A Brief Outline

I've just started working on the colour for my current project. The comments on the roughs are in and are pretty good, so I'm just in the process of deciding how on Earth I am going to tackle working up this baby. I have to colour the cover and one spread for Friday so the AD can check the palette and what-not before I go ahead and do the rest, so this is the ideal time to experiment a bit.

So, decisions, decisions. It seems such a long time since I've coloured people I'm finding it a bit strange! (In fact, it was my Christmas card 2010. But only one Santa amongst eight reindeer. Whoa.) About this time last year, I took up a pretty good offer on Manga Studio Debut, which I bought, installed and promptly ignored. It's the standard software comic artists use not only to ink up their artwork, but also plan their storyboards. I'm obviously not planning boards, but I like the HUGE range of brushes it comes with. So I've been experimenting with drawing the outlines both in PS and MS using different brushes and with altering the colour of those lines. Recently, I've been outlining my characters in darker shades of their body colours, but with this book I think I'd like to outline the main action in one colour, probably a dark grey, then have the backgrounds with coloured, or even no, outlines. I'll have to see how that works out once all the background colours are in.

So, in the meantime, I just have to choose a line:



I'm edging towards MS in grey, the top right, but we shall see!

Nymans

Husband and I have had a very outdoorsy, active, heavy-on-the-walking kind of weekend. It's been lovely. We put our National Trust membership to good use and went to Nymans this afternoon. The original Regency house was re-built as a fake Gothic mansion in the 1920s, but then most of it burnt down in 1947. The ruined parts have been stabilised, but left as ruins. The rest of the house is arranged as its last owner, Anne Messel, liked it. A nice contrast, and so interesting.

A New View

This afternoon, Middle Sister and I went on the Brighton Eye. Like many a Brightonian, I was a bit WTF? when it was constructed last September, but, actually, the view was pretty interesting. I don't know if it was supposed to, or if it was just because we went on a slow day, but we went round seven times. The first couple were a bit freaky, but by round 6 we were, like, totally blase about it.

I'm not sure how long it's going to be around for - the local goss says a year - but it would be lovely to take a ride at sunset on a clear day.

New Gocco!

I've (finally) put some Gocco'd Mother's Day cards up in my Folksy shop:

I've been experimenting with using several shades of the same colour in one card, which I think came out quite well. It means each one comes out differently to the next, which is great.

I've also got come new-ish Gocco prints up in the shop, which I can't quite believe I haven't blogged about yet. This one is inspired by Steph's Ladies in Monochrome blog and her obsession with finding a photo of a nun with a cat:

I do like printing on brown paper; I've only ever used white before. That's one to do again in the future.

Do go take a look at my stuff, I'd be well chuffed.

End of Week 9

You Know How I Said I'd Be Knitting Colourwork Soon...?

Not too keen on how this has turned out, though. I very much enjoyed my first foray into knitting with more than one colour at a time, and working from a chart, but I'm just not too keen on the fit, particularly around the thumb, so there'll be no mitten no.2. The pattern designer refunded the cost of the pattern to me off her own bat, and has asked for any suggestions on how to improve it, which I though was very nice of her.

But this is quite a big deal. I have tried cables, charts and colourwork all in the space of a few weeks. Shockingly swift progress!! I have no idea what I was so worried about, though; they're not scary at all. Bring on the scaries!

Oh, Hello, Blog

Long time no see. The past couple of weeks have been just a tad busy. My new illo project is on, and I was working like a crazy loon getting the first roughs done for last Monday, resulting in a late night/early morning finish of 5.42am on Monday itself. I blame that on liking having January off so much I just couldn't get back in the swing of things. Ahem.

Roughs in, Hubbo and I had our customary February week off, with much hiking of hikes, visiting of interesting places and consuming of cream teas. We went to Bath for a couple of days, and visited Avebury Manor, which you might've seen on TV late last year, and Lacock, TV and film location extraordinaire. For uber Potter fans, Lacock Abbey is part of Hogwarts, and the village itself Godric's Hollow and Budleigh Babberton, as well as Cranford.

























