A fairly quick drawing for something Jez and I are working on. Needs some work but I am quite fond of the wolfy do'.

This weekend also saw me take the first steps towards organising a project I thought up whilst sat in a lovely Rob St John / Tisso Lake gig in the tiny Collective Gallery in Edinburgh. Anyway now it is officially underway and its all looking very exciting. Seriously. I'm not going to get carried away and reveal all here but I will. Soon.

Finally a little sartorial flawlessness. I have mentioned before my mixed feelings on style blogs (oh gosh look how amazing those clothes are! oh gosh i hate the way i dress!) and this woman seems to sum up entirely how inadequate they can make you feel (i mean that in the nicest way possible, this woman can dress!). Below is one of my favourite outfits. I am so glad to be off to London this week for a little retail goodness.

Sky and Sweets

Nice Prints on etsy from Labpartners.




I am totally predictable when it come to my taste in photography. If its hazy and square and sad I'm almost certainly going to love it. There are some especially lovely ones on this flickr and deviantart from a guy called Blair who lives in San Fransico.

Trees in the Sacre Coeur

A new print is now up on my site and is also available to buy from my little shop. Hurrah.

Slow Burner

Bethan Lloyd Worthington makes lovely ceramics in Islington Mill in Salford. I'm particularly taken by these cute charm bracelets.



Jaakko Pallasvuo is someone I've been meaning to post for a while and tonight he has a print going on sale at Tiny Showcase so now is the perfect time. His work is ace, all kind of nice lines and watercolour patches and so on, really interesting stuff.

I'm going to get back on track with the regular posts again. Honest.

Nice blog here by the way.

Distractions

I am meant to be writing an essay but I've gotten a bit distracted. So I'm doing a huge post instead.
Above is a drawing from last term from an article about ukuleles. The ukulele was invented by portugese sailors who wanted to take their guitars to sea but couldn't find the space so this a drawing of uh...that.

Amazing Found photos here. (I love that bear so much)

I would love to own this book by Beatrice Alemagna. Alas it seems that it's only been published in france and the only copies I can find are super expensive. I guess looking at the lovely cover will have to do.

Also:
this is a bit funny.
some nice stuff here.

The other week I got a very lovely message from Caroline Gaedechens about my work. This was especially nice to recieve as I've admired her work for a while now. On top of her website she also has a great etsy shop where you can pick up lovely prints, original paintings and som amazingly lovely handmade gluhe monsters.

I have a love/hate relationship with street style blogs in that mainly I love them but i hate the fact that as a lowly student I can rarely afford to buy new clothes (alas I am yet to master that fine art of charity shop shopping). Anyway I stumbled across one (now seems sadly defunct) that was based in Edinburgh. Nice to see some familiar faces from around the city on there as well as spotting on of my posters in the background!

Finally. The ever amazing Maxwell Loren Holyoke Hirsche has some new images on his site. I love his work so much it hurts. Wow.

Books, Creatures & Ceramics

A VERY rushed bookcover project for Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'. It's pretty poor. But better than the first two I came up with and it's due in tomorrow so it'll have to do (perhaps not the best attitude to take towards my degree. oh well, its the end of term.)

Big thanks to Gil Cocker who posted me on his great blog t'other day. Gil makes super nice knitted creatures (some of which are currently being shown off in Owl & Lion on the Grassmarkets) as well as being a final year graphic design student at eca.




Finally some lovely ceramics from Marianne Hallberg. I love the simplicity of the blue and white. So traditional and yet so mathmatical. Lovely.

This is an illustration I've done for a poetry anthology. Its a bit different from normal and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Oh well. That blue/grey is quite nice though.

Back to normal

OK so having spent the last few weeks thinking of all things fete I can finally get back to illustration. I intend to post more artists from now on as well as my own tat. So...
Firstly a print that I bought from Alice Melvin's suitcase of tricks yesterday. I try to avoid buying too many bird related goods (they're a definite weakness for us illustrators I think) but this one was so inquisitive looking and had such great colours that I couldn't resist.

Next up is Scott Balmer. There's some great liney pattern and scuffed textures in his 'drawn' stuff (I love lines so much and his are pretty ace) and the 'graphic' section is really fun too. I love his use of colour throughout. He also has a blog. Lovely stuff.

The Village Fete

The Village Fete has finally been and gone and a lovely day was had by all. Everyone's stalls were amazing, so much hard work had gone into all the stuff on sale. I am hugely grateful to all who came and sold and bought and listened to music (which was wonderful too). Hopefully I'll do another fairly soon and I shall endeavor to make it even better.
In the meantime you should check out the work of Alice Melvin whose stall was easily one of the most intriguiging, with plenty to look and unfold. Her prints are especially beautiful and her bookmaking skills are hugely impressive. I just wish I could afford to have bought more.

Making Things

Only two days till 'The Village Fete' and after spending most of my time rounding up artists to take part I am now, finally, trying to sort out the things to go on my stall. Pictured is a book that collects together some of my work from the last couple of months and a gocco printed t shirt (on a very messy looking rug).
I'm pretty excited about the whole thing. I got ace prints to sell from Jez and the evening tweed gang this morning and mr Stuart Kolakovic sent me some of his wonderful comics yesterday. It's all looking great.
Head this way for some songs by the bands playing (and one from Eagleowl, who aren't. Though I wish they were.)

Michael Kirkham

Waiting for me on my desk this morning was a lovely Heart diary courtesy of Michael Kirkham
who has sadly had to pull out of my art fair thing. He has added a new drawing section to his site which includes the lovely piece below. Nice lettering.

