A little something for you!

Hello All!

So since joining Twitter, Facebook and having a Blog, I have entered a fair few competitions, met loads of people (some in real life as well!), enjoyed supporting other illustrators and artists, and I am so grateful for the support that you also give me.

As a little thank you, and as it is the season for giving...for a lucky participant I shall put together a little package of goodies for you to get through the post.  If you have any special requirements then you can let me know but ultimately it will be a surprise!  And yes, I shall post to ANYWHERE!

In order to be chosen you need to leave a comment on this blog post, or tweet to me ( @charlsvallance ) which of the following books is your favourite, and tell me why, as well as why you would like to win!  I shall choose the winner the old fashioned way by putting everyones names in a hat and selecting one :-)

Row of Houses

Wake up and Smell the Coffee

(Delft) Blue

Birds, Boats & Buildings

(THE AMAZING FOLDING BOOK!)

Buildings

Statues of Europe

You have until Sunday 18th December 12noon :-)

Thank you everyone!

X

Wake up and Smell the coffee

This Drypoint printed Artists Book was inspired by my time spent working at Seasons Cafe Deli in Old Amersham, near were I live.  It consists of a front cover, 6 prints of different coffee and a contents page on the back page which tells you of the contents of the different coffees seen in the book.

I've used drypoint printing technique with Chine Colle to attach tissue paper/newspaper to areas of each print.  To do this I apply glue to the tissue and pass it through the press with the print plate when it gets printed.  The whole book is actually on one sheet of paper.  This makes making the book less time consuming, meaning that if you are interested in buying a copy then it works out cheaper than it may of done!  Nice huh?

I made an edition of 12, last year infact, I think it didn't get talked about because I was giving one as a Christmas Present!  However, now you can buy it as a gift too.  It's for sale in my Etsy shop HERE.

Down Your Street

 

Ive recently been working on a sketchbook project (see tab at the top of the blog) 'Down your street' and these are Christmas-a-fied sketches from that in Drypoint using Chine Colle.

They came out pretty well, I'm pleased with how the Christmas trees look.

Thai Cookery Ingredients

 

As you can see a couple of posts ago I recently put together a Thai Cookery Book.  These prints are linked to that, they are of the illustrations I did for the 'Herbs and Spices' section in the book.  They are all drypoint prints, however, the first 3 are done using a plastic drypoint plate and the last 3 are done using a metal drypoint plate.
You can see the different quite visibly, how the plastic prints are quite a bit sharper than the metal.  The metal prints have a more grainy feeling to them i think.
The colour is added through the process of 'Chine Colle' where I stick tissue paper to the print in the press.

"Draw with your Knees"

This is a new zine that myself and some friends are working on.  The first theme is 'Body Parts' and these are my images for this.  I tried to include my travel influences and used drypoint and chine colle to their advantages.  I used sculptures from European countries France, Spain, Italy and England and labeled the body parts in the appropriate language.

Satues of Europe

This is a project that I started when Lucie Sheridan came into our uni and showed us her method of silk screen printing. I really like how the prints have turned out, the colours worked really well. I have since folded these up to make acordian books, which will be on sale in Bristol this weekend!

Barcelona Book

This is the new book that I've been working on for the Leeds book fair (which has just been),and I think that the prints went really well.  I've used drypoint as before and I like them a lot better than my last ones (Barcelona, Toulouse, New York).  There's an edition of 6 and they cost around £25 each.  All are in black ink on cream watercolour paper using the process of chine colle to add colour to each page.

Drypoint on Envelopes

I thought I would try something a little different now.  I like to use tissue paper in my prints to add colour but sometimes the tissue doesn't stick very well to the paper and comes off.  This gave me the idea that I don't HAVE to print onto watercolour paper ( which is the paper normally used as standard) but onto maybe a piece of tissue paper itself.  I did try it onto tissue paper but I found it dodn't work on such a large image, so then I thought of these envelopes, which I am planning to use for an artist book (really small dinner money envelopes), and I think they have worked really well!  Some came out quite grainy, but I think this works as well, just gives them an older look to them.

Artist Book Project

These are my final drypoint prints for my Artist Books, there are 3 in the series and only 4 copies of each!  All of the prints are 8 cm x 8 cm apart from the little one on the back of the back page which is 4 cm x 4 cm.  They show my recordings of Toulouse, New York and Barcelona.  Not in a touristy way, they are not full of images you would instantly recognise, but of little bits from a journey that you would fondly remember or would want to remember - a strange fruit, a pretty floor, the tallness of the buildings, the sign posts etc etc.

The books themselves are hand bound by myself using stab binding.

They are priced at £22 each or 3 for £50.

Artist Book-Beginning the folding ideas

I like the idea of a concertina book.  One that as you unfold it you reveal more and more of the same illustration rather than lots of little illustrations.  I did this book as a tester to think about paper, colour, book cover etc.  While i think that the book itself worked, i don't think that it is strong enough to work as an artist book, it's too small - and, the illustration is not strong enough to stand by itself!  The book itself is nice because I've put a hard cover on it and used a ribbon to act as the tie to hold it together so that it stays closed.