The Commute

Since 2012 I’ve been commuting loads for work and I actually really enjoy it ! 🚂✨ I value the distance between work and home, I enjoy knowing two cities really well and getting involved with both and I find travelling by train quite romantic ~ the scenery, the time you get to listen to an album all the way through, time to read, write, draw, knit (or sleep!) I also definitely have one of those faces that people want to talk to, and like it or not I’ve met some right characters on my commute. Some joyful, some obnoxious, some silly, some friends even ! I started to draw the characters on and off during my long commutes south and back up north again - not a face mask in sight, unlike today. I have complied them into an illustrated 28 page zine printed by the awesome Ex Why Zed ✨ 

My plan was to pop some of them randomly back out on my commute - I liked the idea of some of them travelling around on their own journeys maybe brightening up a lonely journey for someone or cutting through the monotony of the everyday ~ but that’s unlikely now ! Who knows when we’ll be able to travel in the same way... Here are a few pages - see more here 

Lucy + Yak / Black Cats

Over on the fabulous Luck + Yak instagram/website they have launched an awesome dreamy competition where you can design your own dream yaks! Click here if you fancy having a go during these lockdown days. My dream yaks would definitely be cat pattered ones. I wish they were real, I'd absolutely wear them everyday! Unfortunately they only available in my dreams... but they are based on my pink and black cat show pillows, pictured below and available in real life from my shop!

New Stockists

At the start of 2019, I made a New Years resolution to try and get five new stockists for my work - to most be brave and put myself out there more! I'm really happy to announce my new stockists in Leeds, Wakefield, Hull, Loughborough and Huddersfield - you can check them out here on my website. In each I have a selected of prints, some homewares and postcards. 

All these - and more can be found at Hey Form in Hull, The Bowery in Leeds, Modern Painters New Decorators in Loughborough, The West Yorkshire Print Workshop in Mirfield in Huddersfield. 

At the Art Shop in The Art House in Wakefield, I currently have a limited edition (of ten) four colour screen print chickens available. These are only available here and 50% of the sale of each of those prints go directly back to The Art House to help buy new equipment in their print studios for everyone to enjoy and access! (I have another vacation in my etsy shop - just in time for Easter!) 

Meow

I've been thinking that maybeeee I need to stop drawing cats. But then they are great to draw and paint and I do love them. Just afraid of becoming a bit of a one trick pony. I just get commissioned for a lot of cats!! Here’s some printed on to fabric and made into make up pouches / large bags, purses and pillows. They are inside my etsy shop now.

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! :)

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!

2015!

Goodbye 2015! Hope you all gave it a good send off and had a good year. For me, looking back, it's been a fine old year. Maybe I'll even look back and call it a vintage year. I completed my PGDIPE (and got a 1st!). It was hard at times, but rewarding to challenge myself academically with reading and writing. I also got FHEA status which is cool. So happy that now all my spare time can be spent making instead of writing assignments. I also ran my first (last? maybe!) marathon this year! I spent a lot of time training and spending so many Saturday nights hydrating and carbing-up and then off I went for a three - four hour run on Sundays. Phew! I completed it at the end of November in beautiful Florence, Italy and it felt AMAZING. 

So, despite all the time I felt had been taken up by pushing myself mentally and physically last year, I was pleasantly surprised that my best nine on instagram was lots of creations!

Lots of plants too. Knitted Cacti, patterns, notebooks. Most of this is available in my etsy shop right now if you fancy having a browse! Foot is on the accelerator this year. One Christmas present I received in 2015 was the Make Art That Sells course by Lilla Rogers which I'm loving! I'll post my creations from that as I make them, but so far it's really inspiring and such a great thing for me to get back into creating and making post-pgdipe and marathon training, which has just taken up all my time. I've been busy still though! Printing new characters to make homewares and new items over the next few months. I will blog about these later on, but here, have a glimpse of a few things to come: