Folksy Friday - Random Pick

Its been sometime since I last did a Folksy showcase and for the theme I wanted to choose something quite arbitrary just to be different and give you some respite from all that valentines stuff.

After racking my brains I decided to use a random word generator on the www to select the theme, an idea prompted by a friend who suggested I use this tool to choose an object for my 'quick draw challenge' (blogged about in my last post).
And the word was....

 

 

 

 

 

 


















MAP!
Bye bye :)

Quick fire drawing

I often have ideas for various projects, most of which hair-brained and forgotten about, but some of which i'm intrigued to develop.
One such idea was inspired by the Big Draw workshop which I helped facilitate last October you can read a bit about it here.
The day before the event the artists involved met to prepare materials which included each of us drawing the outline of a leaf for a workshop task where the kids had to colour leaves for a tree.
We were each given a marker pen and a sheet of blank white paper and were instructed to draw a leaf outline. In theory this should have been a very basic task given the simplicity of the object in question, but oddly enough most of us found it a bit tricky. Being obliged to draw something on the spot with no visual aids and speedily in pen - such a permanent media, leaving no eraser to fall back on, was actually quite daunting. To be fair there was additional pressure given that this had to be carried out whilst in the company of other artists.

Anyway it got me thinking. Generally in my working life as a freelancer I tend to labour over drawings and often use visual reference. In part this is due to me being a perfectionist, but I imagine that this is also the same for many (if not most) other artists & illustrators. Certainly this doesn't apply to everyone, but from the experience with the other illustrators on that day, it clearly isn't just me that gets fazed by this. 
So i'm setting myself a weekly Tuesday challenge to draw a fairly simple object in felt or pen in a maximum of 5 minutes off the top of my head, so no visual reference allowed. Then posting the result however bad, here on the blog. I'm hoping that over time I may become better at this so the results may improve. Either that or i'll be too embarrassed to post image.
Okay so my first choice of object is ........................

Yeah okay, don't laugh. Straight of the cuff this is my rendition of a car. Hmmm i have a feeling these blog posts aren't going to do my illustration career the world of good. Hey ho!

Introducing Burt 121

For many a year my good friend Andy has been writing a children's story which we agreed would be a collaboration of his words and my illustrations. The story, i'm very pleased to say is now almost complete so its time for me to start putting together some images.
Really I should have began work on this project a long time ago, but other things kept on coming up - you know how it is, but now tis time to focus...or at the very least try harder to focus.
Actually sometime ago I did produce an illustration of one of the main characters Mr Torian which you can see in my post here, but I feel my style has come on so much since then i've decided to scrap that one and start anew.

I began my first illustration for it this week. Its not yet finished by any means as i've only done the outline drawing but wanted to share it with you anyway. So here's the draft of image #1 titled 'Introducing Burt 121':

I'm pretty excited actually because for Christmas Santa aka Dave gave me a Wacom Bamboo tablet, you may have remember me harping on about getting one around Nov time.
I was trying it our for the first time last night and so far its  nothing short of FLIPPING AWESOME!! So i'm going to use it with these illustrations. I'm hoping it will greatly improve the way I work and I will keep you posted on progress.
Happy Friday folks x

Craft bonanza!

In January I got an email from the lovely Claire of Crafty Creatives to ask me if they could use one of my illustrations for the art card in their woodland themed box. Of course I said a BIG FAT YES!
Crafty Creatives is a company run by two sisters which launched last year. They offer a once a month mystery craft box in the post. Subscribers will get a selection of crafty goodies to inspire their creativity all lovingly packaged up in a little box. Each box has a theme, for example past themes have been floral, nautical and oriental.
Along with lots of inspiring arty bits the boxes also contain an art card which doubles up as a description of the box contents, so i was chuffed to think one of my illustrations would be in each of the CC subscribers boxes. What i didn't expect was a complimentary box of my very own. Woo hoo! DOUBLE BONUS :)

When it arrived a little tingle of excitement went through me - its a bit like a mini Christmas.
Et voila:

So whats in it well......

