mini toy theatre production and christmas card...how we did it!

What a blast the past 6 weeks have turned out to be. I've been lucky enough to work with Community Artist Sophy Miles on the Devon County Council Christmas card. The whole project started out by having my name put forward to do the card, of which i totally forgot about until i was told i had been chosen along side Sophy. I'd never met Sophy before so we decided to have a get together and see what we came up with. When she came around, we hit it off immediately and i knew we'd work well together. Sophy has such spirit, enthusiasm, spark, drive, creativity and determination (plus a bit of OCD that kept us....erm, i mean me, on track!). We literally hit the ground running and we carried on 100 miles an hour after that first meeting.

As part of this project, we were to work with a group of pre-school children from the hard hit area of Hatherleigh. We were to run a workshop with about 20-25 children to create an image for the Christmas card. Our planning for this took us into shops to buy the most delicious papers, glitter, sequins, buttons and ribbon that money could buy. Oh what joy it was when we found THE purplest sparkliest paper ever, so beautiful we'd spend a lot of time just staring at it.

When the workshop day arrived, we journeyed into Hatherleigh with Clare, organiser of the whole thing and Angela, Executive Assistant to the Chief Executive :o). All the lovely materials were laid out and we waited for the kids to arrive. Panic set in when only about 10 kids came (weather was absolutely atrocious....boooo). But watching parents working with their children totally made up for it. Some of the children were toddlers and preferred to stick their hands together, rather than stick lovely paper to baubles, snowflakes and christmas trees; but that didn't matter, they had fun!

So eventually we had their decorations and we made some of our own to pad the whole thing out.

We'd decided to make a mini toy theatre with a Winter Wonderland theme. Getting the whole kaboodle to fit together was tricky but we managed (well Sophy did, she got the wood and managed to fashion a base that stood up. My effort would have definitely fell over!)


Then it was time to start the back drop. All i can say is my front room was sea of material, baubles, glitter, snowflakes, glue, paintbrushes, pins, wool and strange little alien creatures (well the last bit was a lie but i reckon there were some gremlins hanging around hiding the scissors, needles and blue-tak when we needed it).

mmm lovely purpley colour. We were ever so excited at what would transform in front of our eyes. Pinning, cutting, shaping, making, pinning, cutting, shaping, making, spinning, putting, maping, paking, pitting, putting, muting, shooting. Our eyes and minds went a bit barmy whilst surrounding by so much STUFF. Arrggggg. We found ourselves laughing our heads off at the smallest of things. I think our sanity was saved only by knowing the outcome would be fantastic. (it also didn't help when we started chatting, we got on SO WELL at least a couple of hours would go by. Envisage nattering women, scissors poised ready for take off but not quite making it to the material!)

Pinning was soooo laborious but it needed doing if Sophy was to get it all sewn up.






All nicely sewn by Sophy's none claw hands (sorry, in-joke). At this point we were sew (sew....ha see what i did there) excited we couldn't contain ourselves and jigged about the lounge quite a bit (well that was me, Sophy squealed).



Just checking out the baubles for size...We did a lot of that...checking out things for size, amking sure colours were comlimentary and considering how the theatre would be practical for kids to play with. But still we had lots more to do.....

onwards we must go.....





Ta daaaaa, just like that we had a front for the Theatre. All made out of cardboard, tissue, material and paint. (i'd also like point out, although i had on a decent shirt here, i also spent the day in my pyjama bottoms. In stripes i seemed to clash with everything in the room).
















Then we started the task of filling the scene with the kids work. Oh how we jigged and squealed as we did this. Tra la la laaaaaaa. (i think it was at this point i put on some christmas tunes and started singing along....tis the season to be Jolly tra la la la la laaaa la la la laaaaaarrrggggggg)


Messing about with lighting (again envisage jigs and squeals).

After a lot of thinking and moving and removing, we decided to only have the trees in the final christmas card idea as it looked too messy and full for it to work 2D, but we knew the kids would love the 3D version where they could play with all the lovely things they'd made.


I am excited to see the children's reaction to this mini theatre (also the parents too). We hope they get as much enjoyment out of it as we did making it.



.....and breath. Waiting for the go ahead on the final design so will upload then.

Thanks for reading and thanks to Sophy for being a great artist to work with. Definitely made a friend for life :o)

x

pumpy pumpy pumpkin

I've sat here for a little while trying different beginnings for this blog, when i got to 'pumpy, pumpy pumpkin,' i knew it was time to come down off the ceiling and cut out the caffeine. Finished working on adding a bit of colour on the illustration for my story i posted a little while ago. It's been an interesting journey; one of layers and layers of learning, photoshopping, chewing my nails and eating far too many cookies. But i am happy with the finished results, although i'm sure i'll try another version soon and like that one better, but for now i'll be leaving it there and get another started.

