Knightsridge Primary School

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Hannah

 

Yesterday I visited Knightsridge Primary School to speak to some of the children there about illustration. I particularly wanted to talk to them about a magazine project I’m working on. They were absolutely brilliant and gave me some excellent responses. My favourite bit of my time there was when the children did some of their own drawings of their dream tree houses. Their drawings were full of imagination and creativity.

Mrs Piper doesn’t allow rubbers in her classroom so we also talked about making mistakes and using sketchbooks as a safe place to try things out. There are some real budding artists at Knightsridge and such an appetite for drawing. I didn’t quite get to finish an inky sketch of fireworks for them so have posted one here as a thank you. I think the Knightsridge children might be the best in the world! Mrs Piper can I come back and visit soon please?

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Mill on the Fleet

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Hannah

It’s been a bit of a mammoth day today. Alongside two of my classmates, Pia and Emma, I am participating in a group exhibition at the Mill on the Fleet in Dumfries and Galloway. Today was set up day.

I’ve not been on the A74(M) before and it’s an incredible route carved out of the soaring hills of Lanarksire. We then followed the A701 into the pastoral prettiness of Dumfries and Galloway. Emma, who is Swedish, was particularly delighted by the prevalence of the Belted Galloway cattle with their distinctive black and white markings and known locally as Belties.

You can see a section of my part of the exhibition above. The Mill on the Fleet is a restored water mill in the beautiful Gatehouse of Fleet and they were brilliant hosts to us today. I often talk about the kindness of people in encouraging infants of illustration like myself. Julian, the manager, proved to be one such person. Knowing we were fairly inexperienced in hanging a show he allowed us the space to have a good go before returning after lunch to make some gentle suggestions. These were the kind of tips you only get from someone who is a veteran of the exhibiting world and they transformed our show.

So if you happen to be in the area our exhibition opens this sunday and lasts until 17th June. Other events going on over the same period at the mill are their Big Lit day and the Spring Fling art event. Go on, head on down and write something cheerful for me in the visitors’ book!

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Little Owl to the rescue

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Hannah

Yesterday the sun was shining (it’s not now!) so we headed out into the garden. Big Dreamer mowed the lawn and I made the brave choice of planting many of my seedlings out. It felt an even braver move after our next door neighbour commented, “I don’t know why you go to all that effort if you’re just going to put them out to let them die.” Oh dear.

In amongst all this Little Owl was pottering about with her mini watering can when she discovered a worm on the doorstep. She gave him a thorough watering and when that didn’t seem to help she called me over. Very carefully I picked him up and put him in her cupped hand to put back on some soil. Little Owl didn’t like the thought of him going on soil and opted for the wall instead. I tried to explain that the soil was better because if we left him on the wall the birds might eat him. Well, that was entirely the wrong thing to say. She scanned the skies in horror. In the far distance a crow was wheeling and she began to yell and stamp her feet at it in defence of the worm. In spite of my attempts to undo the trouble I’d caused Little Owl continued to monitor the airspace above the farm. Then I hit upon a new idea…the worm needed a house! Little Owl was open to this suggestion and we created a little structure out of grass and twigs. She continued to act as sentinel until it was time to go in. She only stopped then because I lifted the roof off and pointed out that the worm was long gone.

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Degree show

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Hannah

Yesterday at 4pm the doors to the illustration studio were closed and locked. No one was allowed to do anymore towards the degree show before assessment. It was a tense afternoon. I have been helping a lovely young lady called Lisa Lind whose work you can view here. As it got closer to the deadline I decided to leave them to it. It gets to the point where there’s nothing anyone else can do to help and having more people around only adds to the stress.

If you happen to be in Edinburgh between the 2nd-11th June definitely pop in and have a nosey at the degree show. I’d particularly recommend making a bee-line for the Masters illustration space, where some especially exciting work was unfolding on Friday.

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Change

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Hannah

 

 

 

 

 

Here are two sketchbook pages I thought you might find interesting. The watercolour one is from 2003 and the ink one is from yesterday. This scene of the Topsham hulks down in Devon near where I grew up is one I love. I draw it over and over again because drawing is how I understand the world and there is something curious and mysterious to me about this spot. I’m sure you all have places that somehow just delight your imagination. Anyway, the main reason I put it up is to show the different way I’m working now. I don’t really know how I feel about the two images. I think the watercolour conveys the mysteriousness of the landscape much better but I have to be truthful and say I can barely look at a watercolour palette these days without coming out in a rash. I think I over did it but who knows, I may come back to it.