- 2 cute fox ceramic fox beads
- 3 toadstool beads
- Skeleton leaves
- An owl pendant
- Owl fabric
- 3 birch hearts
- Wooden leaf buttons
- A pine cone
- Flower soft products (2 pots of sprinkles - a bit like glitter and glue) 
- 5 leaf pendants
- A needle felting kit and instructions
- And of course the art card

If you're someone who loves making stuff and experimenting with new techniques then this is the perfect product for you. Its a also a great way to get your craft fix whilst being able to moderate your spending on materials. Check out www.craftycreatives.com

Its been a while. A post from the heart

Hello 2013.
To state the obvious - i've not posted in a while. And to be honest its taking me a lot of effort to muster the energy and enthusiasm to post now despite wanting to for a while.
Those of you who know me personally and some of you who don't but would have already seen via my Facebook page, will be aware of the reasons why I haven't posted in a long time.
I 'm trying to get to the point but its quite hard to write about something thats so personal in a public domain. Okay lets get this over - i've been away for a while because my mum, who was diagnosed with cancer in August, had an operation in December and following a complication passed away on Boxing day.

So there it is. My world has changed and things won't ever be the same.

Everyday things get a little easier, and they say time is a great healer, but adapting is difficult, so i'm taking things one day at a time. I now feel it is time to try & get back into things but must confess i've felt a little uninspired since it happened, but perhaps thats to be expected.

Because of the events of the past month, my outlook on life has altered. My priorities have changed and a lot of things have been put into perspective. The main thing being that i've come to the stark realisation that spent far too much of my life caught up in the obsession of trying to make a career of being an illustrator. This has meant i've often neglected people close to me because i've put my work first........... no more.
Losing my mum has taught me that although I love drawing and desperately want to carve myself out a niche in the illustration industry I need to stop putting it at the forefront of my life.
So thanks mum for that valuable lesson and i'm sorry that i didn't spend more time with you in life.
But no regrets, I know she would not have wanted that.
I will still work at being an illustrator and continue drawing but from now on i'm not going to let it take over.

On a happier note I have a wedding to organise (my own). We decided as family that going ahead with it is what mum would want so this will be taking up a big part of my time. I'll try to post as often as possible but i'm no longer going to stress about posting regularly, so forgive me if from now on theres only a new post once a week.
Wedding plans here we come, and 'mum I know you'll be there in spirit'.

Signing off

Howdy blog watchers.
You've probably noticed that i've been awol for a while. I've been mega busy preparing for markets, which are thankfully now over for another year. But mainly the reason for my blog absence is because I found out a little while ago that my mum will be in hospital over Christmas. So I packed my bags and went down south to my folks house so I can see my mum before she goes in for some pretty major surgery and help out at home.
It won't be until next year now that i'll be back to business so this is me signing off until 2013.
Hope you all have a great Christmas and keep warm!!
x

Production time!

I've been busy making some things for two up coming markets.
The first of which is a small event this Saturday (3-6pm) in Summerhill Square which as mentioned in a previous post before is a beautiful little community tucked away on the outskirts of Newcastle City Centre (around 15 min walk from the town). It will be in their bowling club house and i'm quite excited at the prospect because i've been wanting to see this hidden gem for ages so this event gave me a good excuse to visit.
The second market will be a much larger event, one which i've had a hand in organising and thats the Made in Newcastle Christmas Fair on the 15th Dec, for which I designed the mince pie inspired poster/flyer. This will be in Gosforth in the Trinity Centre Church and there'll be a bumper 35 stalls!

As I don't tend to do markets as much anymore i'm very much looking forward to them both.
Anyway i thought i'd share some pics of a few of the things i've been making -

Brooches:
















Some new Christmas cards from my latest illustration 'Winter Chums':

Coaster sets, all nicely wrapped up:

Also i'm well pleased as this week my Autumn Rain print got included in The Journal's Culture Magazine in a feature on gifts for £50 & under. Woo hoo! Check out page 25

Oh and i also want to give a quick mention and thanks to Shannon of Winsome Journal. She did a little interview and featured my work in the first issue - http://winsomejournal.com/