawing, partially finished images and maybe even the odd finished illustration (not to spoil the finished thing).
So to start above is the hand drawn original sketch of one of the characters to be the first of many.

Yay!! The Make and Mend Market yesterday was ace. I had visions with it being a cold grey February and all that it would be a quiet one, but i was wrong - it was heaving.
I sold two of my most treasured makes - my hummingbird clutch bag and Lovebird clutch bag (above). I know they've gone to a good home as they were purchased by two very lovely lasses.
I also ate laid my eyes on some of the most superb cakes i have ever seen in the shape of Pet Lamb Patisserie and sampled one of their yummy rocky road bars mm mm mm. I had to really stop myself from getting a chocolate brownie as well, greedy little git that i am.

Thanks to Dave my long suffering boyfriend and chauffeur for once again waking up early to drag me and my stuff to the market. Also not to forget a big thanks for the markets supporters.

Heres some of the new t-shirts i've just finished. Hope you like:

And theres more...

Finally finished adding some new items to my website shop. These funky coasters are 2 of six designs available. Check out www.lucyshappyplace.com/Shopmenu.html and click on the homeware section to see the others.

To zine or not to zine that is the question?

I have a real urge to start a zine and i've been thinking about it for a while now, but there is no way on this earth that i have time.
I've got the title sorted, well actually i've got about 4 different titles that i like, but thats not really much use with0out content.
Anyway i'm thinking maybe i will start an occassional mini zine on the blog. Would mainly be illustrative stuff not much writing. Probably just a series of doodles depicting something i've seen thats amusing (and theres plenty of amusing stuff to be seen in the toon believe me). Please let me know what you reckon, to zine or not to zine that is the question.
Also if anyone knows of any good e-zines out there that they follow i would love to know. Maybe i could get involved in doing work for another zine rather than starting one from scratch.