End of Week 39

End of Week 38

Happy Birthday Hubz

A very happy 40th birthday to my still gawjus Hubbo. I hope you have a lovely day xxx

Time for a Break

Is that daylight? Fresh air?

I seem to have spent the last week totally holed up at home, hiding from the rain and colouring for all I'm worth! The WIP photos I've been posting are from my latest project which I'm desperately trying to finish off before Hubbo and I go off for a little break to Cornwall tomorrow. I think I'm going to need a couple more days when I get back, but my publishers seem OK with that.

We also, and I can't quite believe it's taken me two weeks to write about it, popped along to Renegade in the 15th and got to see lots of fab crafty work for sale, and to meet up with Deb, who is always lovely. Thanks to a late birthday present of "Craft Fair Vouchers" (ie, cold, hard cash) from Lovely Ellie and Lovely Clarkie, I had a bit of cash to splash, and came away with these beauties:





The hedgehog pincushion, screenprinted lion Moleskin and screenprinted sunshine card are all by Deb (that's my arm in that photo there, btw. Famous at last!), the fox and tea card (foxes and tea in one image? I'm there) by Kayleigh, Deb's stallmate, and the anatomical heart screenprinted card by Kinaloon. Very happy with the haul.

Well, I'm off for my well-deserved break. I have a couple of scheduled posts popping up over the next couple of days, but I'll be back in a week. Bye!

WiP

End of Week 37

End of Week 36

End of Week 35

I'm Off to This For Deffo Next Weekend

Lovely Deb the Ladysnail is going to be there (who I'm very excited about seeing IRL again after our first IRL meeting about five years ago now), plus a whole host of other fabulous makers and craftsers selling their wares. I really wish I wasn't so skint right now. Gah.

Blummin' Delicious

End of Week 34

Beautiful stuff.

Poor Poggin

Au Revoir Orchid

A lovely leaving present orchid from my just as lovely colleagues. There was also a card and some scrumdiddlyumptious fudge to go with.

So, today was my last day in my current PT library job. Not through my own choosing, though; I've been working on a temporary contract since December last year, and, after several extensions, it's finally up. The library service here is having a big restructure and shake up to save the council some moolah, and is finally, after what seems like months and months of discussion, faff and compromise, going live this coming Monday.

I'm not sure how I feel about it. On one hand, I can totally see that it's necessary, and I think the new ways of working are going to be a really positive thing, but, on the other, I also think it's not going to be easy going for people who have worked in the service for a long time. We have lost a lot of staff members through voluntary redundancy and retirement, so at least there's not been any need to "get rid" of anybody as such. As someone on a temporary contract, I'm at the bottom of the pile for a place in the new system, even though I've been working on and off for the service for seven years, which is a bit annoying, but, to be honest, exactly how it should be. I have plenty of casual work booked in for the next couple of weeks filling in the gaps in various libraries, hopefully after that something more permanent will turn up. Even though the faff is annoying, I'm very, very lucky that this is not my "proper" job and that my first love is illustration, particularly compared to those who have been in the service for years and years and rely on it alone to pay the bills.

I hope this uncertainty in the PT job department means there's a lot more illustration work coming my way! Watch this space.....

End of Week 33

End of Week 32

End of Week 31

Pyms O'Clock

Looking through my blog, it seems that my recent posts have been nothing but pictures. Nowt much wrong with that, but I do feel I need to up the writing part here, if only for my only sanity/good, as I can see myself just getting lazy and slipping in to permanent picture-only posts!

So...what to put down here. As you probably can tell from my previous post, Middle Sister and I went to the Making of Harry Potter Studio Tour this week. It was AMAZING. I cannot put in to eloquent enough words how blown away we both were by the sheer level of detail and effort and love and devotion put in to everything. There was not a single "duff" or sloppily executed item to see anywhere; I highly recommend a visit. Even if you're not a huge Harry fan yourself, if you like film and are at all interested in how a production on a scale as massive as this gets from script to screen, it's deffo worth your time (five hours of it, as it turned out). I have some more photos - like, 150, to sort through, but I expect I'll put a few more up here in the near future.

