Dutch oddities.

At the end of April I went to Amsterdam with my friends. While I was wandering around the narrow lanes that surround the canals, I found this wonderful little shop that sold all sorts of beautiful oddities including these envelopes:

I instantly picked up two packs of the envelopes to buy. Despite the many technological forms of communication available, I am still a bit of an old-fashioned girl and I much prefer to write letters than to type them (unless I am typing on my baby blue 60′s typewriter!) I also thought these envelopes would look good on my sisters staircase.

Katherine is not allowed to nail things into her wall, so has instead covered the railings of her stairs with postcards, tickets, envelopes and even a couple of my pictures . As the main recipient of my scrawled ramblings I tend to shop with Katherine’s staircase in mind.
The idea of using comics and pictures to make envelopes is not an entirely new idea to me. For the Christmas robin and Squiggle Tree last year I made envelopes from the pages of Crash magazine. If you find interesting paper or have pages from your sketch book that you don’t want to keep anymore, an envelope is a great way to recycle it.  Personalised envelopes are also a nice way to make your letters unique – and they are really easy to make, all need is a roll of double-sided sticky tape.

Christmas robin envelopes.

I also bought some funky writing paper – each page has a different hand drawn image on it. Below are a couple of examples from the pad.   Something else for my sister to decorate her flat with! There are a few odd designs, but I like the idea behind them. They should make a nice change from paper aeroplane instructions on which her recent letters have all been written – these apparently have been folded and are hanging from the lighting rail. although I haven’t seen them yet.

Thelinoprinter ‘how to’ poster.

First, I want to apologise for my lack of blog posts over the last month. I have been away on holiday and I started a new job! My holiday was in Amsterdam and very art orientated. As soon as the pictures have been sorted out, I will blog about my trip and share the sketches and the art work I saw. I also have a few new pieces in the pipeline… In the mean time, I wanted to share this with you. I have been working on it, on and off, with my sister for a while.

I wanted to create a poster to show, step-by-step, how the reduction lino printing process works. The poster can then be put up at any exhibitions or shows, so that those visiting can get more of an idea of how my art works – especially if I am not there to explain it myself. Since I had all the images available from my blogs on the Christmas Robin, it seemed like the obvious piece to put on the poster. Anyway here it is. I haven’t printed it out yet, so if anyone has any comments or suggestions then feel free to share them. (The size of the poster will be A1). If you click here the poster should open as a pdf in a  new window – with much better resolution! Poster

ArtistPublishers competition.

ArtistPublishers have launched a new competition ‘Oxfordshire Artweeks’. It features 30 artworks by 30 Oxfordshire artists. Each artist has submitted an image, which captures the spirit of Oxfordshire and they want us to vote for our favourite image. If you vote, you are in with a chance of getting a print of the winning image and you also get a 10% discount code for ArtistPublishers – so you can stock up on their cool cards!

Oxforshire ArtWeeks runs from the 5th to the 12th of May. Information on the studios and artists who will be exhibiting can be found here.

 

Coloured in.

I have finally finished colouring in the colouring-in patterns that I designed. They have been sat by the telephone along with a box of pencils and when not doodling I have been colouring in a little bit whenever I have been chatting to someone. (Apparently, it is very annoying to have someone ‘scribble’ all over your phone bill!)

This one isn’t quite done, but it is nearly there:

If anyone has any that they have been colouring away at, then I would love to see what you have done. These two were coloured in by my sister. Even though the design is the same, they have come out very differently.

This one reminds me a little of the video for the Gotye ‘Somebody that I used to know’ video. I think it is the choice of colours.

Now I just need to decide on what to do with all the sheets I have coloured in. Any suggestions welcome!

Happy Easter.

Easily influenced.

For Mother’s Day my sister and I bought our Mum a string of stained glass bunting to decorate the conservatory with. The bunting was from AmyOrangeJuice. You can see her folksy shop here and her blog here.

The photos don’t really do the bunting justice. It looks wonderful with the sun streaming through the window. It really sparkles.

My sister phoned up when the bunting arrived to see what it looked like. While we were chatting, I was doodling away in my notebook. This is the result:

Ever since I have had bunting on the brain! I often find, when I put the phone down, that without thinking about it I have been drawing something related to the conversation I was having.  Recently there has been a lot of talk about the tomatoes and peppers Katherine is growing… if I start posting vegetable pictures you will know who to blame!

Artistpublishers cards.

Today I received a confirmation email from Artistpublishers to let me know that the range of my greetings cards they are selling is now available online.

Artistpublishers is a company which promotes and sells greetings cards, both for individuals wanting unique cards and shops looking for something a little different. I first heard about them when I read a blog by Mark Sunderland; his photographs feature on a number of greetings cards being sold by Artistpublishers. He seemed very enthusiastic about them so I thought I would try them out. I have four different designs available: Light through trees, Reflections on water, Reflection and Squiggle heart. (I didn´t take photos of the proofs, but you can see the cards here).

 

The cards are priced at £2.50 each. This is the first time I have done something like this and I have no idea how well it will work. Perhaps they will be winging their way to a shop near you soon (fingers crossed)!!