Local markets

At home in Amersham I'm slowly getting used to having my work out and about in shops and cafes I know and love.  Recently, my work has travelled a bit further, see this post here, and for a while now have been here and here.  but I am still getting used to meeting local people who recognise my work and connect the dots when they realise it's me that's done something!

Apart from Christmas fairs at local schools I haven't been very aware about art markets going on in my area.  I hear about big ones happening in London, Bristol and further afield, but really need to get local and figure it all out!  Last year I managed to get involved with the Berkhamsted Arts and Crafts Market that happens on the first saturday of every month and the third Sunday (coinciding with the local farmers market), and am meaning to book up a few more dates for later in the year.

A friend of mine has been talking about the Little Fox Market since she moved to Rickmansworth and finally in March, I made it to the first market of the year!  A little nippy out, but lots of lovely tables full of a variety of goods.  I got in touch and was there the first weekend in May (4th) and it was lovely!

A few photos from the day!  I met some lovely people - namely Caroline of 'Handmade Soap by Caroline' who was next to me with her gorgeous soaps (and matching gazebo), the day flew by chatting about various crafty things.

I'll be back at this lovely little market the first weekend in August - Saturday 3rd from 10.30am till 3.30pm, stop by and say hello if you're in the area!

Old Amersham Museum

I was contacted over Christmas by Emily at Amersham Museum, and after a meeting in January we'd organised that I would do an illustration of the Museum for use on promotional/informational flyers and possibly online.

Due to time restraints I had to keep the illustration quite small, but I don't think it hindered the overall image at all.  The museum is in a lovely building in Old Amersham and has some great original features - it was interesting to draw, and to have a look around the inside too!

I definitely recommend a trip to Amersham Museum if you're in the area.  It costs only £2 and has some great old photos from the town over the years as well as a cute garden out the back.  You can see original features in the building as well as toys and other bits and pieces from the history of Amersham.  It is quite petite, so you won't need long to get a good look around, and once you're done Seasons Cafe Deli is an excellent place to stop for a bite of lunch or a spot of tea and cake.

Old Amersham also boasts a fair few independent retail shops so there is plenty to look at if you're up for a wander down the high street.

Independent Retail shopping crawl and map

The first weekend in December 2012 boasted the first 'Indie retail shopping crawl' for Old Amersham.  This meant that the independent retail shops in Old Amersham, Buckinghamshire, UK got together and produced a map.  On the allocated days you then took your map (available in all participating shops) with you and collected a stamp from each on your map.  You didn't have to buy anything, just to simply go in and ask for a stamp.  Of course I stopped for a chat in most shops and it took me about half a day but theoretically you could probably do it in half an hour.

This lovely little map really opened my eyes.  I discovered shops I didn't know were there, bumped into friends and enjoyed a lovely breakfast out.  I booked appointments and got some Christmas presents sorted.  This is a great event to do with friends or family and is a lovely day/half a day out!

And as a bonus, if you completed the map and got all of your stamps, hand over your map to a participating shop and you're entered into a prize draw to win a hamper of goodies which features something from all the shops involved.  Absolutely amazing!

If you missed out, not to worry!  The shopping crawl will be back to Old Amersham again in 2013.  Keep an eye out on here for updates and in local BUCKS and HERTS magazines and papers.  You can see here about how I first got involved in this project.

The illustrations used in the map of the shops in Old Amersham were also used on Christmas cards.  If you'd like to pre-order then please get in touch by leaving a comment below or emailing charlotte_vallance(at)hotmail.com

It's getting Christmassy!

This year has been all about me illustrating buildings more.  I love to draw buildings, street views, aspects of cities, etc and really felt the need to get this into my work more.  Through Untapped Cities this has really become possible towards the end of this year and continues on into next year hopefully!  In June I participated in the '30 Days of creativity' challenge and illustrated a building everyday in June.

 

I think that my Christmas cards this year, continue on in this fashion and show Christmassy shop fronts from all different kinds of shops.  I used watercolour to illustrate and then put them together digitally to bring together a collection of 5 designs.

I'm really happy with them - and I'd love to know what you think.

You can see last years cards here and you can buy both (while stocks last) in my online shop here.  If you can't see them in the shop please leave me a message with your details and I'll organise your order for you.

Thank you!

X

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!

The Diamond Jubilee

The Diamond Jubilee in Old Amersham


Old Amersham community came out with such a positive attitude against the wet, wet, wet, weather we got - it kept us going!


