Thursday 30 June 2011

softies pattern




Voila!
Have scanned in the images, coloured them up in photoshop and done a rough repeat pattern....will have to get a tutorial of my Santa Fe guru who is also the best textile designer in the world on how to make a pattern look like its meant to be a textile design!...maybe it needs some polka dots to fill in the gaps....?

Wednesday 29 June 2011

doodle drawings



I have been burning the midnight oil and drawing up some of my softie characters as I thought it would make a nice wrapping paper/textile design.....and I have just been given a brand new scanner at work and it seemed a shame to waste it on the day job! I hope my boss is nt reading this! I think they need to be treated with some photoshop to inject some colour...will post soon!

Saturday 25 June 2011

more softies





More portraits, this time the latest batch of softies that I have been making...working out the patterns for the little animals is a long process and probably much easier to just buy the patterns but I quite enjoy the challenge of working out where to put the darts!

Friday 24 June 2011





Feeling in the need of some inspiration and not feeling the need to sit at my desk at work I escped to the amazing National Portrait Gallery to see the BP portrait awards......"The annual BP Portrait Award is the most prestigious portrait competition in the world, promoting the very best in contemporary portrait painting. Over the past thirty-two years the Award has proved the launch pad for the careers of many successful portrait artists."
It was wonderful and inspiring......I want to paint portraits now!
Above are my 2 favorites from the exhibition as well as the (top image) winning portrait by Wim Heldens "Distracted"...

Sunday 19 June 2011

my dad


Happy Fathers Day to my dear dad....he is without doubt the best one in the world and if you're reading this dad I will see you and mum on wednesday with a chocolate cake! xxxx

Friday 17 June 2011

little faces


Working hard on the day job so not much to post in the way of real creativity or inspiration...still, I was pleased with my little boy and girl characters that I wanted to look very slightly retro, and still be able to be screen printed at the factory...

Tuesday 14 June 2011

courting frogs




Just look at the lovely quality of this very old childrens book 'A frog he would a wooing go' that I found at Spitalfields market on friday. The pages are actual linen and the dot screen of this early printing looks amazing...reminds me of those magical watercolour colouring pages where you just had to add water to bring the colours to life.

Monday 13 June 2011

Judith Kerr






Friday was an inspiration day and so as the toy museum at Bethnal Green is one of my favorites I took the camera up there for research....There was the most wonderful exhibition of the artwork of Judith Kerr who wrote 'When Hitler stole pink rabbit' and 'When the tiger came to tea'....There was a huge No Photography sign up but could nt resist as her paintings were so much more beautiful than than the printed versions, and while my hurried amateur snaps dont do her artwork justice, I had to share them with you all!

Monday 6 June 2011

a new little mouse





Anew mouse in fluffy pink slippers and my rather strange little red riding hood characters....wanted to see whether I could photograph them all against some patterned backgrounds and give them some kind of personality with some blurring....I might leave the photography to the experts!
Shall I call the mouse Nibs or Jacques?