Autumn Clutter City and Winter craft market preparations.

On September 28th, I took part in the Autumn edition of Clutter City, a local craft market held at Norwich Arts Centre. It was a fab day, and I met some lovely people, Including the super-talented Kellee Rich, and Deerly Beloved Bakery, with their tasty cakes. 

I took along a fair bit of new stock: a good few of my new little notebooks, - Mushrooms designs and Norwich themed ones - as well as a new, improved stand setup.

For a couple of weeks beforehand, I'd been preparing some screenprints of my Norwich Illustrated map down at the Stew gallery and print rooms. It's the first time in about 7 years I've done any proper  screen printing. I had a brilliant time, and learned a lot. I'm definitely going to go back and do some more work down at Stew. It's a brilliant resource for local artists and printmakers.

I've also been accepted for several local craft markets in the run up to christmas. 

• Sat 26th Oct - Pottergate Crafts - Rackheath Holy Trinity 

• Sun 17th Nov - Pottergate Crafts - Costessey Centre

• Sat 23th Nov - Thorpe Christmas Fair

• Fri 6th Dec - Castle craft fair

• Sat 7th Dec - Norwich Makers 

• Sun 15th Dec - Pottergate Crafts - Costessey Centre

The Courtyard garden centre cafe is also stocking a selection of my earrings too. 

I'm currently working on some new stock, and should have some new screenprints, cards, notebooks and earrings for sale soon.

Autumn Clutter City

The past couple of weeks, I've been getting ready for the Autumn Clutter City at Norwich Arts Centre. 

It should be a good day, with live music, and lots of stalls selling arts, crafts and lots of handmade goodies. There's always some pretty fab cakes there too. Yum. 

I've been expanding my stall a bit too, there will be lots of affordably priced illustrated earrings, notebooks, bunting and more.

Pop down and say hello! 

'Yesterday's World' Map - Behind the scenes.

Earlier this year, I was approached by the lovely chaps at Creative Sign Co. to produce a visitor map of 'Yesterday's World' - an attraction/museum based in the sunny seaside town of Gt Yarmouth. It's a fab collection, showcasing old packaging, tradesman's tools and lots of other weird and wonderful objects. They have a great display of old cameras and even an apothecary too.

Now the project is all finished, I thought it would be nice to share some of the process here.

After a couple of site visits, conversations and hundreds of reference photos, I got to work sketching out a plan of the building, the rooms and areas both upstairs and down, onto squared paper.

Once both floors were planned out, with everything lining up, I transferred the drawing onto isometric paper, where I started working upwards, plotting in the walls and walkways and making sure the map was clear and easy to read. 

I altered the plan on both floors to accommodate the 3D nature of the map, ensuring all areas could still be seen. Once the detail was all roughed in, I scanned it and dropped the drawing into a rough indesign layout and sent it off for approval.

After a couple of inevitable tweaks, I was able to start inking up the final drawing. Using the lightbox I traced over the rough in ink, with crisp lines, adding in more detail as I went. Once inked the drawing was ready to be scanned again, imported into photoshop and coloured up digitally.

For the colouring, I used solid colour layers with vector masks for each of the large areas - the floor, walls etc. This makes the colours far easier to alter once it's all coloured up. When the base colours are all down, I started painting in the detail, shading etc and when finally happy with it, I dropped it into the indesign layout again, and sent it off to the client for approval.

Once approved, I made the file 'print ready' and sent it off to the client.

It's brilliant seeing the illustrations you've worked on in their final environment, in this case, printed as 2x massive panels, to be placed both inside and outside of the attraction, as well as on a printed map and as a downloadable file from their website. This was one of my favourite jobs so far and I had a lot of fun and learned a lot whilst doing it.

The final project can be seen over in my Behance portfolio HERE

Freelance - A Year In

Just over a year ago, I finally took the plunge and ventured out into the big, scary world of the freelancer. 

My first batch of new business cards

Despite it being something I'd been considering for a while, the security of having a full time job kept me from taking that initial leap. In spring 2012 however, the recession finally took it's toll and I was made redundant from the little company I'd been working at. This was the push that I'd been waiting for. Rather than rush out to the job centre, I set about preparing myself for a life of freelancing. This was a fantastic opportunity and I was determined to make the most of it. Like they say, when one door closes, another opens. 

Luckily, I'd been taking on the odd freelance project in my spare time to satisfy the urge to do my own thing. So already had a taste of what to expect. 

Map - work in progress

Although I had a couple of clients already set up, one of my major fears now was that they would stop giving me work for whatever reason. I was a tad worried about keeping all my eggs in the same basket. So I set about planning how to get some more. It started off gradually, but as the year has progressed, I've been gaining more clients. Mostly my enquiries have come through social media, chance meetings, and on the back of personal projects that I've undertaken. I feel pretty lucky that I'm yet to implement my plan... though it's there, waiting, for when I need it. 