Unfortunately I didn't manage to get any photos of the rest of the street party, but that gives me a great excuse to send you to Amersham People's website here and local photographer Adel Hanna's page here for you to see some lovely shots of the day that I would not of been able to do justice with my little camera.

Myself and friend Alex in our 50's finest!

Tea & Cake with the Queen

Free diamond badges for everyone!

If you'd like a diamond badge for yourself, I have a few left so let me know :-)

To see more photos please also have a look on my Flickr page here.

How was your Jubilee weekend?  Did you join in with festivities or get away on the long weekend?

The Diamond Jubilee comes to Old Amersham

You may remember that last year I designed a lovely 'British' themed flyer for Old Amersham's Royal Wedding street party celebrations.  You can see the designs here and here.  I was so chuffed with the finished design and so was Old Amersham as they've come to me again this year to design the Diamond Jubilee street party flyers!  I'm so touched to be asked again, I really enjoy being able to design for my local town.  

This year, as you can hopefully see, the theme has gone towards '1950's Britain' in keeping with the Queens Coronation 60 years ago.  This was a nice challenge as I've never had such a task!  I enjoyed being able to illustrate from original photos from the day and researching into colours and fonts.

The only specifications for this flyer was the layout - how it's set up as a folded flyer rather than a flat 'A' size, and for it to be in keeping with 1950's design.  I'd love to hear your feedback on this.  I'm rather proud of the background colour myself, I think it was the icing on the cake for these flyers!

 

Last weekend I took a lovely walk down to Old Amersham and was greeted by this great banner put together by Manor Signs with my illustrations on it!  It looked so lovely, the sun was shining and there was the plant market in the market square - perfect.

Are you local to Old Amersham?  Come and say hello if you make it on the day!

Private, staff only

Typography for the Artichoke restaurant

Recently I was contacted by a restaurant local to me in Old Amersham called 'Artichoke'.  It is a lovely little restaurant across the street from the cafe where I used to work.  They have a great colour scheme going on both inside and out of soft natural colours, an amazing open kitchen, so if you're close enough you would be able to see them preparing your dinner!  Find them online here and follow them on Twitter for quick updates here.

They were wanting me to do some signage for them for within the restaurant.  The dining areas have a lovely feel to them and standard signs just wouldn't fit in!  'Please mind your head' and 'private, staff only' are self explanatory and save customers the embarrassment of having to ask or going the wrong way.

Along with the guideline of using lower case font for the two signs I tried to compliment their colour scheme with my choice of typography design.  I stuck with a simple, yet elegant font, and added in a few twists and flicks to make it their own.

'private, staff only'

Up these little stairs is another kitchen (not the toilets as you may think) so this little sign will save customers a tricky climb up the higgledy steps.

'please mind your head' Cropped view

This sign is quite self explanatory, the beam is pretty low (I just had to stand on tip toes to draw out my design comfortably!) and they were fearful for their customers heads.  This sign is now on both sides of the beam so you're sure to 'please mind your head' from both directions.

'please mind your head' Full view

'please mind your head' Up close view

I loved doing this commission, something new and a bit different from my 'normal' at the moment.

Do you need a sign painting and quite like this style?  Get in touch via email charlotte_vallance(at)hotmail.com or leave your details in a comment on this post and I'll get back to you.

This post needs a special mention to the lovely ladies Laura Manfre and Anika Starmer.  They helped me to continue posting images on my blog posts.  Please check out their lovely work (click on their respective names for the link to their work).

Thank you!

Happy Mothering Sunday

Happy Mothering Sunday!

I always design my Mother's Day card range with my own Mum in mind.  This backfires when she's seen all the designs pre-Mother's Day and I need a special design just for her!  This year I had 3 hand painted designs I worked with.  They were available to buy at the cafe local to us in Old Amersham, Seasons Cafe Deli.

These last two are the special ones I painted for my Granny and my Mum.  My Gran's one is a larger version of one of the above designs and my Mum's is a heart of (my interpretation of them anyway) English Daisies, with a personalised message.

I had a few orders from friends as well as selling them in the shop, which was lovely!  If you've seen something you like and don't know how to get hold of one, then please leave a message on this blog post and I'll get back to you ASAP.

Do you hand make your Mum cards or do you opt for a pretty/quirky card from a shop?

Coco Marie

Commission for Coco Marie

I've been a massive admirer of Coco Marie in Old Amersham for a good couple of years now.  It was on route from my car to work in the days that I worked at Seasons, and since I don't do that anymore I now enjoy the online aspect of the Boutique.

