Berkhamsted Craft Market

My second craft market!

Unfortunately I barely got any photos, the market was a short one from 10-2pm on Sunday 16th December in the lovely Berkhamsted.  We kept nice and warm in the Town Hall (right above Carluccio's if you were wondering!) and it was lovely meeting some more local arty people and to see what people have been up to.  I had a great big table to fill which almost over-whelmed me, but once i figured that the table cloth still fit, I draped my new tote bags over the front and hey presto, it was filled up pretty quickly!

The market wasn't as busy as I had expected, I put this down to the people of Berkhamsted being very organised with their Christmas shopping - not to worry I shall be back earlier next time.  HA!

If you missed out on this local (Herts & Bucks) Art and Craft Market and would like something you've seen in my shop, please get in touch as I can always arrange for you to collect your goodies rather than pay for postage.

Down Your Street : York

YAY I'm back with a new artist book!  It's been over a year since I made one of these.  In the same style as '(Delft) Blue' & 'Down Your Street : Old Amersham' this little book opens out in an accordion fashion to stand open on a shelf, table or mantle.  Folded, it's not even A6 in size and is printed in 2 colours, the perfect treat for yourself or as a gift.

I recently visited York to see my Aunt while she was living up there but also mainly to see all the gorgeous buildings and streets the city has to offer.  It's such a mix of lovely styles and architecture it was hard to know where to look first!

Available in my online shop here for £16.

Indie retail shopping experience

At the beginning of the year Coco Marie commissioned me to illustrate the front of their darling little boutique in Old Amersham (see finished illustration here and in practice here) and over the year we've kept in touch and helped to promote each other on the social media side of things.

Coming up to christmas happenings they got in touch again, having seen my print of Old Amersham (you can get yours here) and were asking to use it for an 'Independent Retail Shopping Event' to take place in Old Amersham at the end of November. Amazing!  I love it when customers come back - the best compliment I can get!

Always one for a challenge and to illustrate something new, I volunteered up my services to illustrate Old Amersham and in particular the shops that were getting involved - rather than have them use something illustrated for a different purpose, plus it wasn't Christmassy at all!

I'll be posting the finished map soon!

A little camera illustration

Jennifer Brookes got in touch via Twitter ( @stripeyflowers ) for me to do an illustration of a camera to be featured on a flyer she was having done for a photography event.  She let me know which camera she wanted the illustration of and sent a couple of photos for me to use.

A lovely commission to do, makes me want to do a few more camera illustrations :-)  Thank you Jen for getting in touch!

Risograph Printing

Two Times Elliott run a Risograph printing social night once a month in West (ish) London.  I've followed them for a while on Twitter and Instagram and decided enough was enough - time to have a go myself!

  

With the Manchester Artist Book Fair looming over me and no new books to speak of it seemed logical to illustrate a small book to print using the 'Risograph' technique.  Now, I really didn't know much, but I had seen posts and flyers by Two Times Elliot so I had a general idea, and picked up that it may be similar to screen printing.  With that in mind I designed an A6 book that could be created from an A3 page (which is the size printed via 'Risograph') with simple folds and a single cut.

I used Lisbon as my inspiration as after spending 5 days there in August, I really loved the city and it's colourful buildings.  I opted for 4 single page illustrations and one double page spread as well as a front and back page - all of which could be cut up individually incase the fold and cut technique didn't work out!

It just happened that I had friends visiting from California, so I persuaded them to come along with me for company and for something different to do :-D The Great Western Studios was easy enough to find, and somewhat challenging to navigate within, but over all a great place - I'm only sorry that we were there so late so no one else was around!  I selected 2 paper stocks (as I couldn't make up my mind) and went with a contrasting purple ink that was a lovely dark shade.

I'm so impressed with how quick and easy the whole process was, and the results were great!  Personally my favourite is the 'gold flecked' paper, but I had many compliments on the more textured grainy stock as well.

I'm pretty sure that I'll be back next month - MUST do a new design now :-D

25for25 is just what it says on the tin - 25 prints for £25 (+VAT) - you can book via eventbrite, and bring a friend if you're too chicken to go by yourself as I was!  Everyone was friendly and helpful and didn't mind all of my emails making sure I had 'got it right'.

Excellent, thanks guys!

p.s. Look out for the finished book at the Manchester Artists Book Fair!

Home Sweet Home

This piece marks the start of a new personal project of mine to do more illustrations of buildings.

HURRAH!

It is so easy to get distracted with all the lovely commissions I get, that I get carried away and forget that I need to illustrate for me too or I'll have nothing to show for what I love.  I get a great sense of achievement being able to illustrate other peoples loves, bringing a smile to your face and maybe a chuckle if I've got it spot on.  But It's not always something that can be shared with everyone.  Therefore, I have given myself this project to design and illustrate a range that is focused on what I love.  Buildings.  Cities.  Architecture.  Houses.

Give Away

Thats right, you heard me correctly!

I am giving you the chance to win an illustration by me commissioned by yourself.  An A4 illustration of your choice, a complete one of a kind illustration specially for you.  I will use watercolours and add fine line detail, which is the style I tend to opt for when illustrating.  I'll allow a border of paper round the edge to make framing easier.

Some examples of past commissions I've done

In order to enter, I'm asking that you visit my Etsy shop and give me some feedback.  Now.  This doesn't mean that you have to buy something, (although that would be nice if you are tempted).  It means that, I have recently added new products, experimented with the photography and altered my postage costs and therefore would love to hear what you, my lovely customers / fellow illustrators / crafty folk / friends / family, think of it all.