Today I'm having one of those sort-it-out-plan-it-good days which will hopefully mean I won't be working til 5am again any time soon. Tomorrow, I've crazily agreed to run a couple of illustration/storytelling workshops at a local primary school where I'm hoping this idea will go down well again. Wish me luck!

**Just realised I totally missed my six year Bloggerversary on the 13th. Happy belated Birthday, blog.**

End of Week 8

End of Week 7

My kind of Olympic sport.

Happy Val Day

Source: marthastewart.com via Emma on Pinterest

Any excuse to post a picture of lovely looking biscuits, right? I'm loving the new (probably been around for ages, just haven't realised) way you can embed a photo from Pinterest at exactly the right size in your blog and it comes up with the right credit. Brilliant.

End of Week 6

Fire Drawings

Fire drawing from Glithero on Vimeo.

The blurb says: The protagonist in the Fire Drawings is a flame. It travels through time over a path of flammable screen-printed paint, multiplying or merging together, drawing, leaving a decorative charcoal trace as it goes along. 

Each piece in the series choreographs a different path of a flame, that starts burning from a single fuse and then branches and multiples towards a climax; A burning circle of fire. The remaining charcoal pattern resonates a memory of a moment that has already been. Literally and metaphorically it is the ashes of a process. 

Glithero are British designer Tim Simpson and Dutch designer Sarah van Gameren, who met and studied at the Royal College of Art. From their studio in London they create product, furniture, and time-based installations that give birth to unique and wonderful products. The work is presented in a broad spectrum of media, but follows a consistent conceptual path; to capture and present the beauty in the moment things are made.

Just a Tad in Love With These Quilt Designs

These wonderful mountain-like patchworks have been created for the next Winter Olympics which will be held in Sochi, Russia in 2014. Jaw dropping gorgeousness, right?

The blurb says: At the heart of the Look of the Games concept design lies the principle of the "patchwork quilt" - a combination of 16 designs representing the most famous traditional Russian arts and crafts, ranging from Gzhel to Khokhloma. The Look of the Games concept is the visual embodiment of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games philosophy and is intended to express the character of modern Russia whilst at the same time introducing guests from all over the world to traditional Russian hospitality.

I love the idea that these beautiful patchworks are going to be all over Sochi for the games as part of "... a unified design for sports venues, infrastructure facilities, city streets and squares." Patchwork all over the shop. Knocks our summer Olympic designs into a cocked hat, quite frankly. 

You can read more about the Sochi 2014 quilt designs here. I shamelessly borrowed these images from a Quilt Inspiration blog post, which is my favourite new blog. Lots of stuff to drool over and a tonne of free patterns to boot. I've got to make me something with triangles. Like, right now.

Cathedral of Light

This stunning installation is "The Luminarie De Cagna", part of this year's Light Festival in Ghent. It's made up of some 55,000 LEDs and towers 28 metres above the ground. Amazing. Read more about it and see other light installations in the same festival here.

End of Week 5

A for Awesome

A lovely package for me this morning: puppets and aprons! My lovely AD at OUP sent me the first real-life glimpse of all the work I've been doing over the past year.



I think I was banging on about designing the apron back in May. The darker green shadow on the skin has come out a little too dark; the AD wanted it taken off completely, but the printers forgot! Oh, well, still it's an APRON WITH MY CHARACTER ON IT!!!! I'm torn between keeping it pristine and cooking in it everyday. The pocket on the front where the zip is is designed to hold the flash cards that come with the book.

The puppets I didn't have to draw anything specific for, they're just based on my characters. Aren't they great? Hours of fun! I'm so pleased to see it all in the flesh; can't wait for the printed stuff to arrive now.









(I do feel a bit bad putting my finger up Spot the ladybird's bum, though!)

Three Primary Colours

Another classic from OK Go. Lucky Sesame Street; shame we don't get it over here on terrestrial TV any more.

WiP