Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Season's Eatings!

What a Horror Show

New Work (Shocking, I know)

Sadness

Some Recent Work...

Piggehs

BOGOF!

Hello. Long time, no see!

Throughout August, I'm running a BOGOF on all prints in my Folksy shop. Take a gander at all the deets and tell all your mates:

New Spoonflower Designs!

Yep, you read that correctly, I've only gone and done my first new Spoonflower designs in about four years!

A couple of weeks ago I was given a wonderful old book of fairytales with the most amazing 70s flowery endpapers in eye-watering shades of orange and pink and black, and thought something similar would make a fantastic fabric design. Lo and behold, just a few days later, I read the latest Spoonflower competition was for a floral border fabric so it was obviously meant to be.

I started off using the same colours as the original endpapers for that authentic 70s vibe, but after a bit of faffing about, went for a blue background. The overall shapes of the flowers are pretty similar to those on the endpapers - I love 'em so much, and they're so evocative of the time - but I had lots of fun playing about with the centres and the patterns within.

This is my final design:

And rotated 90° with a width of 42":

Ready for tiling up like so:

I've also done a version with the full-on 70s orange background and a white, plus three complimentary fabrics with an all-over retro flower design in all three background colours. If you want to check them out, my design library is here, and if you'd like to vote for my fabric (or, indeed, any of the fabrics) in this week's competition, you can do so here. Ta muchly.

Munch Giveaway!!

As promised, here I am getting down with the kids in my first Twitter Giveaway! I have three, lovely, brand new, fresh-ink-smelling copies of Munch to give away, complete with a dedication of your choice. All you have to do to be in with a chance if winning is to go on over to Twitter, find me (@cooliobeanz), and RT the image below by the end of Tuesday 5th May. I'll be picking winners at random on Wednesday 6th May, and Tweeting to let them know and to get their dedication details ready for posting off ASAP. Good Luck, everyone!

I hope this goes well; it's a bit of an experiment. If so, I'll definitely do some more book and illustration giveaways in the future.

Gocco Bulbs

I'm reluctantly selling all my Gocco gubbins on ebay at the moment, including these lovely yellow bulbs. I tried selling it as a job lot, but it didn't go, so I'm separating out all the different elements. Please do take a look if you're interested or need to top up your supplies here.* The machine itself is not up yet, but will be in a day or two. Thanks.

*If you're also interested in retro-style dresses, I've got two up for sale there, too!

Happy St. George's Day

Munching Away

I am totally chuffed to announce that there's a new edition of Munch available now. My original publishers, Meadowside, have been amalgamated into another company, getting rid of a lot of their back list in the process, meaning the rights to Munch, and my first book Fish Don't Play Ball, revert back to me to do with what I like. So, both titles are now available on print on demand through the lovely Albury Books, run by one of the guys who started Meadowside in the first place. There is also an ebook of Munch coming very soon, which is very exciting.

I'm going to try my hand at one of those new-fangled Twitter/Instagram giveaways that all the kids are doing nowadays. There'll be three copies of the new edition up for grabs next week, complete with signed dedication and few postcardy goodies chucked in, too, so keep your eyes peeled for all the deets.

Studio Clear Out Offer

At the beginning of this month, I had an offer running in my Folksy shop, 20% off everything. I've decided to extend it to the end of the month, midnight on Thursday 30th April. All you need to do is put the code "SpringClean" in at the checkout. Please do take a look, I need to make more room in the studio for the all the new screen prints I'm itching to make.

Princesses in Da House

The cover of the Amazing Princess Things to Make and Do I did for Autumn Publishing last year at the London Book Fair last Wednesday:

It was pretty awesome to be able to see it from up on the balcony:

And the ceiling at Olympia is pretty fantastic, too:

Mnemonics

The Six Wives started out as illustrations for one of the Hysterical Histories/Autumn Publishing series I've been working on for the past couple of years, but which doesn't look as if it is going to go ahead (yet, at any rate). So, rather than just let these babies sit there doing nothing, I thought I'd re-draw them using a new pen setting I've discovered/fallen in love with in Manga Studio, and then colour them up for my portfolio. That, and I really want to do a mnemonics screen print series, so this Tudor green and white version is how I envisage that looking. It would be lovely to print it just using the two colours on some kind of parchment-type paper, or even paper I've aged myself using tea or coffee. That way, each print would truly be unique. All I need now is a bit of moolah to get in the print studio!

Survived

Beheaded...

Divorced...

Died...

Beheaded...

Divorced...

Good Grief! Some New Work!

Yes, yes, yes, I know, I know. But here I am and I have some new work to share, starting with a new self portrait with short hair, and only a mere eight months after I had it cut:

Experimenting with Line...

..with a few LSPs.

Books of 2014

I'm pretty chuffed with my book-reading of the past year; 56 in all, not including recipe books and the like. (Maybe I should include those for this year? Hmm). Anyway, it looks like it was a good mix of fiction/non-fiction, and I had the joy of discovering a few new-to-me authors, such as Barbara Comyns and Paul Magrs, which, quite frankly, is the best thing about working part time in a library.