Illustration Friday: PERENNIAL

I love language and definitions and was not disappointed when I began to research this week's Illustration Friday's theme 'Perennial'.


I discovered, with the help of Wikipedia, that a Chinese Perennial Tea Ceremony exists.  I watched a couple of You Tube clips of tea ceremonies and began to make some figurative sketches.

However, I ventured further on my journey of discovery and found out about the beautiful and mathematical elements of the Chinese Tea Ceremony with links to the five phases, known as Wu Xing and to Feng Shui.  The corresponding links to colours and the compass directions led me to experiment with data visualisation and here is the result.




I will list this print listed in my ETSY shop anon....

King's Place Interact Weekend

I had a fabulous day on Saturday running a workshop at the King's Place Interact weekend in London.


My workshop participants' ages ranged from 17 months to adults and everyone had fascinating tales and ideas to share whilst making their pages for a 'Little Book of Hellos'.  Flags, multi-lingual text and typography combined to create pages reflecting the country of heritage or of interest to each individual.

Thank you to all who contributed to Little Book of Hellos.


I was very pleased to meet creative Katie English and her co-artist Pam who were running the adjacent workshop.  Katie is also a recording musician and her recent work Circle of Sleep, which centres around the flute and electronica, includes beautiful, calming tracks.

Inspiration Monday: Illustrator

Yippee!  Another chance for me to inspire you, my readers, with that which inspires me!!!


Chasing the Crayon is the creative blog of illustrator Tracey Long.


I love the name of the Tracey's blog - and the delicate, imaginative and slightly surreal characters are inspiring and so carefully and delicately drawn.  I feel that the illustrations combine elements of folklore with a carnaval-esque feel.


Tracey's blog is here.

Illustration Friday: GESTURE

I have created a new illustration for this week's Illustration Friday theme GESTURE.


I hasten to add that this venture is great for me as it gives me the opportunity to make new work each (or almost each!) week and inspires my thinking and creativity.

I am not submitting previously archived work.  New or nothing!


This week's image was drawn right-handed (my 'other' hand) and coloured with my Tria felt pens.

Inspiration Monday: Book Artist

I came across the work of Cuban born, Los Angeles resident, creative Elsa Mora via a Bo Press blog detailing the world of miniature artists' books. 


Following the link to Elsa's blog has been like a voyage of continuing discovery as she creates amazing works using paper cut, illustration and book arts.  The author of numerous, high quality and inspiring blogs, Elsa posts images of her work and generously shares her life story with her blog readers.  Elsa's work has, for me, an element of a folk art aesthetic and demonstrates amazing craft skills.


I love the images of her studio too.  So many craft tools!


Elsa has kindly given me permission to include an image of her work here.  Click here to head to Elsa Mora's main blog and begin your own journey of discovery into Elsa's world from there......

Flowers, Fabric and Ribbons

On a recent visit to the local art supplies store I was unable to resist buying paper for drawing.  I chose simple cartridge paper with a smooth surface (lovely, although still a long way second to beautiful Bristol Board!).


I was then drawn by an unidentifiable source to the sketch books.  However, seeing the prices - and the paper quality - I decided to head home and make my own sketch book using the reduced price cartridge paper and my bookbinding skills.

I made the sketch book above using the traditional hand binding technique of sewing onto tapes.  I covered the grey board with a piece of (one of) my favourite Liberty design fabrics which I had backed with paper for this purpose. 


I love the result and the sketch book has become one to treasure - to a point where I am still thinking of a drawing worthy of its beauty!  


I am determined that this will be filled anon......

Inspiration Monday: Illustrator

Take a look at the playful and imaginative characters created by Laura Berger.


Laura has a distinct style and her creatures are unusual and clever interpretations of the ideas that they represent.


Read Laura's blog here.

Illustration Friday: STAY

I have attained one of my current goals!  


This is to create an illustration to upload to the Illustration Friday website.


The image is finished, despite problems with my scanner and a lamentable lack of Photoshop software at present....

Stay on the Ball

Inspiration Monday: Book Artist

Lucy May Schofield is an inspirational Book Artist and I have long been interested in her work, aesthetic and projects.

I came across Lucy's work in Colchester Minories Gallery a few years ago prior to meeting her at Craft Central at an artist's talk which accompanied her exhibition in 2008.  Lucy kindly offered to deliver an extra talk to a group of us from the Book Arts degree course.  This was fascinating and very generous on her part.

Drawing inspiration from artist residencies, travel and beautiful elements in life, Lucy creates intriguing and beautifully hand bound book works.

Do take a look at Lucy's website and view her artist's bookworks.  One of my favourites in Roadkill.

Inspiration Monday

I am truly inspired by the work of book artists, artists, illustrators and writers and I am going to share some of my inspiration here each Monday (that's the current plan...)


Let me know what you think of my choices :-)