A last hurrah!

With the end of term, Monday heralds my return to my other job…being full-time mum to Little Owl. So for a last hurrah I headed to the Robert Burns museum in Alloway, near Ayr. I’ve wanted to go for ages because the illustrator Inkymole was responsible for much of the exhibition imagery. Check her out here: www.inkymole.com. When you see her work you’ll probably glean that she’s had quite an influence on me. She also seems to be a top person…which always helps.

We had some minor detours. You really notice the beautiful countryside along the A719 when you drive it four times and the purple dotted lines on maps are county boundaries not roads (please note, I wasn’t doing the map reading). Undeterred, this just added to my anticipation. The whole place had been carefully and simply designed with wonderful hand lettering of Burns’ poetry everywhere. Here are some photos from the main museum building. Unfortunately I have no pics of Inkymole’s work as we weren’t allowed to take photos in the museum because of the fragility of some of the exhibits. This also meant the main portion of the museum was very dark so you missed out on the full glory of inkymole’s talent but still, a highly recommended trip.

Posted in Illustration | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A gate made of twigs

I spent this morning in the garden trying to remedy some of the damage from the stormy weather that has just passed over Scotland. Our electricity went off on Monday evening but only for a few hours. I was most concerned about my beautiful chest freezer defrosting. I had visions of us eating and giving away all my precious frozen hoardings. Over the snowy winter I developed a ‘special’ relationship with that freezer. At least the potatoes seemed to enjoy the weather and they are getting on very well. Unfortunately the slugs seem to have thrived too. I’ll have to devote a whole post to all the pests in the garden. I have a ‘special’ relationship with them too!

On a slightly different note but still on gardens I have decided to do a series of illustrations based on Japanese Haikus. Big Dreamer’s mum bought him a beautiful little book of Haikus from the incomparable Barter Books and I have been enjoying browsing through them. I am inspired by how they can communicate with such elegant and concise clarity. They are like individual perfect raindrops held in a moment. So pared down yet so effective they make me catch my breath. It is something I would love to achieve in my illustrations. One day…one day! For now, let me know what you think.

Posted in Illustration | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Wet camping

We’ve just come back from a great weekend camping near Kielder Water with a group of our Yorkshire friends. We stayed on a working farm and I was proud to recognise a Scotch Mule in one of the sheep pens (my sheep guide does work then!). We could hear curlews in the evening.

We had a walk round Kielder Water and stumbled on a golden fairytale wooden structure on the lakeside constructed from slices of carved wood and stood on metal rods. It is the work of Studio Weave, an architecture company who produce playful structures based on story in landscape. It had a twin shelter on the other side of the lake drawn from a story about two characters called Freya and Robin. We all loved it. Check it out here: www.studioweave.com/projects/freya-and-robin-kielder-art-and-architecture/.

Needless to say the squally weather caught up with us on Sunday morning, hence putting the tents away was a pretty damp experience. It feels like April and May have got themselves muddled up this year. We returned home to radio reports of cancelled ferries to the Scottish islands and weather warnings for the Forth Bridge. Although, it was lovely after a hot bath to snuggle down beside the stove in our little house. Damp tents, clothes, shoes, and humans gently steaming!

Posted in Family and friends | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

A long-promised quilt

Yesterday the weather forecaster predicted Scotland would be “clear and fresh”. Big Dreamer gave me a wry smile, “Read that as cold and windy”. We’re getting to know Scottish weather now. And indeed, when I got home with a poorly Little Owl I was soaked to the skin and it was blowing a gale.

Although, the cooler weather did inspire me to finally finish a quilt I had promised as a wedding gift last October. It may take me a while but the intentions behind my handmade presents are honourable. In my own homespun way I love investing time and energy into dreaming up and constructing an object I hope will be loved and treasured by people I care for.

Amy and Simon, here’s wishing you a toasty bed for your marriage ahead!

