'A Sad Country Ballad For A Tired Superhero'

Uhuh. (from The Quiet Life)

THIS trailer made me cry with laughter. I know I know. I'm a bit of a child but seriously its utterly ridiculous.

I am enjoying ungtblod.

'Knock Loud I'm Home'

I'm borrowing the map that jez used to illustrate the fact that we have just travelled halfway across the country from our respective family homes in South Devon to Edinburgh where I'm due to start my fourth and final year at ECA and Jez is freelancing from our nice new flat. Its good to be back. Yes it is.


A photo of my cat? Alas I am truly tragic. Anyhow I just a new camera and I was playing with my (very old and very grouchy) cat before I left so here he is. My sister is convinced he is going to die whilst we're both away at Uni and whenever she leaves home she asks him not to.

Finally...Andrew Holder has all sorts of incredible illustration skills and I am sad to be in the wrong part of the world when his new show 'Neon Frontier' takes place in the Hibbleton Gallery in California through October. The poster looks ace and is surely representative of all the wonderful things he'll have on show.

Sons & Daughters Of Hungry Ghosts

This is a reworking of an old image that I had lying about on m hard drive. Its fun to find new life in things that seemed to have no particular purpose.


lots of lego treats from Band Of Outsiders

Wilkintie

I got a lovely email today from Carly at Wilkintie who run a lovely little letterpress print project based on the sort of magical illustrations we fondly remember from childhood. This first print is from Niels Oeltjen and its available to buy now. I love the quality of letterpress prints and this one is really fun with loads going on. Thanks Carly!

Back from the End of the Road

I arrived back at home today after three days soaking up the loveliness at End of the Road in Dorset. What a perfect way to cap off a rather wonderful summer. It was great to spend a few days in a beautiful place (the Larmer Tree gardens where the festival is held is home to peacocks and parrots and quaint folley type constructions and some pretty massive trees) with some nice people listening to some of our musical favourites (thanks to Woodpigeon who made is possible for us to go for free!).
Far from this being a music blog I would really like to share some of the best bits with you because there really was some super special music going on. Please excuse my inadequate writing and aimless rambling.
For me friday really belonged to Laura Marling. Its easy to criticise a singer like Marling ('she's too young to know what she's singing about', 'she's too obvious' etc etc) or to have preconceptions about what her music may be like (It really would be wrong to lump her with the droves of female singer songwriters clogging the charts) when in actual fact she deserves far more respect than many fashionable indie types would be ready to admit to (I will admit to being an occasional music snob). Her voice was flawless and endearing and she never hit a superfluous note. I stand by my belief that Night Terror (which you can download here) is one of the best songs of the year.
Saturday Bon Iver won for me although a more than honourable mention goes to the Bowerbirds whose album I've been listening to for a year now I think and it still hasnt lost its inescapable charm. Anyway Bon Iver was incredible. There have been innumberable folk praising the soaring wonder of Jordan Vernon's album 'For Emma, Forever ago' and I was fairly sure the live show couldn't live up to how much I loved the record and yet he managed it and more. That guy's voice is astounding and frequently heartbreaking and as the whole audience sang 'what might have been lost' at the end of Wolves (act I & act II) it was fairly obvious that every single person stood in that garden was completely in love.
Finally Sunday and The Mountain Goats. Oh god the Mountain Goats. They were always going to be the best bit for me and they didnt dissapoint in the slightest. They played No Children! Yes! John Darnielle sings songs about awful, sad, horrible things with so much enthusiasm and childish joy that they become triumphant and wonderful without ever losing sight of the sadness and frustration that they were born of. Its a pretty special thing when every song an artist plays feels like an old favourite. Amazing.
Anyway that was my weekend. I hope you enjoyed yours too!

End Of The Road

Hurrah! We're off to End of the Road Festival early tomorrow morning so blogging will be suspended for a few days while we enjoy all manner of musical treats and a nice slice of Dorset countryside. Have a nice weekend!

(photo from flickr somewhere...I've lost the exact location though)

And I would Travel Just By Folding A Map

This collection of maps of the Alluvial Valley of the Lower Mississsippi River were made by Harold Fisk in 1944 and they're incredible. Well worth a look (and you can download a pdf of all over them here)

via Camilla Engman

Postal treats!

AARGH! I'm so bloody excited. I just came back from a lovely weekend with Jez only to find that I'd managed to pile up the greatest haul of post ever over the three days. First off Julie sent me over a copy of our issue of Running Amok and it looks great! There are photos on my flickr.


The main event was a package from those Tiny Showcase folks Shea'la and Jon. Not only did I get a fair few of my own 'Mary-Ann' shirts (in both colours!), a copy of my print (I cant believe how perfect the colours are) but also one of the new Ray Fenwick shirts that came out the other week! AMAZING.

