Wednesday 26 November 2008

New House Painting


The photo on the left has been sent by a client who'd like a painting of their brownstone in New York. I've had to more or less guess what the gate looks like behind the car. If/when the client approves the pencil rough, I'll take it to ink, then watercolour.

Thursday 20 November 2008

Christmas Craft Fairs

Teresa and Barbora of Handmade in Highbury have their last stall this Christmas at Sutton House Christmas Fair, Sat 6th & 7th Dec, 11.00am - 5.00pm. Come and see us there!

Wednesday 19 November 2008

Finished Happy Birthday + Cupcake Card

Here's the card I started to cut last week then had to put on hold while I worked on other jobs. The design was requested by Carol at Louis Farouk (Highbury Park). I've been given most of my ideas for card designs through requests from shops.

Monday 17 November 2008

Finished Charity Christmas Card

This is the finished screenprinted Housing Justice card. We have developed a little family firm over the last few months with retired husband and 'home-educated' 17 year old helping out...

Housing Justice is 'the national voice of Christian action in the field of housing and homelessness', for more info on them, go to www.housingjustice.org.uk.

Thursday 13 November 2008

Finished House Painting

This is a detail of the most recent 'house' painting (see pencilled stage in 7 Nov blog). I've jpegged it over to the client and will hand it over if/when they're happy with it.

Monday 10 November 2008

Commissioned Christmas Card

This photo shows the 2nd colour (sepia) having been printed on to the 1st colour (white with silver glitter sprinkled while ink wet). All my A6 cards, except ones with lettering, are produced in this way, 4 at a time. For the ones with lettering, I have to 'flip' the two that face the 'wrong' way and fit them into place with masking tape. The images shown here will be cut and stuck on to recycled card after the client has OK'd the sample.

Leaving Card - Adjusted

Here is the final version of the three colour print.

Leaving Card

This picture shows the papercut ready for the final layer of the card mentioned below. This was the 3rd colour - sepia - going on top of ochre (for the church) and red (for the clocktower). It was only at this stage I realised the top image would be in reverse, so I cut out the three layers and flipped them over and reprinted.

Saturday 8 November 2008

This picture shows the pencil stage of a card I'm going to produce for someone leaving Christ Church in Highbury. The pencilling is on A4 paper folded in half and I'll cut through both layers. When I come to printing, I'll be able to print two images at a time on my A4 screen. I'll do a limited print run in three colours, ochre, sepia and red.

Friday 7 November 2008

Commissioned Christmas Card


Housing Justice have commissioned me to design their Christmas card. They've just emailed to say they've chosen the top right hand pencil as the design they would like (this is the second lot of roughs I'd done, edging closer to what was required - see roughs below). I will now trace it through on to 100gm good quality photocopy paper, thinking about how I'll separate into two colours...

(1.15pm) Have now done colour rough of how screenprinted image could look (shown above). Next stage will be to cut paper for the sepia colour layer, then trace through on light box to define areas that will be white (with glitter or gold dust sprinkled on). The blue will be the blue of the paper I print on...

New House Painting

This is the latest 'house' painting that I'm working on. The Matthews family bid for it in a fundraising auction at St John's school, Highbury Vale, a couple of years ago. They wanted to wait until their youngest child (on the pillar, on the right) wasn't just a baby, so now I'm ready to work on the painting.

I emailed jpegs of the pencil stage (this photo shows a detail of just the family, the painting will include their house behind) to the family, adjusting proportions, expressions etc until all were happy with this stage.

I give people the choice of a painting with details picked out in crayon, or inked. The Matthews have gone for an inked version (the inked stage shown in the scan above). I spent most of yesterday doing this (my influences for this style were Carl Larsson and Herge).


New Birthday cupcake card

This piece of A4, 100gm good quality photocopy paper has been folded in 4, then I've pencilled my new design on the top right hand corner section of the folded paper. The photo shows the first cuts having been made.

When I've finished cutting what will be the stencil for the first colour (pink), I'll put the paper on my light box and trace where I'll want the second colour (gold) to go on a 2nd piece of good quality photocopy paper, then cut that.

I'll photograph this stage later...