Things are still slow with the publisher, it seems that Frankfurt(er) is getting in the way of them pushing the book on any further! Damn you Frankfurt(er), i shake my cookie crumbed fist in your direction and stick my tongue out to roll off a raspberry just for you!

Right i must go and do something productive....i wonder if there's another packet of cookies that really need eating?

P.s i also wanted to add i've been doing this with flu symptoms, now do you feel sorry for me?!

Pencil peace

Well, i've finally put pencil to paper and got my head around this story . It took me about 5 days to complete and i'm pretty darned happy at that! Now to pass it onto my agent and see what she can do with it. Right onto the next piece!!

Ta daaaaaa.....bit of work, a few words and a bath tub

It's that time again. I haven't blogged in ages, not sure what to do! I'll start with the commission i received to create a character of a friend's mother. Terribly tricky it was, as i had to get it just so, but i really enjoyed the challenge. I hope she likes it....fingers crossed.

Things are moving along with the book, 'Flower in the Snow' by Tracey Corderoy. Her website has some really loose sketches i'd done previously (do all illustrators hate looking at their loose sketches, or is it just me!?) and the colour image on the left. Things are still not finalised, but so far so good. I have faith it's going to be a fab journey. It's nice to see things moving on for friends too, lots of people from uni getting along just fine! (I can't believe i left uni 18 months ago! I have been working on this book that long! sheesh! but i wouldn't change it for the world).

Ta daaaa, that's it, that's all i have to report. I have very few words in my head at the moment, wish i could translate some of these images though. I'd probably be able to fill a bathtub with words.....hmmmm...... bathtub full of words, now where's me pencil!

Sweets, meets and completes

OOoo i do love a good meeting. I travelled to the London last week and met up with the book designer and the Picture Book Publisher. We had sweets, cookies and tea and my brain was high on E-numbers and spreads. I was thoroughly excited at the prospect of redrawing some of the images and very happy to add 2 more spreads to the book as it really needed that space to allow the story to unfold. We could get the book out for next year but we decided on 2011 so we can take our time on what hopefully will be a fantastic book. I love the story premise, I truly hope the author carries on loving what i am drawing.

These images aren't finished, but it's the way i am going with the final illustrations i think. Above is a rough of the house the girl lives in and left is a 'shuzzed' up version that i wanted to try. Not sure at the moment though, the people at Egmont seemed to like it and i do too but something is missing, so i shall persevere and see what else my paints can produce. I must say though i really am enjoying this process, even though slightly frustrating, it's giving me goosebumps.

Just a bit of colour and feet eating

Thought i'd add a bit of colour to this image as an experiment. Quite like it, although not too sure on snowflakes...let's call it a work in progress.

Had a pretty good day today, managed to eat 22 olives. Yum. Oh not just olives, i've eaten other stuff but i felt rather proud of my chomping feat (ok ok, not feet eating, but you know what i mean!)

a very helpful website for freelancers and some news

Well i'm not sure if this will help anyone but it's full of advice and guidelines. If, like me, you hate dealing with the money side of things, you might want to go to this website... Freelance Fees Guide it covers so many aspects of freelance work, that i am sure someone could use it for advice. If not maybe throw it to the wolves....

Anyway enough of the darker side of things. Stuff (don't you just love that word....stuff...stuff....stuff it....stuff up, his stuff, her stuff, their stuff) with Egmont is moving forward and i have another date set to meet up with them to show all my work for The Flower in the Snow story. 'Yippee', i cried when i heard the news, but that was choked back when i realised i had SOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH WORK TO DO in such a small amount of time. So i now have to get off my butt and pull my proverbial socks up (any higher and they'll be hitching a ride on my lugholes). I could write a list of things i need to do by then, but, and this may sound stupid, i don't actually know what i need to do. I know what i want to do and that's get a big crayon, a roll of wall paper and make messy with it. Alas, i doubt this will get me very far when they ask to see pictures of polar bears and rabbits and other strange things.

So now i am here thinking 'jeeee....sus, what shall i do next?'. Where's all the advice i stored away during the 3 years i was at uni? This is when i realise it's a lonely life as an illustrator, who do i turn to to help me get done what i need to get done. I hate to put myself onto other people, sometimes it's hard to ask for advice as i hate bothering friends. I guess i shall have to put it out into the universe and maybe whilst i'm at it i'll ask for some scones, a nice cake stand for my friend, a new pencil and a castle. (does anybody else want anything whilst i am asking the universe to deliver?)

Well i guess i'll say watch this space and thanks for reading, i hope the website i linked to is helpful.