London Art Book Fair 2011

Today was the last day of the Book Fair, unfortunately I wasn't able to be there over the weekend {so no photos!) BUT i did make it to the preview night on the Thursday so I have a few from then for you all.  It was really packed, a great atmosphere, nicely laid out space and lovely people!

The AMBruno table where there was a lot of blue.

My lovely little blue book.

(Delft) Blue

My Aunt suggested that i get in touch with some friends of hers who frequent the Artists Book Fair scene when I saw her before the summer, as for the (then) upcoming London Fair at The Whitechapel Gallery they had a table and a theme of 'blue' that they were inviting other artists to participate in.

I thought, why not?  And got in touch with Sophie Loss, who was lovely and said they would be pleased to have my work on their table.  The group is known as AMBruno and consist of a group of friends who all have film influences and beautiful books!

I took the theme of 'blue and came up with '(Delft) Blue'.  I seem to be spending a lot of time recently in Amsterdam, due to my boyfriend living there, and to be honest I'm not complaining!  It's a lovely city, and we always have fun when we go out, whether its with friends for drinks or during the day to galleries and sight seeing.  I have wanted to illustrate Amsterdam for a while, for those very reasons, and decided that for 'blue' I could happily illustrate in my fine line style but use a blue pen rather than my usual black.  I then felt that maybe I should give the blue more depth, and I thought of watercolours (see above image - this was also used in the leaflet AMBruno put together for the table), but then the opportunity to silk screen came my way and I thought that the 'blue' book could be done this way with shades of blues.

Now, I haven't silk screened since university.  Thats a good 2 years.  Neither had Charlie - the girl I was going to be silk screening with.  Between the two of us we figured it out and were so happy with the results!  Now for some photos showing the process from sketch to finished lovely book.

'(Delft) Blue', along with 12 other 'blue' themed books are on show/exhibition/for sale at the London Art Book Fair THIS weekend Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th September at The Whitechapel Gallery. If you can get there, I would recommend it.  The preview night last night was packed, and I have heard only good things from fellow Artists Book-er Louise Atkinson about the fair today.

Deciding on a layout, type of fold (inspired by Rachel Hazell)

Making the bike badges that will be tucked in the hidden pocket of the book.  I used 'shrinkles' a lot of work as I had thought I could print from the computer onto the sheets, but I couldn't so each is lovingly hand drawn!

 The negatives for the screen on top on one another.  I had 2 colours, therefore 2 negatives.  I quite like how they look in black and grey.

First colour, peacock blue, fills mostly brick work on the buildings, some windows but no outline.

Second colour, navy blue, fills mostly outline detail as well as some brickwork, shutters and windows.

Prints everywhere!

 The lovely, little origami boats that I made out of copies of a vintage map of Amsterdam.  These also come tucked in the secret pocket of the book.

Finally the front cover, I kept it simple with only text and no imagery.

All in all, I'm really pleased with how this little book turned out.  Folded it measures just under A6, and unfolded it concertinas out to be nearly as long an A3 width.

*PROPER PHOTOS OF FINISHED BOOK ON MY FACEBOOK PAGE*

One Year Wedding Anniversary Bespoke Illustration

Yesterday was the One Year Wedding Anniversary for Andrea & Cassie.  Andrea commissioned me to illustrate their wedding day for Cassie for their Anniversary as One Year is 'Paper'.  What a lovely idea and a great brief.  The colours are 'their' colours that they had at their wedding, along with the flowers and the cake of cheese.  The butterflies, birds and shoes were personal touches present at the wedding also.  

Andrea wanted 'a big mish-mash' of everything at the wedding, which had me a little skeptical at first because I normally work quite neat and tidy.  After doing my research with her wedding photos I landed on the idea of a big bouquet of flowers with everything intertwined into it.  

I'm really pleased with the outcome, it was a challenge and the finished piece is just a bit smaller than an A1 size, on lovely watercolour paper, with fine detail added in with a fine liner.

Most importantly Andrea loved it, and so did Cassie!

The Final Piece

Illustrated Postcards take 2

I've just got back from a little/massive road trip with my boyfriend across Europe.  We camped, we went through 6 countries in total (Holland, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia & Italy), we took a pedalo out on a gorgeous lake, we found that there were a lot of old people everywhere we went (?!), we swam in the sea, we cooked over a little campfire thing, we slept on a blow-up mattress that only just fit in our tent and we had a really great time.

Here are the lucky three postcards that got made while I sat with a cold drink of ice tea by the beach in Croatia while the boyfriend sat with a cold beer and got stuck into his book!

2 part spread of the view of houses and buildings in Croatia.  I actually have done a similar illustration about 4 years ago when I was in Dubrovnik with a friend travelling, I'm pleased to say that I have definitely progressed with my style since then!

On the campsite in Croatia we were literally the only ones in a tent.  Not only that, but our tent was tiny!  Literally only for two people to sleep in, and everyone else had these massive campers/caravans that then had tents coming off them as well....wowsers!  Made us feel quite small in the camping jungle.

Post for Year - month two

YAY! My second instalment (shall we say?) of post/mail for a year from the lovely Jessica Mack aka Brown Paper Bunny who I was introduced to through Twitter.  You can find her on there at @BrownPaperBunny.

The lovely card is by Sara Lynn, and there was a secret on paper that melts when you put it in water - what a great idea!  A little bunch of doggy post-its and an awesome Platypus stamp (as well as one of the National Library of Canberra) :-) I seem to of picked up a love of Platypus' from my boyfriend.  Unfortunately we didn't actually get to see one when we were in Australia, maybe next time eh?

You can see what I replied to Jessica's post last month on her blog here.