And, after more work-free weeks than I've cared for, I've got a couple of jobs in. One is an ongoing kind of dip-in-and-out kind of job for a company who makes slideshows and web video promos for other companies, the other is a new book for Ladybird. It's for a younger audience than the one I did for them earlier this year and I'm REALLY enjoying it so far. I mean, I get to draw dragons. My job just rocks.



I also seem to be reading loads at the moment. I've recently discovered Barbara Pym after randomly coming across Excellent Women while working at the library one day. I finished that one pretty quickly, and I've just started Jane and Prudence and have A Glass of Blessings to follow that up with. I can't quite put my finger on what it is that I like so much about her writing. It's very, very funny, but in a gentle, very English, mid-century kind of way. It reminds me of the work of Jane Austen, Stella Gibbons and Winifred Watson, novels about women in genteel poverty who appear to be limited by social conventions of the time, but like their lot just fine, thank you very much. The editions I have from the library are fairly new reprints, each with an introduction by a modern author. I like to read the novel first, and then see what the intro says about it and whether or not I thought something similar as I was reading it. Go grab some Pym if you can, I say.

And, finally and most annoyingly, I hab a colb and the tail end of a cold sore. GAH. Illness in summer is just plain WRONG. At least I won't be ill on my birthday, fingers crossed, which seems to be approaching with alarming speed. I think, then, I'm justified in reading a chapter or two of Jane and Prudence with a pot of tea before cracking on with my roughs this afternoon, right?

Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus

End of Week 31

WIP: Saucy Secretary

End of Week 30

Busy Growing

End of Week 29

End of Week 28

Shameless Self Promo

So, my little (or, actually, rather large) postcards are out there in the world, hopefully bringing me in some new work in the near future. Thanks to this lovely and very informative post by Brighton-based new illustrator Bryony Crane, I've discovered a few new portfolio sites that I'm in the process of uploading my work to. Blimey, it does take an age to get it all up there! If you take a look at the left-hand sidebar over there, you'll see I'm now on Behance, Ideas Tap and Creative Boom. Exciting!

Frankensocks

Highly addictive Frankensocks, Pair No1 finished:







These were inspired by the Lovely Tola, whose husband was sporting a very natty pair of these, one in red, the other in blue. The idea is you use up all the odds and ends of your sock yarn to make a whole other pair. I went for greens, blues and purples with these. Bride of Frankensock (pair no2) will be in reds. Man, do I have plenty o'reds to use.

End of Week 27

A Day Out

Hubbo had the day off on Friday, so we decided to take a little day trip to Hastings, just a hour up the coast. I do like Hastings; it's high up there on my list of "if we can't afford to live in Brighton any more and have to move, but still be by the sea" places. Even though I've been a few times in the last couple of years, I've never actually been down by the shore where they launch the fishing boats from, and home to these distinctive tall, black Net Huts. They're fab.

Hastings has definitely poshed itself up recently but still retains a slighty Seedy Seaside vibe; it kinda reminds me of how Brighton felt when I first started visiting in about 1998.

We had a good walk around, and had the obligatory tea stop. A lovely day out, particularly as it stopped raining as soon as we stepped off the train. If we had had more time (and energy!) it would've been nice to go up the hill on the East Hill Lift and take a wander to the Hastings Country Park; it's on the list for next time.

Little Adventure

Jenny the Bike and I went on a little trip today. I thought we'd just take a quick jaunt down to the Marina, which turned into just as far as Ovingdean Cafe, quickly followed by oh, what the heck, let's go to Rottingdean. After a quick break for tea, natch, I didn't fancy going back the way I came, so thought sod it, and killed myself getting up the hill to Woodingdean, then virtually flew down Race Hill and Elm Grove back home instead. 10 mile round trip, Google Maps says. Rockin'.

End of Week 26

And that's half way through the year, Ladies and Gents. Wow.

No.54

Another New Photo App

Pixlr-o-matic. I luvz it.

Just Genius

Muppet Movie director Jim Frawley's camera test with the Muppets. The improvised dialogue is just fabulous. Watch til the very end.