Thursday 22 December 2016

MATS 3 : The White Cat


So, I finally finished the front cover for 'The White Cat', which was the third assignment for Make Art That Sells. The White Cat is an American fairytale - it's got a prince, a quest, a princess cat and the usual dark undertones of a fairytale. For a strange reason, I found this one challenging, which is strange because I thought that the children's book assignment would be the easiest one for me to complete. It was also about cats - so I thought hey, I will complete nail this! But it took me ages to get started, to contextualise the story into a page... but here we are. I tried to use a complete different colour palette that I would normally use and draw cats in a different way. I am pleased with it, would love to know what you think! :)

Sunday 11 December 2016

New Tings! Digital Fabric Prints.


 

Recently I got some of my work digitally printed on to poplin cotton. The cats, pictured above, is the pattern which I entered and got shortlisted in the Make Art That Sells Uppercase magazine competition earlier this year. The cacti/succulents print was made from a series of mono-prints which have become repeat patterns on notebooks and prints, available through my etsy shop. I thought that these would be interesting to bring alive on to fabric and open the opportunities of where the illustrations and prints could be found.... and this is what I made:


With the cat material I made these fun hexagonal cushions, using plain material to match the colour palette in the pattern.
 
I also made one plain one, patterned all over - the other side of the cushions with the plain triangles are plain on the back.  

The buttons in the middle have been covered with a cat face - which made me laugh when I made them - they look pretty cheeky! Especially when they are looking at the other cat characters on the pattern!



Close up of one of the characters. 

From cats to cacti... the cacti material was transformed to pencil cases - well, pretty big cases that can be used for anything - not just art supplies! Anything you'd like to carry around. They are lined with green spotty or gingham material too to compliment the colour palette. 


 All are available in my etsy shop right now. So have a peek if you fancy them! It's opened up so many possibilities. I love screen printing on to fabric, but digital print allows for a wider range of colours and different textures, and more complex designs... so here's to making more very soon!

Saturday 29 October 2016

Happy Halloween: Make your own pumpkin or cat! FREE TEMPLATE!



It's Halloween weekend - if you fancy getting crafty and making one of the pumpkin or cat cushions which I've recently been making (see this post here) I've made a printable PDF with template for you!   You can download the pattern and template here. You can reduce or enlarge the size of the template to make any size cushion you'd like! The size of this template will make a cushion about 25 cm high and 60 cm circumference. If you do make one I'd love to see! Please show me. Tag me on instagram or twitter!

Sunday 23 October 2016

Halloween is coming!

I just LOVE Halloween! I just love the imagery, the dark nights, the oranges and reds. I love blasting out AFI and Misfits, crunching through leaves. I love bobbing apples, carving pumpkins, making ghost bunting. I keep Halloween decorations up all year round. If you've been following me for a while, you know this. Every year I try and add some Halloween inspired creations into my shop. This year, I restocked the cards, tattoos and bunting which I've had available for a couple of years and added these notebooks
I also made some home decorations, including this super super soft, velveteen crescent moon pillow. I have an extra one for myself because they are just so nice to cuddle and they look ace around the house:
Annnd, some round pumpkin pillows, fun cat round pillows too, which I had fun photographing in my studio:
I'd love to know what you think! Check out the links to see the creations in my etsy shop. Stay spooky.

Tuesday 18 October 2016

Papier Mâché

I've been experimenting with making papier mâché masks recently, using the Staffordshire Pottery sketches in my sketchbook which you can see here.
I took them into my studio today and asked Richard Storrow to photograph them for me. Check out his website here. There's some ace stuff on that!

The papier mâché masks were super fun to make, just using leftover cardboard packaging I had laying about, a whole stack of free papers I picked up at a local supermarket, PVA glue, masking tape and bright acrylic paint. Really fun to see the characters come alive as I painted their expressions on!

Sunday 25 September 2016

Re-opened shop.

yay! I've re-opened my etsy shop after a big break over the summer. Yesterday I spent the day photographing all my new and old makes and editing them to go into my shop! I wanted to announce it over here too and I hope you go and take a little look! 
Here are some of the photographs of the makes:








Friday 26 August 2016

New website // Kopi & Chai

I'm really happy to announce that I've re-made a new website! Woo. Feels good that everything is in one place, I hope to update it with my research, workshops and my own work/most recent commissions and projects! 
I'd love it if you take a look and let me know what you think.  


Click above to see it :)

In other news, I wanted to share some recent work that I have been doing. An independent mobile coffee shop in Sheffield called CUPPA asked if I would create some characters for them to go on their new website (coming soon) and across lots of merchandise (also, coming soon). I designed two coffee loving, yoga practicing civets called Kopi (the brown one) and Chai (the grey one) who live in a world full of nature and trees, driving their Morris Minor called Dorothy around bringing delicious coffee to the people of Sheffield. When the website goes live, you will be able to see more, but I wanted to share some of the work with you here: 


 


I'll keep you updated when they go live!