The Courtship Of Mr Lyon

This is an image for a very quick project we got this week. The task was to create a kind of poster image (predominantly using lettering) for one of the stories from Angela Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber'. I chose 'The Courtship Of Mr Lyon' and took a quote from it to work from. Its a bit on the basic side but I think it almost works. Almost.

21

My book project all bound and printed. The cover looks grey on thick grey stock. Sadly the inside doesn't merit a photo. I'm going to keep working on it though as I'm yet to make a book I feel completely happy with but I think this one has potential. At least because of the nice cover.


Sunday was my 21st and it was lovely. I am particularly taken with my shiny, racing green ukulele (and the two chords and i can now play on it) and these matroishka pencils courtesy of Sarah (of the splendid Come On Gang!) which are far too beautiful to ever use (and also a bit too big!).

Birds

This beautiful bird was made by Abby Glassenberg. She's made loads of these, each with their own endearing character. I am quite enamoured.

Clocky

I really badly want to get this for someone I know but I fear it may not be met with kindness. Clocky is an alarm clock with superpowers! If you hit snooze the clock will jump (yes! the clock will jump) to the floor and wheel around your room beeping until it finds a spot away from your bead so you HAVE to get out of bed to turn it off. To me this is literally the most amazing thing ever. And pretty cute too.

The Way You Yell...

This is the cover image for a little book I've been making over the last week.

New Work!

I finally have a new piece of work over on my site which is a relief. I haven't just sat down and done an aimless drawing for a while and it was nice to draw the new one and know it had no purpose whatsoever.

Today I was trawling through Blow Your Horn Hunter! (which is a lovely thing in itself) and decided to check out the work of one of its contributors John Klassen. I am so glad I did as I would never have come across this amazing drawing called 'Adventures of Ship (One Hundred Years Ago). Below is just a small snippet from a lengthy image. Visit his website to see the full thing and plenty of other wonderful work.

Sundays

Out of my window this evening the sky was the weirdest colour. Kind of brown. It doesnt show properly in this photo though.
I've been trying to think up colour schemes for a little book i've been making. Someone who always seems to get it right is Jim Houser whose paintings and installations are endlessly interesting and consistent. Despite re-using the same motifsin his work he somehow manages to keep in interesting and varied. Amazing.

Flyers

My fete flyers all gocco'd up and ready to go. Lovely.

Stephanie De Armond

Check out these beautiful ceramics by Stephanie DeArmond. A great mix of really delicate paintwork with wonderful lettering that somehow seems robust and sturdy. Lovely stuff.

Valentimes!

Little Olf is my Valentines present and I like him very much. More like him can be found here though he is easily the best one. Hurrah for Little Olf.

Other than fawning over felt toys I also drew these patterned lines for Jez. I'm not entirely sure what he needs them for exactly but I quite like them anyway.

Finally! How nice are these Matreshkas by Irina Troistkaya? I've had a set of blank nesting dolls for a year now just waiting to be painted but everytime I see hers (or similarly any of these at the Wurst Gallery from a few years back) I know that I can never make them as lovely as they should be. Sigh.

Walls and Portfolios

This is what it looks like when I try and sort out my portfolio. Shortly afterward everything was bundled back into folders to be dealt with another time.

I got an email earlier today from the lovely folk at analogue books about me maybe doing a bit of work on their outside wall. This is the most exciting and simutaneously terrifying thing ever.
I guess it'll be like this only a thousand times shoddier and with a hint of my trademark flappiness. Oh dear.

Tuesdays

The work from the collaboration ECA illustrators did with the University's creative writers is in an exhibition that opens tomorrow in the Andrew Grant Gallery in college. There is also a blog where you can see and read all the work involved. Visit the Two Heads blog to have a look.

Also here are some lovely peg dolls courtesy of The Small Object via Lena Corwin because I was mocked when I said I used to play with Peg Dolls. And also because they are cute.

Villages and Fetes

This weekend we decided to live in Dean Village. Because it's perfect.

Preparations for my unwise venture are now well under way. The Village Fete is going ahead and hopefully it'll be splendid. There are some lovely artists on board and I'm really excited about the hand printed flyers. If they can come out even a fifth as wonderfully as the poster below by Jonny Hannah and Mark Hearld then I will be deliriously happy.
(from St Jude's)

Sigh.

Here's the first of two pieces i've framed for a collaborative exhibition that starts next week at ECA. This is actually a fairly old image that I had always had a soft spot for and really wanted to use. I'm really glad that it'll see the light of day, it makes me sad when works spends all its life shut up in a portfolio. Hopefully I'll get the other piece finished and framed tomorrow. Thats the plan.


This evening I have been writing an essay. Mainly this means that I've been trawling the internet for things to do that are not my essay. In doing so I found this. Things will never be the same knowing that this cardigan exists. It's flawless. And expensive.

the Selfish Giant

This is a poster I did last week as part of a College Brief for a Chicago based puppet theatre. Type isnt necessarily my friend but I think I just about managed.

Today I have spent a lot of time thinking about this.
I have also been helping out someone important by voting for this

Hello

First one. It's Doctor Zhivago and Lara wearing NHS glasses. It's not great but I have to start this nonsense somewhere. From here on in this Blog is intended as an outlet for sketches and roughs that will never make it to my website as well as serving to gather all the wonderful things I find on the internet that cause me to feel hugely inept. I'm secretly quite excited.