Wish list...

Does anyone else use the "Wish list" button on Amazon? I couldn't quite figure it out for a while; all the books I really wanted to buy were so cheap on Amazon that I didn't need to add it to a wish list, I could get it then and there. But then I became a student and also started coming across really lovely books that definitely couldn't cost 1p. Weeds and Wild Flowers by Alice Oswald and Jessica Greenman was the first one I put aside to remind myself that when I had enough money that should be one of the first things I did with it. The next one on my wish list is this one:

In fact, for anyone who loves books, and particularly well made ones like those beautiful clothbound classics that Penguin started publishing a couple of years ago, or just one-of-a-kind artist books, then you should take a look at  Purgatory Pie Press which was set up by the author Esther K. Smith and her husband Dikko Faust. This book, How to Make Books, does exactly what it says on the label but what's really good is that all the techniques are super easy to do at the kitchen table. It made it onto my wish list by virtue of that fact. I love book binding (I did an A level in it and it was sooooooo FUN!) but now that I'm moving back home where there will be little to no space to spread book binding paraphernalia, it seems imperative that I look for ways to keep up my artwork with limited fuss. How to Make Books is exactly the kind of inspiration I need :).

Cards.

What with the rain and no uni work to do, I've little else to occupy my time with except updating this blog with some of the cards I've been making this year for my loverly friends. I came across the pictures I took of them the other day on my camera while uploading something else. How nice to just make something beautiful sometimes without having to analyse every decision to the enth degree!

 Mine is the middle one. Then respectively: Rachel and Diana.

I own this book!

I was given it as a birthday present by the marvellous Rachel Rawlings (please have a look at her blog, she's been drawing some really beautiful decorative animals lately). She read my mind because I saw it last year in Waterstones and fell instantly in love with it. The book combines two of the most excellent things created since.....well, not sliced bread because I dislike that but since toast! Namely, etching and poetry. The poetry, written by Alice Oswald, captures the human quality of weeds and wild flowers while the etchings, by the artist Jessica Greenman, that intertwine with the prose throughout the book are delicate and exquisitely observed. 

If you have the time to pour over this beautiful book then I really recommend getting yourself a copy. I think I finally understand what good line quality looks like ;) 

An etching to finish.

I am sitting here on a quite honestly horrendous July afternoon with rain speckling my window and contemplating life after uni (it really has finished now, I took my degree show work down on Saturday). I have four rolls of film sitting on my desk that I can't afford to get developed and I have more money in my purse then I do in my bank account. The outlook is bleak. However, while I hang in this state of limbo, pulled between going home and working part time at my local farm shop and hopefully making enough money to go travelling or staying in Plymouth to find a job and staying closer to friends and perhaps more motivation to continue drawing, I have the time to share pictures of the very last ever etching I was able to make in the university print room just before the degree show. The image comes from the last scene of a comic I drew last term as part of the 24 hour comic event I took part in. Did I put up pictures from that? I can't remember! Well, it's only a very small etching, ideal for a book mark or something. 

A little inspiration...

A week ago I was sent some beautiful photographs by someone who had seen my image of the dancing tiger (an etching I did last year to illustrate Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus) and been reminded of his daughter. I was so touched to receive such encouraging feed back about my work but mostly to be allowed a glimpse into such dear memories that, while I was reading Nights at the Circus and etching the girl and the tiger into their zink plate, I thought only existed in books. Let me pay tribute to these small but greatly inspiring moments by sharing a couple of the images sent to me and by saying thankyou for them.

Degree Show: Part 2

If I was proud of myself, and I was, then I was even more proud of my wonderful friends who I've seen go through a lot this year and still come out of the other side smiling! well done my loves! Here the few who I managed to catch in front of their work. Check out all their websites too! You can get links to their blogs on all of them as well.

                                                      http://www.benjrandell.co.uk/

                                                           http://diana.mazuru.co.uk/

                                                     http://www.davehooper.co.uk/

                                                        http://www.piquenic.co.uk/

My Degree Show

It has been a year of ups and....... it has been three years of ups and downs (I would like to think mainly ups) and the culmination of them all was the degree show. After weeks of hard work and sleepless nights with lists of important, and not so important, things that absolutely, on pain of death (perhaps overly dramatic?) must not be forgotten! it was lovely to get dressed up and gaze with a swell of pride on the rewards of such hard won progress. Here I am, with said feeling of pride, standing by my work. I look rather pleased with myself!