Human Rights Illustrations

Time for a complete change of style and subject for me as I've been immersed in illustrating some human rights poems that will be part of an exhibition opening on World Human Rights day (10/12/11) at the Centre for Life, Bioscience's Reception (preview 18:30-20:30 so get yourself down if you're local).

Here are fruits of my labour, all images are hand drawn with scanned crumpled pages from the Human Rights Act also featuring. The poems were written by a very talented local lady called Alison Carr.

The second image features a guy who was on the metro this morning and seemed to not move an inch for half an hour (fantastic for covert sketching). Though now I wish I'd told him and invited him to the preview as it seems a shame he doesn't know. I'll look out for him tomorrow but if you were on the Sunderland-Newcastle Airport train at 8:30-9ish this morning and it looks like you - it could be you!

You win some you lose some

Hi, sorry I've been a bit tardy with my blogging, I thought adding in my last post that I'd be back on the Friday would ensure I was - clearly not!

But my time hasn't been wasting and I have some lovely new cards in my Etsy shop. Not that it was all plain sailing as not all my designs or colour combinations worked but its just a simple reminder of the obvious make sure the ink is a brighter and darker colour than the card (duh).

Heres my furry fairy who didn't quite come out as I'd have liked...

I don't think she looks very furry, a bit spikey maybe, so its back to the drawing board with her.

I found its better use bright colours as my earlier Pining for Yew seems quite heavy and not very Christmassy when you compare it with these...

The blue is a bit faint there as it was the last of the ink but I quite like the broken effect, it came out qute shabby chic (to me anyway).

And here are some that came out all lovely like :)

So if you wanna spread a bit of Peas on Earth of if you'll be Pining for someone this Christmas these could be the perfect cards for Yew (couldn't resist).

Pining for Yew

I may have many plastered fingers and an incredibly stiff neck & shoulders but here it is- my first Christmas card, welcome to the world!

I've printed up the first of three design's (which was plenty for one day) and will be tackling the next on Thursday.

Points to note:

• Small lino cut letters are a flippin pain to cut out.
• Hand guards were invented for a reason - buy one!!
• Fight the urge to cut towards your hand (unless you have said hand guard)
• Don't be stingy with the ink.
• Art shop vinyl much easier to work with than the floor variety!

My first few didn't turn out cause I was worried about overloading the vinyl with ink and clogging it but I needn't have worried & ended up wasting 4 cards.

With regards to the vinyl the shop bought stuff is much better, much softer and more flexible (though that flexibility make's getting the larger & teeny tiny areas off more tricky).

So here it is, see what you think :)

These will be available on my etsy shop with the others to follow by the end of the week. A lovely hand printed card to send to the loved one who you are apart from this Christmas.

Ooh I've been featured

One of my designs has been featured in this fantastic blog for creative mothers, have a look and see what you think :)

Why You Need A Mentor & How to Find One by Meagan Visser

& speaking of creative mothers happy birthday to the extremely talented one that just happens to be mine xx

Its all in the name

Slight change of direction today, printmaking is on hold (until lino arrives) so have been having fun with hand lettering.

Have been working on some name signs for the little men in my life and each is made up of their favourite things.

So here we have something for the Star Wars, Snake, Superhero & Dinosaur lover's back home which I'm hoping they'll all like. These are loads of fun to do & I recon can be done for just about any interest (she says).

You can contact me through my Etsy shop if you'd like to order something customised for the little someone in your life :)

Printing 1 - 0 Katy

Ah it didn't work it didn't work! BUT on the plus side no ink disasters, decided that a large box lid and upside down rug would provide sufficient downstairs protection and as far as I can see there are no pink handprints about.

I have to say though for those of you considering using left over floor lino - don't. It was fairly hard and rigid but due to the lovely fake wood effect added a texture that didn't really work in this instance.

Saying that though I could see it working with other designs, maybe an under water something so all is not lost. But you know what this means, time to bite the bullet and pay for some 'proper' lino (so cheap ha ha).

All I want for Christmas is...a desk (& maybe some drawers!)

FINALLY I have some time and some ink so today is the day, the day I finally print my lino cuts!

Just one decision to make - where. As you can see from my picture my art room is a little low on furniture and worryingly high on cream carpet, where as no such carpeting worries exist downstairs but lovely furniture does.

To explain I've recently moved into my house and a nice big desk & storage is somewhat down the list of essential furniture items.

Aah decisions decisions, lets hope I make the right one ;)

Blogging Equivalent of Bambi Legs

Hello Virtual World!

This is my first tentative step into the world of online blogging so bare with me as its probably going to take a little while for the habit to kick in.

I intend to you this space to share experiments and inspiration and general news so we'll see how it goes. The plan for the next couple of weeks is to play around with some lino cuts so I shall be back with some lovely prints in the not too distant future.