Posted in Family and friends | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Talented college friends

The weather has turned cold again up here. Our seedlings will have to wait a little longer to go out in the garden. The weather has reminded me of starting my course last September. I was excited about studying but had decided to be realistic about making friends…why would all these cool young things want to be friends with a woman covered in a child’s sticky fingerprints, who looked like she’d put her make-up on in the dark (probably had) and had such a mummy-brain she frequently forgot her own name?! I couldn’t have been more wrong and have met some fabulous folks. You can visit our class blog here: www.neverbeanzine.tumblr.com. The drawing I’ve put up here was my contribution to a class zine which we put together in honour of our tutor, Jim McBride. I drew him cycling to work. Hope you like it.

Posted in Illustration | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Talented college friends

AMAZING presents!

I’ve had some pretty amazing presents in my time. Six boxes of different coloured threads and a Paul Klee print are two of the highlights. Bopa and Uncle Birdie came to stay on Friday night and brought with them a pretty AMAZING present! Here it is…four wonderful old bottles of ink. The bottles themselves are enough to cause me paralysis by ecstasy but all that beautiful, swishing, swirling ink actually made me salivate.

The coda to that story is that it was nearly all lost to Little Owl’s helpfulness. I’m sure small children have a warp drive sometimes. Lost in admiration of the green ink I turned to Little Owl’s shout of “Mummy” to see her manhandling the magenta ink towards me! If it had ended in crashing horror do you think she would have been magenta all her life?

Posted in Family and friends | Tagged , , | Comments Off on AMAZING presents!

4th year madness

This week I have been paired with a 4th year illustration student to help her prepare for her submission tomorrow. My partner is a fab young lady named Bella McVennon. You can see her work here: www.claribelmcvennon.wordpress.com/about/. Her work has a beautiful, gentle strength. I’m eyeing up her T-shirt designs! It has been great for me to be involved in seeing how to put together a final submission and exhibition. Another one of the 4th year students who I really rate is Jojo Norris. You can see her work here: www.jojonorris.com. Her website is delicious!

This week I have also been occupied with producing a manual for a lathe made out of Singer sewing machines. This is the brain wave of another 4th year at college: my very good friend Reuben Ewan. He has built this very lathe to produce toothbrushes…obvious really! The manual is based on the original Instructions Booklet for one of the Singer machines used in the lathe. Here is one of the pages.

So, submission for the 4th years tomorrow at 4pm. Come on 4th years – you can do it!

Posted in Illustration | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

A pair of partridges

There have been a lovely pair of partridges wandering around the farmyard recently. This afternoon I saw them in our garden, rummaging around the base of our compost bin. Here is one of them for you. They are such cheerful birds and look as if they have a good sense of humour. Little owl shouts “Bud, bud!” (translation: “Bird, bird!”). Big Dreamer looks glum. He has been in cahoots with our next door neighbour to shoot a particularly large pheasant that has been seen in our garden picking at the wild bird seed. They have reasoned that as it’s in our garden and eating our food, it’s fair game. Fortunately for the pheasant Big Dreamer has proved to be a very bad shot. I think it unlikely that he could hit a truck parked in front of him. In the mean time he keeps air rifle pellets in his pocket at all times (just in case!) and I’m constantly finding them down the back of the sofa when they fall out. The other week he was supposed to be getting Little Owl dressed. I found her completely naked in the middle of our bed, weeing, and pointing at the wet patch between her legs, saying “Uh-oh”. Where was Big Dreamer? Flat on his stomach on the patio, swearing as he peppered the air with pellets while the pheasant minced around the garden.

Posted in Countryside | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Phew!

These photos are of my finished sheep book. The final crit was yesterday and it seemed to go well. I was the penultimate person to present so seeing everyone else’s work was not as enjoyable as it might have been as I was a bundle of nerves. There was some amazing work presented. My fellow students are a pretty talented bunch. I’ll have to tell you about them sometime. For now I’m going to quietly collapse in a heap somewhere.

Posted in Illustration | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

A little nervous tension

A slight hysterical breakdown occurred on the sheep project. Note to self: it is just about impossible to get A1 double-sided colour prints. After lots of sweating over InDesign (having never used it before!) I think it’s sorted. Hand in date is tomorrow so fingers-crossed. Thank you lovely lady in the print shop.

Posted in Illustration | Tagged , , | 2 Comments