Darling Dont You Go And Cut Your Hair

I am in dire need of a haircut. I caught the back of my head in a mirror earlier and was shocked to see just how much my ridiculous mane has grown. I am so useless at the hairdressers (mainly because I have to take my glasses off which renders me completely oblivious to the world around me) and I never know what to do. I used to let my flatmate do it (she had no experience she just liked chopping away) but she's off on a global adventure so I really should suck it up and get it cut. Any suggestions?

(normal NON self indulgent posts will resume soon)

Gustavsberg's Bersa Ceramics

I had a bit of a swoon in the Stockholm Nordiska Museet when I saw the Gustavsberg Bersa Teapot. So imagine my delight when I found out (albeit it rather late) that the company had relaunched the iconic leafy design (by Stig Lindberg) this year. I would love to see it sat amongst my burgeoning collection of tasty mugs.

Alas at $90 the cup will never be mine. Perhaps a ring or a pin would be a suitable (and far more affordable) subsitute. All available from Huset.

Church As A Witness

Finally developed some of my holiday photos. Flickr yo!

This Side of the Blue

I lovelovelove this midnight blue soopascarf from Yokoo on etsy. Suddenly I really want to get knitting.

Printed awesome from Tugboat Printshop

nice things on etsy from a view to. (that delft necklace, sigh)

oh i love this too

Sing Statistics Running Amok

Running Amok no. 26 is now available to buy from Analogue and it's rather a fine one (as they all are ). Mainly filled with views of town and country we also managed to slip in this chap who we're rather fond of.

The Night Life of Trees

I love these wrist worms by Smosch (aka the wonderful Sandra Juto). Those colours look so wonderful together.


Julie at Analogue showed me this book the other day. Its by three artists of the Gond Tribe of Central India and is filled with incredible drawings of trees each accompanied by a short paragraph of folklore. The entire book is screen printed on nice black paper. Definitely a future purchase I think. There are more photos and things at Book By Its Cover (who i forgot to mention a couple of weeks ago when they posted an interview with us)

ALSO! We're running pretty low on copies of 'I am the Friction' now (which is wonderful and baffling) so if you're still debating a purchase I reckon you should take the plunge (seriously. its a great book. really)

This is Not A Song About A Train (thank god)

So yesterday I slogged through the nine hour journey back to Plymouth for a couple of weeks at home before term starts back in Edinburgh (final year! final year!). With my ipod deciding not to cooperate I decided to have a play around with scraps of scans I could find on my laptop and came up with the above image. I'm really quite pleased with it so far though it needs some tweaking. From here on in I shall only work on trains.

I'm off to End of the Road festival in a couple of weeks which I'm crazy excited about. The line up is flawless and the setting is amazing, i cant wait for the mountain goats, bowerbirds, bon iver, david thomas broughton and Akron/Family (and pretty much all the others. Seriously that line up. Swoon).

Stuart Kolakovic made a rug. Yet another reason why he is one of the most awesome illustrators in the UK. Head to his etsy shop for the rug and many other printed treats.

Natural Disasters

This is a little zine that I knocked up really quickly. I've only made four copies so far and I'm heading home today so perhaps I'll make some more when I get back down south and stick them on etsy when I'm done.

Upward Over the Mountain

An image for a zine I'm working on for my own entertainment. It feels good to be working fast and without any particular direction beyond the need to fill 20 pages.


As August draws to a close it finally seems ok to be swooning over autumn clothes. I love autumn (and the day when it is finally acceptable to break out the winter coat). This years autumn collections are looking really really exciting.
A.P.C (whose menswear is also pretty ace) , Gap and Toast seem to be rollling out my dream wardrobe this autumn. Oh and Wiksten by Jenny Gordy is looking beautiful too (the alison skirt and handwoven scarf combo is perfect). Alas having just moved flat I am painfully aware that my wardrobe is extensive enough as it is and so I shall have to try and cobble together outfits from what I have as, like Rosie, I'm imposing a shopping ban for a while.

Tonight I'm off to Calton Hill to see A Midsummer Night's Dream with a friend. All I've seen of the festival thus far has been straightforward comedy so I'm much looking forward to a bit of theatre.

Throw From Your Window Your Record Collection

OK first up some nice things for your ears. Eagleowl are an Edinburgh based trio who peddle some seriously lovely musical wares and recently released their first EP as part of the Retreat! music festival. The EP (pictured above) is amazing and absolutely perfect for evenings and culminates in one of the nicest songs you will ever hear (fact!). Anyway I did the lettering on the cover (which was then lovingly goccoed by the band on my little gocco printer, all 500 copies) and the pattern for the CD comes from a poster that we did for them a while ago. Its a great EP and easily worth the £5 asking price.



Our fine friends Woodpigeon have just released yet another record (mainly for their canadian cohorts) for which we supplied the artwork. Woodpigeon pretty damn reliable when it comes to fulfilling the whimsy quota on record so their alarming prolificness is actually quite a good thing. It was on sale but now I cant find it..aha! yes i can go HERE to get a copy (buy the REAL cd version not the MP3! i=Its all lovely and screen printed on a nice cardboard origato sleeve. well nice).


There are a couple more releases coming into the world bearing my silly drawings soon. very soon.