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New Stock

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Hannah

As promised here are the items I’ve adapted from my final project for this year. This box set of greetings cards features ash, oak, lime, beech, cherry, sycamore, willow, london plane and horse chestnut trees set against the white page and accompanied by hand letterpressed wood block titles. Blank inside for your own message and packaged with nine white envelopes. They are for sale from my online shop as we speak. There are also giclee prints of each of the images for sale too. Gone on…have a look!

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Picture Hooks conference

Posted on May 5, 2012 by Hannah

Today I have been at the Picture Hooks conference here in Edinburgh all about the world of children’s book publishing. We’ve heard from illustrators, writers, publishers and agents. It’s been a lot to take in but invaluable. The highlight for me was the talk given by illustrator Ross Collins. I could have quite happily listened to him all day. He’s a really entertaining speaker and it was fascinating seeing some of the rough work behind his illustrations.

One thing (amongst many) that I find perplexing about children’s book publishing is the expectation that you will dedicate everything to the cause when they tell numerous stories about some of the deluded manuscripts they receive. How do I know if I’m one of the deluded ones or not? We were told today that it took Julia Donaldson 15 years to break through and she’s considered one of the best. If I go for children’s illustration (and deep down that is really want I want to do) how do I know when to say, actually I’m not good enough?

My incredible tutor Jonny Gibbs came up with the best answer by his example rather than his words. I intend to be an artist for a life time and that will involve many twists and turns. There is no ‘making it’ for an artist, just the compulsion to pursue my craft with a strange mixture of play and tenacity.

Very profound eh?! On an aside I saw one solitary swallow. Wouldn’t it be great if someone in Africa could report to us when the swallows leave, then at least we’d know they were on their way?

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Warm stove

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Hannah

Today was the submission day for my final project for the year and it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be. I produced a babies book and a magazine. I hope to build on these two items in my final year so I’m not giving away too much now! This is one of the illustrations from it and you will be seeing this same image on a new product coming to my shop soon.

I have just waved goodbye to Little Owl and Big Dreamer who are heading down to Yorkshire to see friends and family. It’s very odd seeing them off as we’re not often apart. I’m not going because I have another big submission on Wednesday and tomorrow I am going to an exciting conference called PictureHooks all about children’s books. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow! So for now I’m going to settle down in front of the stove (yes, I know it’s supposed to be May but will someone tell the weather) and watch a good film.

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Evidence!

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Hannah

Evidence…real hard evidence of the heartlessness of the rabbits that live on our farm. They weren’t even interested in the flowers. They just wanted the juicy stems and leaves. I’m disgusted by their depravity. There is so much grass to eat! Big Dreamer is in a rage because they’ve also had a go at his raspberry canes. He’s got his air rifle out again. He likes to think he’ll hit one and we can have stew. There’s no risk of that but at least his wild firing should frighten them off. To be honest he’s more likely to injure himself as a pellet ricochets off the shed! Nigel the cattleman has offered to take Big Dreamer out for target practice. I don’t think he’s realised the job he’s taken on.

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Bread

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Hannah

Here is my contribution to a fun evening with friends this week involving LOTS of food. Little Owl got to stay up, which she thought was marvellous. The Moroccan (sorry, spelt wrongly above) sesame bread follows a normal bread recipe but has sesame seeds in it. All the others are flat breads. Our local Tesco has started doing chapati flour (also spelt wrongly!) so I’ve been experimenting. Flat breads are essentially flour, water and salt. The key seems to be to leave the dough for about half an hour to get that lovely pliable quality. My attempts to rush it ended up with little stiff boards. The potato bread involves mixing some mashed potato, chilli, mint and paprika into the dough. Little Owl loved these so I’ll definitely have to do them again. The key with the naan seems to be to have a very wet dough. I pan cooked one side then put them under the grill to do the other side. The kilonji seeds that went on top of the naan were a slightly more exotic ingredient but I found them easily in an asian supermarket in Edinburgh. Can you tell I’ve been procrastinating?!

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