Typography

I'm still learning typography. It's starting to make a difference - I have favourite fonts now and I am starting to understand how to use them. But I do wake up in the middle of the night wanting to look at my font collection, or to check the kerning on the work I did in the evening. And I dream arcane and involved dramas about typefaces. Typefaces having trouble in school, growing crazy ligatures, getting divorced from their italics, running amok.
I made above drawing at six in the morning on my ipad because boyfriend was still asleep ( as I would normally be) and I didn't want to wake him up by booting up the computer to look at fonts. NO ONE NEEDS TO LOOK AT FONTS AT SIX IN THE MORNING.

By the way, THIS IS A GREAT BOOK, as this lovely lady recommended. Thanks, Dee!

Tracing Photographs

...it's allowed! If you took the photographs yourself. Which I did. Ha.

I'm not great at drawing humans, let's face it. Unless you want it done in my particular cartoony way, which isn't always the ticket... 

So at the moment I am having fun tracing photographs of my friends. It's not that easy - the digital brushes are laggy, and, well, traced photographs have a way of looking not that great. And detail is getting lost whenever I zoom in too closely.

But I think I'll work out something useful, and maybe even learning something about light and shadow and anatomy and all that.

Here's Laura Kidd in concert:

And here's the lovely Simon March of THE COLOUR MAKES PEOPLE HAPPY STORE, ready to sell you some serious PAINT:

These were painted using brushes from Stumpy Pencil.

Stuff I did today

Some poster stuff, some book stuff, some writing, and a portrait for my friend Simon.

Now I will stop for today and read a beautiful book.

Motivational Poster Day Two

I am getting serious about this poster-making idea.

I spent half the night looking for fonts on the internet, bought some, collected some free ones, and donated to designers who made especially cool ones... here is the result. Now set in 'Woodrow' and 'Wiffle'.

And laid out in InDesign, not Photoshop. I feel so professional!

Motivational Poster

I am working on a motivational poster for "Advice to Sink in Slowly".
Here's my first design.

Consider Evolution, for example. Where would we be if our ancestors had not made use of their usefully shaped parts because that was TOO OBVIOUS?

It's Raining Sheep

Sleepwalkers are hurtling towards repro. Also there will be a website quite soon.

ALL VERY EXCITING.

Cogs and Wheels and Such

I am working on a website to go with my upcoming graphic novel.
I decided to build a growing illustrated Encyclopedia for it. It'll be great.
Meanwhile, here is something wonderful for you to watch: cogs and wheels and such.

FOLLOW ME - Travis Hodges

Behold, an excellent picture of me in my studio in my writing pyjamas.

This is part of a series of photographic portraits by Travis Hodges called Follow Me. Go check them out, they are great!
It was great fun being photographed properly, with lighting and all that, and now it's even more fun watching the line of portraits move on through Twitter-London. Still going!

The portrait leading up to mine is a lovely picture of Laura Kidd of She Makes War, and the next one is the brilliant Mr. Kevan Davis.

Calder's Circus

I had a mean cold over the weekend. Now I'm back at work.
Here's a video Alexis sent me this morning of Alexander Calder's portable circus, which was an excellent start to the day.
I loved Calder's wire sculptures as a child, and last weekend I looked at his book of lessons in animal sketching in a museum in Paris.
Anyway, sit back and watch the performance. It will make you happy.

Alexander Calder’s fascination with the circus began in his mid-twenties, when he published illustrations in a New York journal of Barnum and Bailey’s Circus, for which he held a year’s pass. It was in Paris in 1927 that he created the miniature circus celebrated in this film - tiny wire performers, ingeniously articulated to walk tightropes, dance, lift weights and engage in acrobatics in the ring. The Parisian avant-garde would gather in Calder’s studio to see the circus in operation. It was, as critic James Johnson Sweeney noted, `a laboratory in which some of the most original features of his later work were to be developed.’ This film exudes the great personal charm of Calder himself, moving and working the tiny players like a ringmaster, while his wife winds up the gramophone in the background. The Circus is now housed at the Whitney Museum in New York. —The Roland Collection of Films & Videos on Art

(over Ubuweb)

Design Team

I am working on a new book. Just me and my design team.

SHE MAKES WAR - "Little Battles" Launch

I went to a wonderful concert last night, my friend Laura Kidd launched her second solo album.
She's brilliant.

Finale with Unicorn Hat

You really should check out her music. It's beautiful.

I'd never seen her perform on stage before and was so impressed, there was such a sense of happiness and fun in the crowd.

Most of her songs are sad and angry, but in a way that always cheers me up.

The album was kickstarter-funded, and there was budget for an illustrated book of lyrics, I did a few of the pictures in it... here is the set of postcards you can get of the images:

The wolf on fire is mine...

UPDATE:

Also see Laura's own blog post with lots of videos and proper professional photos...

PARAKEETS!

LOOK WHAT I GOT!

A beautiful original artwork by the most excellent Stephanie Roth-Sisson!

And if you click there you can also see a better picture, not just an overexcited mobile phone snap.

Will be framed RIGHT AWAY and live on my wall forever.

Aren't they lovely? Housemate and I are cooing over them. Look at the little guy singing... and the lovely parakeetcouples... and how happy they are... and how parakeety!

Bethnal Green

My lovely boyfriend has moved to Bethnal Green, and so, in some way, have I - there's a room for me to work in in the new flat, and I started exploring the neighborhood. It feels a lot more urban than my Peckham home.

This is my new favourite piece of Graffiti, I will photograph it better soon.

 The Buddhist Centre is nearby, also some nice cafes and second hand bookshops and "Prick Your Finger", which I believe is the coolest yarn shop in town, they even sell yarn spun from seagull feathers there.

I think there are nice times ahead.