Margo is my excuse

I seem to have had a bit of an unintentional blogging break recently - but things have been happening to keep me away. 

A couple of weeks ago I went to Frome to drop off some new prints at Seed, a lovely shop at the front of the Black Swan art center  http://www.designsbyseed.co.uk. While I was there I spotted someone dressed up as a red panda, drawing on the windows - as you do...turns out it was Georgina Fineman, all part of the Art Trail for the Frome Festival, George has illustrated on the windows of 7 shops around the town, a clothes shop, jewellers, SEED, the butchers, a lighting shop, a designer kitchenware shop, and a health food shop...you can see more of her work here: http://cargocollective.com/1984foryou

however meet the real reason I've not been here: Margo, our russian blue kitten meeeeeeeeeeeeow

welcome to my world

here's a few pictures from the last few weeks (some of them are blurry - it's me not your eyes)....

this is a snippet of the Bear Flat open weekend which due to ridiculously sunny weather (seems unbeliveable now) I set up camp in the courtyard...thanks to everyone who braved the sun trap in the name of art!!

the weekend after was the 'Oh So Jubilee' craft fair at the Chapter Arts center in Cardiff - great place but not a busy fair. I got up at 6.30am to make washi tape bunting....oh well...

 the chaos that is my desk....I tidied it over the Jubilee weekend and also the shelf above my desk got a spruce up too...including jubilee bunting, there's been so much bunting around and about recently, it's so bright and cheery and should be encouraged all the time.

                                      
 ahh you can't beat googly eyes....or listening to proper records on the Vestaxe portable

Bear Flat Open Studios

I'm taking part in the Bear Flat open studios again this year at 1A Devonshire place - it's a basement flat so involves stairs and really it's more desk than studio...I don't think I'll be open on the friday evening as I'll no doubt still be sewing labels on to my new bags right up until the last minute....

I printed some new bags at the weekend, seems I didn't take a photo of the finished peacock bag, so it will remain a mystery until the weekend....

 There are 4 different notebooks too, printed on both sides and there will be some small prints as well as all the usual stuff and maybe cake!

mistakes/not mistakes.....

 it's so annoying when you're printing and you make a mistake, a giant inky splodge just where you don't need it, if it's on a bag or a book it feels even worse than on paper because you feel like you've lost out.............still they're handy for practice prints. 


I've been printing new bag designs this weekend and there have been a few of those pesky splodges BUT I realised the practice bags with all their overlapping layers are looking good and maybe I should put some of this layery stuff into proper prints...hurrah!

Bristol Affordable Artfair - this weekend

my work will be here : Smithson Gallery stand B5 - for the weekend, it's just by Temple Meads station - so very handy

some bears like to dance

what better way to spend the weekend than printing a few grumpy looking bears dancing their socks off? It was a good way to slightly get over my feelings of "ooh, I'm not sure what to do next"...these bears have been on my mind for a while, so I've made a bit of space for more demanding drawings and I had a bit of fun playing with layering transparent colours - and it got me thinking about using black paper and layers of transparent pale ink....hmmmmmmm. 

Anyway, voila  - bears on the sunny rack:

 I was trying to get a photo of the light overlapping layer - in the shadow....you have to squint a bit to see it!

These bears will be featuring in the Bear Flat open studios, the last weekend in may and also at the Smithson Gallery stand at the Bristol Affordable Art Fair next weekend.

I ♥ Berlin

Just back from a quick trip to berlin - where despite the gloomy looking skies over the TV tower, we enjoyed a few days of heatwave. There's something about Berlin I really like, it's not the prettiest city but its an easy place to be and everyone seems really friendly - though it turns out my attempts at german just made me come across as very un-chatty and a bit grumpy - oh dear  - es tut mir leid.

 "say cheese" Mr Hippo

we pretty much walked around the whole city (not easy when it's the first flip flop wearing moment of the year) so this was our uber-healthy start to the day!