Upping sticks and moving North!

If you follow me on social media then you will of seen my post (or perhaps not) just over a week ago, telling the world of my change of location.  It's quite a big move, but it is reminding me how small our lovely UK is.  I've relocated from London to Crewe to be with my boyfriend, so it's the start of a new adventure for me.

I've already discovered we can drive to visit my parents in under 3 hours, I've survived so far without a car and have made the flat feel like home.  Somewhat surprised how much stuff came out from the tiny flat I used to live in in Hammersmith, but this one is considerably bigger so problem solved!

I'm working on some lovely commissions at the moment and a few personal projects so I will share those with you soon.  If you're interested in me doing something for you, from house portraits to wedding invitations, then have a browse in my Etsy shop or get in touch.

www.charlottevallance.etsy.com

Onwards and Upwards

I love seeing customer photos - this one is shared by the lovely Tatts Treasures

Happy New Year!

We're nearly at February, 2016 really crept up on me!  I hope you all enjoyed Christmas and spending time with loved ones, however you celebrate.  I was at home with my parents and sisters for the most part and enjoyed time to crack on with some new Bookshop illustrations - hurrah!  Here are some pictures from during my illustration and painting process.  I've completed 3 new bookshops so far with more on the way once I've finished my January commissions.

If you'd like to see the finished ones then check out my Instagram feed @charlsvallance

Crafty Fox Market at The Geffrye Museum

What a stunning building The Geffrye Museum is housed in!  Which, does suit it well being the Museum of the Home.  I'd not been before and will certainly be back in the new year to enjoy it properly and have a chance to look around the museum.

The Crafty Fox Markets always deliver on amazing stall holders, I was itching to look around while I was setting up and even later when I could gaze around the room - so many awesome presents to be bought!

I always over estimate what I can fit on my table but I did a pretty good job to get it on and everyone seemed to enjoy flipping through all my prints and paintings.  It was interesting to hear more feedback on my Bookshop illustrations and I've been spurred on to continue with this little project, so expect to see more in the new year!  To check up on this you can follow the hashtag 'bookshopforcharlotte' on Instagram to see which bookshop I'm illustrating next and also to share one with me if you have a favourite bookshop.

Thank you for having me Crafty Fox and The Geffrye Museum!

The Crafty Fox Market - Autumn

Photo by Tom W

My second time at the Crafty Fox Market in Brixton at The Dogstar and it was lovely!  I was on the middle floor this time and really appreciated the high ceilings and big windows.  I also had a super view of the cakes and sausage rolls at the pop-up cafe - woohoo!

Photo by Tom W

I had a small table this time and it was a challenge to cut down on what to bring with me.  BUT, it was great having a table full of my favourite items and seeing peoples reactions to my work.

Have you done a market recently, or is there one near you that you'd like to recommend for me?  I'd love to hear from you!

The Crafty Fox Market

I'd been hoping to participate in this market for ages!  It's so popular with stall holders and buyers a like that in the past I've not been accepted to sell.  But this time, I was successful and very happy to join the other sellers at the Dogstar in Brixton.  It was quite a quiet market - the weather got a bit chilly outside, but the cafe serving tea and coffee and lovely food, along with the bar, kept up a great atmosphere inside.

I love it when a market really makes me get my thinking cap on - this time it was signage for my products.  As my favourite pieces I've created are my building watercolours, I decided to focus my signage around this and created little folded cards with 'road sign' style signs to display prices of each product.  Really happy with the overall look that these give my table at a market now.

Have you been to the Crafty Fox Market?  Who is your favourite seller?  I had such a fab view of the other sellers work from my stall, however didn't get such a big opportunity to take a proper look around.

You can find out about the next Crafty Fox Market on their website or by signing up to their news letter : www.craftyfoxmarket.co.uk

BUST Craftacular, Bethnal Green

What a market!

My first time with BUST Craftacular and while I started out a little nervous, it was fab!  It helped having some friendly and familiar faces - Claireabellemakes, Ladybird Likes, Ceridwyn Hazelchild - around to have a quick chat and natter with.  I also had my awesome sister and her husband helping me out and keeping me company, which I wouldn't of liked to be without!

 My 'Bookshops of London' and 'Amsterdam' ranges got lots of lovely attention.

 New and old products alike were out for all to see.

There was so much going on at this market, I'm sure people made a day of it and enjoyed everything that there was on offer - market stalls, workshops and a cafe for refreshments.  Well I hope people made a day of it!

There was a £3 entrance charge - if you were in the first 100 in, then you got a free goodie bag! - I was unsure what to make of this charge, as I've not done a market with one before, but it didn't seem to hinder people, and the market seemed busy nearly all day - winner.

Contact me at charlotte_vallance@hotmail.com for more details.

For me this market was a success, and, it even got me into gear to produce some much needed flyers for my bespoke watercolour house illustrations.

The above cheesy photo is a still from a video that the lovely Claire from Claireabellemakes put together!  You can watch the whole thing on her YouTube page here: https://www.youtube.com

Did you see me at the market, or were you selling?  Share your thoughts and links below if you were!

