France lining my cupboards!

Yesterday was spent cutting up an old  road atlas of France.  The purpose of this was to line my new glasses cupboard in my kitchen.

I love the look of maps and I justified cutting up the atlas because,

1-  Its dated 1993.

2 - We don't own a car anymore.

3 - We certainly won't be doing a walking tour of France in the near future!

I cut out the shapes and stuck it all down with a light spray of display mount.

I was so pleased with the result that I moved onto my dresser and that was mapped too!

Et voila!

The Magnificent Olympic Park

Creatively wise not much to show.  My desk space is just a mass of rough pencil sketches which hopefully will develop into something worth showing and printing soon.

The Aquatic Centre

After the truly wonderful Olympic opening ceremony on Friday (what a visual delight!), Mr B, my girlies and me went to visit the Olympic Park the next day.  We were so lucky with the weather, not a drop of rain.  We were greeted with constant smiles from the many volunteers, soldiers who are working at the park.  The park itself is magnificent. The first building you pass is the Aquatic centre, I love this building. A beautiful design by Zaha Hadid, designed before London had even secured the Olympic bid back in 2004.

The Stadium

The Velodrome

The Velodrome with its sweeping roof is dramatic.  But the most beautiful thing about the park is the meadows of beautiful flowers scattered everywhere. Mr.B and myself remember the area pre-olympic bid and its hard to work out where certain places were before.

We spent the whole day at the park from 10am till 9pm.  We managed to get tickets to see the ladies basketball a sport that I know nothing about but still the atmosphere of being in a stadium is electric and you cannot help but be drawn in.

A colourful walkway.

A wonderful day and I have to say I feel, like many others very proud of London 2012 but to be honest I wouldn't expect anything less from such a great city!

Recycled doors of old London telephone boxes

Nanna Poole's 100th

Well another long gap between posts.  How has this happened?  Busy times always at the end of the school year.  A cold/virus that knocked me back a few days.  Now the children's holidays have begun (hooray) and I have finished my child minding career.  I now look forward to a few weeks of relaxed times before September when I have to work out a way of making a sort of living from this.  I'm very excited at the prospect and am looking forward to getting more prints and cards done.

The commissions are coming in at a steady pace which has been a joy, although I do have to be more confident in not under pricing myself.  I'm getting slowly better at this, but its not easy.  I completed an illustration for my good friend Kim's Nanna.  She will be 100 in a weeks time, wow some feat!  When asking what she would like in the picture, Kim suggested a garden theme as gardening had been a love of Nannas when more able.  Instead of an straight forward illustration of a garden I decided to draw a collection of many flowers into a plant pot.  Kim has since told me that she had also been a keen flower arranger in her time so the arrangement had been a good choice.  I do hope she enjoys the picture when she gets it next week.  I really loved doing this illustration, it has to be one of the most intricate ones I have done so far yet was completed the fastest.  I think in total a days work.

A card for a friends wedding last week.

I'm hoping that now I am more settled the posts will be more frequent again.  I aim to get more work done to show. Hey, the Olympics are almost here, holiday to Corfu is booked, Bradley Wiggins is going to win the Tour de France and the sun has finally appeared, this is all good!

Its been a while

Well it has been a long time since my last blog.  What have I been doing in that time? Creativity - mainly working on my latest commission that has been a bit of a stop, start affair.  Two free days a week get quickly filled with my daughters sports day, orthodontic appointments, making three cushion covers for a friend and the usual major de-cluttering of the house which is a constant battle! Nevertheless it's almost finished.  Cinzia (the client) wanted a few of the leaves coloured olive green and the names to have a little silver on them, I will complete these little bits this week. Cinzia requested an olive tree and the sun in her picture, she is from Italy so perfectly apt. All the names of her nearest and dearest amongst the branches.  The latin words at the bottom I added, which mean family, together, forever.

