Shrinkles

I bought some Shrinkle plastic a while back, you know the plastic sheets which you draw upon, place in the oven it shrinks to half the size et voila you have a a shrinkle! I used to love it when I was a kid and I still do! I finally got round to trying it out and was very pleased with the results. One problem I bought the clear version which is good for hanging up say by a window but if you want to make a brooch for example the drawing kind of disappears against the background, so I thinks I'm gonna get the white version and a whole punch and start making some jewellery.

The idea's for the illustrations actually came from Top of the Pops 2, which I was watching whilst off sick from work, there was this amazing singer called Noosha Fox. I actually want to do my hair and make up like her now, oddly enough I think she's the spitting image of Alison Goldfrapp, dress sense and look, weird huh or maybe not so weird I wouldn't be surprised if Alison knew about Noosha too.

My little Gamma Ray

I am totally addicted to Becks new single Gamma Ray, I think I have listened to it about 30 times on repeat already :-) The video is amazing too, it features Chloe Sevigny dancing in a fringe dress and the most amazing illustrated tatoos and clown make up amongst a psychedelic backdrop of cutesy illustrations, I'm inspired. I've already spent the morning looking for a fringe dress on etsy, I think I've found one too, yay. I'll be dancing away to my little gamma ray in a little fringe dress very soon

Dover Books- Classic childrens illustration

I just love Dover books as many designers and illustrator's do. They are an endless source of inspiration, I usually look upon them for ideas as opposed to directly using the imagery although I do love to incorporate the beautiful florishes of times gone by into my work.

Every week I recieve a sampler from dover which contains a few free images, often some hidden jems that you wouldn't normally think to use or that would be copyright free. This week one of the books included was 'Classic Children's Book Illustrations Clip Art' which includes pictures from Alice in Wonderland and Beatrix Potter. How gorgeous they are I am very tempted to purchase this book!

Flickr Favourites

1. Räv, 2. fifi wears karen walker, 3. Dog & Pony Show, 4. Ring Of Notes, 5. no-fly-zone, 6. wearing_shoes, 7. lineas12, 8. secrets, 9. Sisters or Sometimes a Momma Kitty- pinkytoast 2

Illustration Friday - Sail

I like Brown paper and Posca pens

Tim Walker – Pictures

I finally got round to visiting the Tim Walker - Pictures exhibition at the Design Museum featuring over 100 of his photo's. I loved it, so inspiring, so magical, I especially loved the intro monologue to the exhibition. This was displayed as a letter from him, describing how he loved to visit a fancy dress shop in Hammersmith near where he lived when he was a boy. He describes the shop as being owned by Turkish sisters and having rail upon rail of fantastical costumes that enter you into a dream world. Suddenly it all makes sense! Often I find artists inspiration and sketch books and so on just as interesting if not more than the final product. This exhibition really gives you an insight into the world of Tim Walker. The cabinets of his sketch books were my favourite:

The exhibition also featured some of the giant props he uses and a video featuring a photo shoot with the ethereal Karen Elson. How I would love to spend a day on one of his shoots, the whole operation just looks amazing, so many beautiful clothes, props, sets, it's almost incomprehensible, I would love someone to make a documentary on him.

And finally the Photo's, wanted to buy a print but the pics they had were my least favourite boo hoo... none the less I left feeling very inspired and as if I was leaving magical world full of toy's, giants, clowns and princesses!

Cancer sell charity event

Recently I attended the Cancer Sell charity event in Old St. It was a colleague at work who was helping out with the event who invited us. The event consisted of a bunch of street artists donating they're work for sale and auction with all the proceeds going to charity. Some of the artists included were Banksy and Copyright.

There was some really good work to buy prices from £20 up, which I thought was very bargainous! We bagged two paintings of mexican sugar skulls, I thought they were by the same artist but not so (maybe sugar skulls are the next big thing), the one with the baby blue background is by Please Flush' and the other by OGSF Familia.

Overall it was a great night and they made a load of money for charity. Here are some more pic's:

The next day I was feeling inspired and actually decided to do some painting myself. I decided to do a painting as a wedding gift for my friends Lloyd and Bengu. We went to Cas art and bought loads of art supplies including Posca pens which I now adore, so much easier than painting lines! Here's the result (Bengu's gonna hate me for putting this pic up but it's the only one I got before I gave it away, I'm in the middle).

Poster spotting

In my previous post I mentioned the poster I did for climate camp. I've now managed to spot a few out and about and the lovely Amelia from Amelia's magazine also sent me some pics of the ones she's been putting up. I would love to here if anyone else spots them, here are the ones I spotted....

ps. love how there always near rubbish bins hehe

Climate Camp Posters

I've been very busy lately, one of the things I have been working on are posters and flyers for Climate Camp ,which is on the 3rd - 11th August if you fancy popping down. The commission was to illustrate a positive future vs negative future. It was quite time consuming but I already some bits for the illustration as I had based the poster on my illustration of a positive future which is to come out in this months copy of Amelia's magazine ( I will post this later as I need to take some pic's). It's for a good cause so go and investigate the site if you have a chance and perhaps you'll see my posters up around London some time soon.