Lily the studio bird

Working from home was something that I've had to get used to. I already had my studio set up in the spare room, so taking on a rented studio space seemed like an unnecessary cost. Although It would be nice to have a space where I could see and talk to other people, working from home has it's benefits. You can drink as much tea as humanly possible, wear what you want, and listen to whatever music you feel like. Which is nice. I also got myself a little assistant too, a small parrot, (green cheek conure) who is a welcome distraction when things get a tad stressful. 

Another thing that I've had to get used to is the lack of routine. There's no-one to be annoyed if you're late into work, and no-one to tell you to go home at the end of the day. It's something I've admittedly struggled with to a certain extent, but am hoping I'm finally getting on top of. I'm still working longer hours than before, getting up earlier, and working later too. I still have to learn to put work down.

Learning crochet

My skill set has grown with every new project, in order to accomplish the wide variety of projects being sent my way. I've learned a lot more about photography, 3D illustration and much more about working in Adobe Illustrator. I've also picked up a lot of new crafting techniques, crochet, needle felting and embroidery, as well as doing a bit of woodworking too for various books I've worked on. A fair few of these are now things I now want to carry on with in my spare time.  

I've really enjoyed the journey so far, I've done some work I'm dead proud of and projects that I feel incredibly lucky to have been involved in. There's been times of frustration, sleepless nights and stress, but they're by far outweighed by the good. The best thing is that I'm now responsible for the work that I do, and that means doing every job to the best of my ability. 

I'm incredibly grateful for the people who have given me a break, involved me in their fantastic projects, commissioned maps, illustrations and who have given me the chance to be my own boss. 

Clutter city!

I'm dead excited about being included in the spring Clutter City Market this year at Norwich Arts centre. There's going to be lots of local artists and craftspeople selling their handmade goodies! 

If you're about in Norwich on Sat 20th, then pop in and say Hello!

It's been a while!..

Well, It's really been far too long since I posted in here. So, quick roundup. After a busy end to 2012, working on a craft book, we had a nice, chilled out Christmas. Then January came around, and I got thrown into lots of exciting projects. Maps, Activity books and layout projects, never-ending snow, weddings and a holiday have come and gone since, and i've finally got a little time to post here.

I've also been gearing up to have a bash at some craft fairs this year. It's something i've been wanting to do for a while now. There have been a couple of Pop up shops in the Jubilee pub I've used as trial runs, which went pretty well.

Despite being fairly busy with projects lined up, I've got lots of Ideas for self-initiated projects that I can't wait to start. I think 2013 is going to be a good year.

November Roundup

A little November update, and a little peek at some of the stuff i've been up to in November (and some of October... I've been a bit slack at keeping track!)

Patchwork Cushion

Ok, so, I did this cushion a little while ago, and it was up on etsy for a little while. Then, one night I realised how sad I'd be if it was sold, so I whipped it off the internet, and it now has pride of place in my living room.

Front

I used a mix of new and charity shop fabrics, and for a first attempt at patchwork, i'm really pleased with the result. I think there shall be more to follow!

Back

The fabric for the back came from a charity shop, I think it might have been an ikea bedspread in its first incarnation.

My photography has improved since I took these photos! I love these fabrics though! I can see me making many more patchwork cushions in the future, and maybe even letting some go to new homes...

Illustration Friday - 'Secret'

Illustration Friday - 'Secret'

I've been meaning to do Illustration Friday for quite a while now, and have finally got round to it. Hopefully I can keep it up!

This week's word was 'Secret'

I played on the definition: 'something that is or is kept secret, hidden, or concealed' 

It's a bit of a quick black and white silhouette experiment in Illustrator, I may continue playing with the image, using this as a starting point. 

Exciting times....

I'm having a bit of a rebrand, new logo, new website, new work online...

New beginnings really... i'm on the brink of going freelance, and am really looking forward to it. I've been  testing the water a little lately, and have really enjoyed the work I've been getting, so it's now time to bite the bullet, jump in the deep end and go for it!

My new logo is a little bit of a re-styling of a doodle I did a while ago. It features an owl. Although I think the owl is slightly over-used at the moment; for me he symbolises knowledge and learning and seeing as I  want to continue to work doing information based design (amongst other things), either for publishers, or museums, the owl is a symbol of wisdom. I also stay up too late, and have a soft spot for birds.

Here he is:

He's sitting on a pencil too, I use a lot of pencils while sketching out ideas, so it seemed like the obvious replacement for a branch.

He occasionally appears in orange as well:

I'd love to hear any thoughts on him!

So... this is it...

I have finally entered the world of blogging, inspired by so many interesting blogs. I thought it would be a great idea to make my own, share with people my inspiration, illustrations and showcase my work.

I'll share links about art, design, craft, and growing my own... amongst sneak previews into what i've been up to, and the work i've been producing.