Ideas for you customisable illustration:

• Home / House
• Favourite city
• Garden
• Invitation
• Favourite cafe/shop
• Sweets / Chocolate
• Logo
• Favourite plant
• Pet
• A trinket
• Favourite shoes / bag
• Or you might just like to tell me a few things that you like and see what I come up with!

Please follow this link: www.etsy.com/shop/charlottevallance

And either leave your thoughts in a comment below here, email me, send a message via Etsy (there is a link to 'contact me' on my page) and of course let me know how you would like to be contacted if you won!

I'd love to hear what you think of my photos, the postage costs and the actual items for sale.  If you think something needs improving, let me know!

After all the entries have been placed in a hat I shall select one lucky winner and three runners up.  If you are a runner up, I'll be sending you a little goody bag :-) ppppst I've just had confirmation of a piece of Naida Crystal Jewellery to be in the runner up prizes...you can see her work here: www.etsy.com/shop/naidacrystal

So a total of 4 prizes to be won, you have just under 3 weeks to enter and closing date is the 22nd August at 8pm (UK time).

Most importantly, anyone can enter!

Good luck

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30 Days of Creativity 2012

30 Days of Creativity is something that Create Stuff do every year in June.  In order to participate you have to pledge to them that you will do something creative everyday throughout June aka 30 Days.  It's a great project and it really tests you!

30 Days of Creativity 2011

Last year was my first year, and I found that I mainly created greeting cards along with doing creative things in the cafe I was working at, Seasons Cafe @ Rowan.  You can see photos of what I did here.

This year, when I pledged that I would create something everyday in June, I pledged also to myself that this would be 30 illustrations of buildings.  Buildings, cities, architecture...this is what I love to illustrate.  It's not always that I get to do this so I thought I'd take the opportunity (& excuse) to get on with illustrating what I love.

In the past, for projects when I've chosen to illustrate buildings, I've generally drawn whichever takes my fancy, be it one that I am near at that moment in time, or if it's one I saw on my travels at some point.  For this pledge, I decided to stick to a building that I had seen on that particular day.  Apart from one.  There was one rather dreary day when my thoughts were elsewhere, maybe you can guess which one I'm talking about?

 

To see the rest of my 30 Days of illustrated buildings please click on over to my 'down your street' blog where I keep all of my illustrations of lovely buildings.

www.downyourstreet.blogspot.com

New Year Resolutions

Happy New Year!

So, a happy 2012 to everyone and all the best for what this year ahead brings us.  As with the start of every year, I've been thinking about resolutions.  Last year, it was more about not doing something rather than putting expectations on myself.  THIS year, however, I'm ready to set myself some 'real life' goals...as it were.

A lot of the illustration work I do seems to be for someone else, or specifically for something.  Therefore my FIRST new year resolution is to 'Do an illustration for myself once a month'.  Now this is of course quite vague and only an outline, but I didn't want to make it seem like too much pressure.  This is all about me enjoying illustrating, making time to draw what I want to draw without a brief or client involved.  I think that this will help, over the year, with my illustration style and confidence in myself as an illustrator.

Now the complete opposite of this is my SECOND new year resolution 'Design an illustration/illustration range for use on stickers, pocket mirrors and badges'.  I love the illustrations I do.  But they really do not transfer well onto something that is not a print for the wall or a greeting card.  I admit it, I am quite jealous of illustrators who seem to have a knack for this area of 'cute little extras' that even if you have 5 of you definitely always need one more!

I think that this past year, I've got the hang of Twitter, I've created a Facebook page and I've blogged more than I've ever blogged before.  I have really loved the feedback that I've received, the friends I've made because of it (I've even met a few in REAL LIFE!) and the quiet community that it brings with it.  And so, my THIRD new year resolution is to 'Keep up/Increase my on-line presence'.  This will involve; 

Blogging once a week - there are ofter a few weeks that disappear without me having posted, but I've still been doing things!

Design a website for myself - If I at least have my ideas sketched out, it will be easier to make it a reality. 

And finally, to upload more photos onto my Facebook page - I need to be more visual with these online/digital sites, Facebook is the best platform for people being able to see images without having to follow links off at a tangent.

A new venture this year was setting up an Etsy Shop.  Now it's all well and good showing your family and friends your work, and even for them to say how much they love it, and even still for them to buy cards and books off you.  BUT, the rest of the world is a scary place!  I think I signed up for Etsy in 2010, I bought a lovely pair of snowflake earrings and signed up for the newsletters.  They have been a great source of inspiration and temptation over the year!  In time to sell my Christmas cards, I properly set up shop - HURRAH!  Now, all I have to do, is stick to my FORTH new year resolution 'List a new item every month in my Etsy Shop'.

My FIFTH new year resolution helps me keep on track and make sure all of the rest of them actually happen 'Be organised'.  I received a mass amount of notebooks, jotters, sticky notes, planners and sketchbooks for Christmas.  I really have no excuse.  I am slowly finding new tasks for each one so that I can have a place for everything and not loose little bits of paper or images I like.  Ideas will have a place to go, lists will be written in the 'lists' notebook and inspiration will be only a flick away.

Thank you for reading, I've enjoyed reading everyones blogs full of new year resolutions - lets hope we all keep them!

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