Siblings Home

16 Hemdean Road, Caversham, RG4 7SX

This sweet shop - come - cafe opened earlier this year and I happily illustrated the new shop front for it's lovely owners.  Gavin approached me at Renegade Craft Fair back in November 2014 with lovely kind words about my watercolour illustrations and soon got in touch about creating a bespoke piece of their 'soon to be' open shop.

You can find them on Instagram at @siblings_home where you can see glimpses inside the lovely shop and peaks at what the cafe has to offer.  It's a bit far for me to go on a regular basis but I'm looking forward to being in the area so I can pop in for a coffee!

Renegade Craft Fair November 2014

I had such a lovely market selling at Renegade Craft Fair.  And, comparing to 2013's market, I also mark it a bigger success.  In general I think that the atmosphere and the whole fair has gone from strength to strength in the 3 years it's come to London.  I'm so grateful and happy to of been part of it for the last 2.

I really planned hard this time with the layout of my table.  Last time, I remember, I really did just wing it.  In other markets I'd done, my table had looked good, so what would go wrong?  Well, it was fine really.  But looking at what everyone else had done, really had me questioning my display.

So I thought it out.  I thought about what I wanted, and even made a few bits to bring in the added character I was looking for.  The sign was a real hit :) and it was definitely worth it painting the crates white - each is a different shade of white actually, my Dad had me using up old sample pots they had in the garage!

 Along with this I also streamlined my products.  Having my own little illustration world, I really do tend to keep everything I've done - what if someone sees it at this market and loves it?!  This time, I was strict with myself.  Screen-prints and building watercolour illustrations.  This, i think really paid off.  My stall looked much more complete and finished, rather than the work in progress that was last year.

Big sellers for me this time around were; Cushions - I sold 5 compared to the 1 I sold in 2013.  Watercolour Travel Kit - A brand new item!  But it got so much interest, I was over the moon.  Watercolour building illustrations - It was definitely a good call to have my originals on display alongside the digitally printed postcards.  Christmas cards - Last year, only friends and family bought them.  This year, I sold out before all friends and family could get theirs and didn't have any for myself to send out!

So, thank you Renegade, and London, for a brilliant market!

A Football Lover's Piece

Another lovely commission to share with you all!  A birthday present for a football loving Dad from my client, the daughter.  I love it when the brief has been thought out and there is room to use a bit of creative licence.

This isn't quite how the actual building looks, more like, all of it's best bits combined for this sweet little memento!  I also included the number gates that the Dad always goes through for an extra personalisation.

Renegade Craft Fair 2013

Day two and loving it!

My first London market and it was oh so lovely!  Being an illustrator from my bedroom means that for the most of the time all my work is here, there and everywhere.  It's a rare occasion where I get to see it out on display, all together and at it's best.  Hurrah for markets!  Thanks to the Manchester Artists Book Fair I do get to see my books all out at least once a year, and it's always quite an event.  This year I've had the pleasure of doing a few more crafts markets than in previous years and I'm happy to of taken this step.

This years Christmas cards made their debut - and went down well!

Renegade Craft Fair is really big in the States and slowly becoming more known here in London too thanks to this lovely London venue off Brick Lane (the Old Truman Brewery!).

 It's always useful to have a re-shuffle!  This was day one!

NEW Lucky Dip Bags featuring upcycled and recycled things as well as illustrations!

The lovely Pygmy Cloud!

This is by far the biggest market I've done and the level of work was so high it was hard to know where to look!  I shared a booth space with Pygmy Cloud and we lucked out with a corner space to show off our wares.

There were a lot of fellow makers that I knew from previous fairs, online shopping and social media so it was really nice to have everyone under one roof to be able to say hello!  Also, being in London, it made the perfect excuse for family and friends to visit me at work for once.

30 Postcards in 30 Days!

The 30 Days of Creativity in June with Create Stuff is now over and I feel a definite sense of achievement.  You can read here a little about the start of this project for me.  But all in all I illustrated a postcard a day every day in June.  Quite a task!  But I managed it, and even managed to nearly write and send them all by the 30th June as well.  Somehow writing them was an equal task to illustrating them - I've never sent so many postcards in such a short period of time!

Here are a few of my favourites, the rest will follow soon :

 Day 1 - Crepes for breakfast in Paris

 Day 2 - happy findings wandering around in Paris

 Day 11 - Out for dinner with my Dad

 Day 15 - Buying things for the flat

Day 25 - Laura Marling gig

Join me over on my Facebook page 'Charlotte Vallance Illustration & Design' to see photos of postcards that people have taken when they've received them!

You can see my 30 Days of Creativity for 2012 on my Down Your Street blog here.

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!

Untapped Cities

A very exciting announcement!

I have started illustrating for Untapped Cities (WOOHOO!), you'll be able to see new work from me every two weeks on their site www.untappedcities.com under '(Art)chitecture' which will be my column.  I'll share a new building illustration and write a few words to go with it each time.  Go straight to my column here.

It gets better -

Untapped Cities has just opened a shop!  You'll be able to buy prints of my illustrations in their 'Society6' shop and other works which will also be for sale in their 'Etsy' shop too.

Marvellous no?

pssst... You'll also find work by The Downtown Doodler on Untapped Cities who I recently did a collaboration with :-) You can read about that here.

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