Returned

I am now very much back in Edinburgh (its raining and there are festival goers everywhere) after a very wonderful trip with Jez to Stockholm (abovand then Paris. I'll probably post bits and pieces from the trip intermittently for a while but for now I'm trying to assimilate my enormous collection of tat into my new flat and attempting to get over the excitement of my first ever Tiny Showcase print and t-shirt combo (below). Argh! Tiny Showcase! AMAZING!

I have tonnes of work to be doing as well as wanting to sneak in a few festival treats (although I'd be perfectly content just to leave it at the two flawless shows I've already seen by the Penny Dreadfuls and Kristin Schaal) and catch some more of the mini Retreat! festival going on in the Scottish Scullery.

Also! 100th post! Win!

TINY SHOWCASE

Hello! I'm taking advantage of a brief period of internet to say that something very exciting is happening tomorrow night on Tiny Showcase and it may just have something to do with my work. And t-shirts. Maybe.


I'll be back to blogging very very soon. Hurrah!

Holiday time

Yes! I'm off to Stockholm tomorrow and then back to Edinburgh by way of uh...Paris (not the most logical detour but definitely the most fun). Amazing! I am dangerously excited and I've vastly over packed on the clothing front (and also too many cameras) but who cares! Holiday time! Hurrah.
Anyhow I'll be back to my regular blogging habits when I get back around August 26th (maybe before if we can fix up internet in the new flat but thats highly unlikely).

Yeah!

The colour and texture in this image for chronicle books by Grady McFerrin are perfect. I've loved McFerrin's work since a friend bought me one of his Stephen Malkmus poster a couple of years go and I really like the pattern work he's been doing recently. Have a look!

Awesome animation! Yeah!

Dream Home

I have a bit of a Russian fixation. This is a fact. I am liable to romanticise anything eastern european excessively and elaborately. This building pretty much encapsulates everything I want Russia to be in my head and more.
Thirteen floors of ramshackle carpentry leading to an unfinished tower from which the builder, Nikolai Sutyagin, can admire his handiwork. Sutyagin began this as a two floor house but, realising that the local authorities probably weren't paying much attention, he decided to add a few more. Which is great. The child in me wants to climb it and hide in it and construct a complex pulley system for getting water to the top. The illustrator in me wants to draw it and write stories about it. Either way its sort of a dream come true.

More pictures HERE

If this is the sort of thing you like then have a peek at these photos of an abandoned Russian village, these drawings of Russian luxury houses and these astounding wooden constructions (again in Russia)

Travels

(photo from mischy eva)

We're off to Stockholm on Monday to fill up on nice design and furniture and green places and baked goods. I am very excited (not least because after Stockholm we're off to Paris! Yes!) but a bit lost as to where best to go. If anyone has any recommendations at all then they would be greatly appreciated.

Etsy Treats

My mum has just opened a wee etsy shop to sell her jewellery. She made me this cloud necklace for my birthday this year and I get compliments on it everytime I wear it. There's one similar in her shop. Go go go!


Speaking of Etsy here are some nice things that I haven't bought but wish that I could...

Beautiful Beautiful prints in Caroline Gaedechens' shop NuitBlanche

Opal necklace by Neawear

Felix The Bird By Alison Tauber

Sawdust & Diamonds

Lets get some tasty illustration up in here...


Drew Beckmeyer can paint. I've always been quite taken with his work but this poster for a show with Devotchka and Basia Bulat (who are both great by the way) is really lovely. More posters should be painted I think. Also cupcakes should be this huge.
I used to lust after Mathilde Aubier's artwork on deviantart many many years ago. She has some super collage skills and a really nice palette of colours at her disposal.


Finally one of my favourite blogs Fine Little Day featured a link to some really inspiring American folkart from the early 1900s. Loads of strange and intriguing characters, really amazing patterns and some colour combinations that I'm definitely going to be plundering for future work.



Done!

(today I am listening to Joanna Newsom)

Pikaland

The lovely Amy at Pikaland has just posted a little interview with me. I think thats my first official interview in illustrator capacity so please excuse the fact that I have no idea how to answer a question constructively BUT you should definitely head over to the site as Amy has an eye for great work and the Pikapackage project is a great idea.
(also great banner for the blog by Gemma Correll)

Frames & Floorboards

I am a nosey person especially when it comes to people's homes (flathunting holds secret pleasure for me) so peering through all the photos on The Selby is perfect guilt free nosiness. I love all the nice floorboards in restaurant owners Jean & Sam's home in Brooklyn. I'm a floorboard freak. And apparently unashamed to admit it.





Sycamore Street Press' etsy shop is full of all manner of letterpressed goodness including the above baroque frames (love that red and blue together...you could sell me anything in that red and blue) and the super vague 'great job' card which I want to buy for..uh..everyone.

Oh dear. I have ideas stewing for a winter version of the Village Fete that I did back in March. I almost certainly can't afford to do it but oh! it would be amazing. Mulled Wine! And Craft!