drawing breath with Nina Welch

Sorting through my index cards of contacts I have just come across the details of a flickr site created by myself and fellow London Colllege of Communication alumna, sound designer Nina Welch.

Nina and I worked collaboratively on several enjoyable and successful events back in 2008-2009 and we had a great time devising original activities combining sound and visual art.

The flickr images show photos taken during our event Can't Draw? held at the Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden as part of the Big Draw 2008.

We were very pleased to take part in Wimbledon Drawing Fellow wins Paul Hamlyn Visual Arts Award 2008 Terry Smith's Draw! Cut! Tear! at Chelsea College of Arts and Design's Big Draw 2008 event and to be invited to have an activity area at the University of the Arts London alumni summer fair in 2009.

Good ideas, good times :-)

bookbinding mini (2)

I am pleased to announce the full details of my forthcoming workshop

bookbinding mini (2)

(no need to have completed bookbinding mini (1) as all are separate sessions)
please click on the image to view a larger version - notice the special offer!

Alice and Cinderella - my new illustrated and text free tales

I am having the best time making these books :-)

I have devised the illustrations to tell the folk tales in images and the books are text free.

Each illustrated book in this BRAND NEW SERIES series comprises twelve full colour illustrations, printed on 100gsm paper and lovingly hand bound with a textured card cover by me.

I will be posting the first two titles in my Etsy shop Between the Leaves in the coming week.  In fact, Alice is there now....

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Bookbinding mini - BOOK NOW!

I am looking forward to my two hour workshop on Monday evening :-)

Here are the full details and my contact details (please click the image to view a larger version).

Book your place now - and receive a discount for booking bookbinding mini (1) and (2) together (£40 for the two workshops).  Bargain!

Inspiration Monday: Arthur Rackham

On Inspiration Monday, I usually post about creatives of the current era and I believe that this is a great way to increase awareness of illustrators, book artists, paper engineers, and more - enriching and inspiring you all (I hope!).

However, today is a retro inspiration post....

I have been intrigued and amazed by the illustration work of Arthur Rackham since I was a small child.  In fact one of my first blog posts referred to a childhood book with smooth colour plate illustrations by Arthur Rackam, a book which I still love and treasure.  And today I wish to revisit his work and add links to view the other-worldy scenes of folklore and fantasy.  
Here are several images found using the search term Arthur Rackham copyright free...

I am reminded of the film Snow White (2001) - a made for TV film with beautiful imagery which I would recommend viewing and The Brothers Grimm (2005) which I also found to be visually inspiring.
 

  

My next workshop is coming up on March 19th - read on....

Essex Book Festival Launch: workshop images

My workshop at the Essex Book Festival launch event on 1st March 2012 allowed me to further pursue my goal of passing on knowledge of book arts and bookbinding skills to one and to all!

Each participant made a hand-bound, three hole pamphlet stitch artist's book and here are some of the resulting bookworks made by pupils from The Sweyne Park School's library book clubs...

A Book of Letters: the videos part III

A Book of Letters: the videos part II

A Book of Letters: the videos part I

A Book of Letters: images at last!

I've just taken some photographs of the of A Book of Letters (hand made and bound by yours truly :-)) and its content - beautiful and diverse illuminated letters by Illuminate! participants - and I want to share them with you here:

This only shows four of the thirty five illuminated letters and so I have also made a few mini video recordings with my 'not so state of the art' mobile phone - but please bear with me while I work out the technology to get these videos online!......

Inspiration Monday: The Zombie Collective

I met the innovative Zombie Collective at the British Library late event Illuminate! on Friday evening and was warmly welcomed as I ventured over to see their workshop - totally amazing, laser cut letters of diverse and beautiful fonts which were combined by participants into a massive manuscript.

Take a look at the Zombie Collective blog post here.

image by the Zombie Collective

A Book of Letters at the British Library's ILLUMINATE! event

Wow!

I had such a fantastic evening running my creative workshop at the British Library 'late' event ILLUMINATE! on Friday night!

Invited by the House of Illustration and British Library, I devised a collaborative workshop inviting participants to create an illuminated letter to add to the hand-bound book A Book of Letters which I have lovingly made for this artwork.  The book is now filled with over thirty illuminated letters, each with a unique design and personality (so to speak!).

A Book of Letters is destined for an archive - I'll keep you posted on this one....

THANK YOU to all participants who not only helped to complete A Book of Letters but also made my evening - with such enthusiasm for the project, friendliness and generosity of creativity :-)

Thanks also to the House of Illustration and to the British Library for the opportunity to be part of this superb evening.

Here's to the next one....

View an interview with Jamie Hewlett and the Zombie Collective (made by Buzz Films) who were also at the event here.