I've been looking into card printing companies again.  I have found a company that seem reasonable but again I find the scanning of the images so difficult.  The colours never look right on the screen, so an on going challenge for me.  I would gladly do a course in "scanning for printing" if one existed as it completely baffles me.  I am a trained Graphic designer but was trained pre-computers - soooo out of date.  The trouble is that it takes so much time!  I would like to get the cards printed soon also business cards or even better postcards.  Time, time, time is needed!

The Shell Grotto

A weekend down in Kent was primarily a family visit for my nieces naming day.  The rain didn't fall, the sun shone, just the wind blew.  A lovely Saturday was spent at my sister in laws home celebrating little Kitty.  I completed the picture I did for her last week, which I can now show.

23 x 23 cm

On the Sunday we took the train from Whitstable to Margate.  We were interested to see the new Turner Contemporary Gallery that has recently opened.  While we wandered through the old town I spotted a sign for the Shell Grotto.  It reminded me that I had seen a piece about it on the TV programme Coast a while back.  Intrigued we walked along a back street and eventually came to Grotto Hill!  Half way up the hill we entered the shop where the grotto is located.  At the back of the shop is an archway which you enter and then go down chalk steps.  Underground you are greeted by the most magnificent sight of thousands of shells decorating the walls.  It is unclear what the grotto was made for and unclear when it was built.  But the designs are very Pagan, the link is here as the website can give a much better explaination of the grottos known history http://shellgrotto.co.uk/history/.  All I know is it was an amazing place, unlike anything I have seen in Britain before. The photos were taken with my iphone so are not the best quality but you get a feel of it.  Well worth a visit if you are in the area!

The Turner Contemporary was good too.  Tracey Emin's exhibition She Lay Down Deep Beneath The Sea was great.  I was expecting not to like it ( never got the unmade bed thing) but I did.  I had to distract the eyes of my 8 year old occasionally from quite graphic sketches but really lovely fluid work in blue gouache. The building is great too, what a boost for Margate.

Learn to walk before I can run

Eventually I would like to earn some kind of living from my artwork.  I currently work two days a week as a child minder and one day in an office. My child minding career finishes towards the end of July.  From that time onwards my funds will be less but time will be greater to devote to my creative work.  This has been the plan and goal.  Its now or never to do what I truly love as a living! At the moment it sometimes feels as if I'm not getting anywhere, just an endless rush to complete creative work in between jobs, family and household work.  I have to stop and remember that at the moment I'm doing all the ground work for this time.  Doing website, facebook, twitter promotion takes time away from the creative time but it is all necessary.  This week I have been busy doing personalized cards for friends and family. This of course has taken time away from the promotion side.  Hard to balance it.

But on the bright side another commission is in the pipeline which is great.  Also an interest from East End Prints in Shoreditch that I have to follow up.  So really its all going well, I just have to remind myself of this and learn not to run before I can walk!

To blog or not to blog?

Its been over a week since I did my last blog - not good!  This is the first time I have felt a bit funny about doing the blog, part of me thinks, what is the point, does anyone really read it and does it really serve a purpose? But you know once I start putting these words down I begin to enjoy it.  It somehow releases the jumbled stuff in my head and puts the weeks creative events in some kind of order.  I often get frustrated when I haven't put pen to paper for a while and the longer that goes on the harder I find it to sit down and create - I get kind of scared of starting a project. This has been the beauty of doing the blog since January as it does put me under a little pressure to produce something.  I think we all need a little bit of pressure in life.

I have been busy with personalized cards.  One for my lovely Mr B, it was our wedding anniversary last week.  Just a small little card but heartfelt. The other one was for my dear friend Sarah whose birthday was celebrated on Saturday.  I got a wonderful response from friends who were there when Sarah unveiled her picture - even tears came to eyes - Wow!  I stupidly didn't take a photo of the completed picture that was framed.  The picture shown is pretty much the completed version.  The finished one had a few more branches , butterflies and birds around the edges. Through this I have been commissioned to do a personalized illustration for Cinzia and her family which I'm really looking forward to starting.

So yes to blogging even though it may never get read or may not mean anything to anyone else.  The key is it helps me in my creative development!