a little bit of drawing

oh, at last...something to report that's not christmas-y and not for etsy (not yet, anyway) a big achievement, i feel! this is a little drawing inspired by a piece of vintage hand blocked wallpaper i 'borrowed' from a wall in a shop i once worked in (before i get arrested for theft, in my defence, it was practically hanging off the wall...my boss was leaving the property and it was being re-decorated anyway. my only sorrow is that i wasn't around when they stripped the room of it ;) it feels good to be doing something other that worrying about getting something made and listed on etsy everyday.

nice words

two pieces of nice blog posting this week, firstly from a new find for me, dear ada, which is a brilliant blog full of really interesting arty finds, i have bookmarked it for regular reading. the other is from the ever wonderful print + pattern. interestingly, they've both chosen to showcase my black and white drawings...anyway, as always, i'm thrilled and honoured to be featured on such high quality blogs, thank you both!

last but not least a quick shop update, another sketch entitled 'tie ends', about to be posted in a minute. happy tuesday, folks!

kaleidoscopic doodlings

take one piece of paper, an assortment of black drawing pens, add a two hour stint of 'miss marple' on the television, mix it all together and hey presto! 'kaleidoscope' is born. at the risk of sounding smug, i'm really pleased with this...maybe some more digital prints in the making...? (they will of course be much better than these, the white is very blue, and as you can tell i'm no whizz on the photo editing thingy.)

drawing

i did an 'art foundation' course after my 'a' levels a million years ago, and i used to avoid life drawing like the plague with hundreds of ridiculous excuses; y'know, a bit like avoiding games/gym/p.e. when you're eleven years old. (my gran's just died, my games kits was swallowed by a raging angry crocodile, etc...or was that just the girls at my school? anyway, i digress.) to get into art school, you had to prove you could draw, and i well, couldn't. somehow, by fluke, i managed to produce one reasonably decent drawing of an old chap in the buff and wonder of wonders, i got in. probably more on the strength of my textile portfolio, but i like to think that the life drawing of 'walter' tipped the balance. my problem was that i was petrified of making a mistake, i used to freeze up in front of these enormous sheets of paper and end up drawing crappy little awkward stick figures with no perspective. now i'm not saying for a minute that i'm any great shakes still, but sheets of white paper no longer make me freeze up with fear. that's actually quite liberating, and if i make a mistake, who cares?

developments are afoot...

just a little sneaky peek in what i've been up to today...down at the printers. hmmmm...i smell an etsy shop on the (slightly far) horizon! these have been printed on to canvas and are really sweet.

if you like making patterns...

you might be interested in tigerprint. it's currently having a competition where you have to design a wrapping paper. you'll have to be quick though, it closes tomorrow! above is 'plant life' a design based on a doodle i drew last month. it's worth a shot, the prize money is £200. and i know that this 'muckin' about craft malarkey' isn't about the money, but it sure does help!

busy, busy

not a lot of time to do much work this weekend, or time to post for that matter. yesterday was manic; kid's party until 5pm, dashed home, had a quick bite to eat, throw me dancin' shoes and posh frock on and off we flew at 7pm for a surprise 30th birthday party. too many gin and tonics later, i was air-guitaring to bryan adam's 'summer of '69'. how embarrassing. anyhoo, the above pic is more progress on the doodle i've been, erm, doodling. (sorry, the top one has come out a bit rubbish) hope you all had a groovy weekend!

doodlings

hmmm...tomorrow i will post a pic of the cleaned workroom, but i've gotta say, although it's tidier, it's still not very practical. i don't have proper storage, only open bookcases, so whatever i do, it's still just rearranging boxes on top of each other. i can't afford anything really smart, so i'll make do for now. i've splashed out on lots of new boxes, but there's nowhere to put them except to stack them on top of one another, and it's sod's law that the things i want are always on the bottom! oh well, it's a make do and mend solution, but at least i can actually walk from one end to the other without breaking my leg. it doesn't help that there are six boxes full of bits of kitchen waiting for my handy man neil to come over and install. yay - at last there will be somewhere for my kitchen crap to live!

as i've not been working in my so called 'studio' (in reality the back room) as the big clean up operation has been occurring, i've been doing some doodles on graph paper. i love doing this, just me, a crisp new pad of paper, a black pen, a bag of crisps and 'cold case' and 'bones' (sealy booth = gerrowl!) on the telly. bloomin' perfect. oh crikey, i really am a loser. the above is a doodle-in-progress. bye for now, i'm off to loserville.