Glass Dip Pens and Kelmscott Manor

Last wednesday I went for a day out to Kelmscott manor with my mum. Kelmscott was the home of british designer William Morris for many years, after writing my dissertation on his work I have a bit of an obsession, unfortunately you weren't allowed to take photographs inside the house but you can see some of his work from when I visited the William Morris Museum in London here.

It was a lovely sunny day so we wandered around the gardens and I got some photos of the autumn leaves - such lovely colours!

We had a timed entrance so had a look around the gift shop before we went in, you could buy almost anything in some kind of Morris print.

My mum bought me an early birthday present, a venetian glass dip pen and ink set which is absolutely beautiful! 

It holds the ink in the ridges in the glass and it flows really nicely, I haven't used ink in ages so I did a few doodles.

Tigerprint Gifted Competition 2013

Hey everyone! so I have been very busy recently working lots and spending time down in Plymouth for graduation so haven't been posting as much... sorry! Getting settled in now back home though so I will have more to show over the next few weeks.

For the past few years Tigerprint (who make greetings cards and gift wrap for M&S) have run a design competition for new graduates called "Gifted".

This year it ran over a whole month, each day had a new theme and you had to make a square design based on that theme. You could enter as many as you wanted but obviously the more variety you could show the more likely you were to win the prize which was a 3 month placement creating a range for Marks & Spencer.

I managed to create 13 designs and was selected as one of the commended winners (yay!) - you should check out the rest of this lot they have some lovely work :)

Anyhow, it seems like forever ago I did all of this work as it was back in July and I had to keep it secret until the end of the competition!

"Alphabet"

"Express Yourself"

"Back To Nature"

"Typographic"

"In Bloom"

"Freestyle"

"All About Colour"

"Make Your Mark"

"Spot"

"Summer"

I am hoping to release some of this work as prints and put some patterns on products soon. This may take a while as I am saving up to move out currently and working a lot but doing well in this comp is definitely motivating me to keep making stuff :)

Bucket List - The art of getting started

I recently started following a blog by Lee Crutchley of Quoteskine which is entitled "The Art Of Getting Started". This blog sets ongoing assignments to get people to go out and do things, to think about things in a different way. The first 3 are as follows:

#001 - Write your bucket list 

#002 - Go for a walk and document it in some way

#003 - Take a "selfie" that doesn't show your face

You can then submit what you did/made to the blog, anonymously or otherwise. This is a great thing to do if you are stuck in a bit of a rut and need some motivation. I used it as an excuse to make myself use illustrator a little more, using it to colour the text on my bucket list :

I should probably stick this on a wall or something so I don't get lost and forget to keep working! The second I took a series of photographs of a bike ride I went on (same idea as a walk...) 

And for the "selfie" I took a picture of my current desk setup, as right now art seems to be all I am doing!

New work - Type experiments

Whilst I am at home and still job searching I have been trying to work on my portfolio, specifically working on my hand rendered type. 

After speaking to an agent at the end of third year I was told if I was going to use it I should really push it. She also told me to try a less digital approach so my work still looked slightly hand made which is why a lot of my recent work uses more pencil and crayon line. I remember being pretty annoyed when she first said that but i think it has added more depth to my work having more textured lines and backgrounds.

These two I made for the Tigerprint "gifted" competition but the balloon one ended up being quite dark and the photographic one didn't show my illustration skills as much as I would have liked so I submitted different images (which I still have to keep secret and it's driving me crazy - want them to publish the results!)

These two I made yesterday after seeing a project to describe yourself in your favourite type I got inspired and I am hoping to do a few more fun experiments over the next weel or so. 

Handmade Arcade Take 2

So despite having a very important deadline on Tuesday I have been sneakily working away at making things to sell online and at craft fairs! I wanted to go to Handmade Arcade again because firstly - its always nice to chat with Nathan and Hayley and the other crafty people, and secondly, I figured this time it would be warmer and more people would be around than before christmas when it was freeezing!

I got a lift with some of the second years Ben, Miles and Bevin, who decided to get their faces painted in exchange for artwork :)

They had a lot of prints, cards and tshirts for sale and made this awesome collaborative drawing over the course of the day!

There were lots of beautiful crafty things for sale and we had some amazing vegan cakes (thanks Hayley)

My stall was in front of the Good Golly Miss Molly shop, I am in love with this place, they sell a huge range of handmade jewellery and accessories and hand printed cards and notebooks! If only I was rich...

Crown and Glory hair bows were teasing me through the window all day! 

Here is me all set up and some of the things I had offer, had an awesome day chilling out and chatting to crafty people, and managed to make a little bit of money too :) . If you are in the Exeter area I recommend heading down to Mccoys arcade and Fore Street, there are so many unique shops to explore.