Last year, for the opening of Seasons Cafe at Rowan I illustrated the Seasons Cafe Deli in Old Amersham, to remind them of the Rowan Cafe's Mother Cafe!  The lovely Jen, happened to spot this particular illustration and got in touch for me to illustrate their little Boutique 'Coco Marie'.  I was obviously more than thrilled to get this commission!  It's so lovely illustrating the buildings in my town, and even nicer to know how much it is appreciated.

Above, you can see the final illustration.  I'm really happy with the finished piece, it shows off the quirky nature of the shop (it being in such a petite building!) and the cuteness of it.  Below, are some photos I took inside the Boutique for inspiration.  It gives you the whole picture - as it were - of what the illustration is showing off!

Thank you for reading.  Have you been into Coco marie, or do you have a local Boutique like it?

Artist of the Month of March

Artist of the Month of March at Seasons Cafe @ Rowan

I'm so happy to tell you all about my upcoming exhibition (My first ever proper one don't you know!) which takes place for the whole of March and is situated in the lovely Seasons Cafe @ Rowan.  

They feature a different artist every month, and take on work of all disciplines ranging from illustration to fine art to photography and all thats in between.  This provides a great rotation of gorgeous work for all who work at and visit the Cafe and the Garden Centre that it's located in.

I'll be showing original illustrations in watercolour, silkscreen print and drypoint print.  These will be available to purchase along with digital copies, cards and a few other bits and bobs.

I'll be having a preview evening for those of you who are local and are able to get to Chalfont St. Giles by 5pm on a Friday!  There will be drinks & nibbles or tea & cake, depending on what takes your fancy, from 5-7pm on Friday 2nd March.  Come along for a chat, ask any questions you may have, and enjoy a nice look at my illustration up close.

Hopefully the evening will be nice and clear as it's staying lighter and lighter in the evening already and there are great views across the fields from the cafe.

You will need a car to get there.  If you are visiting on a weekend, give me a shout and I'll join you for a cup of tea!  If you're visiting from afar (maybe via train?) Then hopefully I can give you a lift as well! Otherwise the closest train station is Chalfont and Latimer on the Metropolitan Line, which you can get a taxi from for not too much.

I've been busy working on these lovely stickers for promoting this exhibition.  I opted to create a sticker that could be used on the already existing A6 postcards from the Cafe as then visitors can view the map!  I'm very excited about distributing my 'QR-code' stickers :-) which when scanned will bring you straight here (to my blog) where you can see all I've been up to.  A few have been sent out to friends over seas, so keep an eye out for photos of them in random places!

Extra Special Sweetshop Giveaway!

Happy January! 

I've had a good start to the new year, January has flown by so fast, and I've received lovely, encouraging feedback.  It's come from every direction, from friends & family to fans & newly made illustrator friends - Thank you!  I am therefore going to now give something back to you.  As you've all seen recently I've been working on a range of illustrations for my local sweet shop aka 'Old Amersham Sweet Shop'. It's the loveliest little shop full of everyones favourites, which you can get in a perfect sized portion of 100g in a pink striped bag-just the way it should be!

Anyone can take part, old friends and new alike.  Maybe you entered the last competition I did?  You can see the goodies Laura won in that here.  In order to be entered all you have to do is sign up to receive my email newsletter.  Yes thats right, you don't have to follow me on Twitter to make sure you don't miss out on something I've been up to!  Genius?  I think so :-)  I send a newsletter out about once a month, maybe two if there is quite a bit happening.  Please leave a comment on this blog post to let me know when you've done this.  And please in your comment let me know which is your favourite painting!

Follow this link to be taken to the form to sign up:

NEWSLETTER

The competition shall again be judged by my hat :-) and the winner shall receive the illustration they love the most out of the 5 on this blog post.

You have a little over a week to join in and sign up :-) I shall be picking a name out of my hat next weekend, on Saturday 11th February. 

The classic original 'Great British Lolly-pop'

'Life is like a box of chocolates'

'Love Heart'

Or I think in America they're 'Double Hearts'?!

'Lucky Dip'

'Love Heart Lolly-pop'

Sweet Shop Illustration Range

I have recently taken it upon myself to do a range of illustrations for my local sweet shop, Old Amersham Sweet Shop (also because they ask very kindly when I go in and they display my illustrations above the counter).  If you are around the area I would definitely recommend stopping by to pick up 100g of your favourite sweets in a pink striped bag!

These prints will be for sale as greetings cards and also as (5x7in) prints, in the shop as well as in my Etsy shop soon!

Love Heart

The Original 'Great British' Lolly

Life is like a box of chocolates

Lucky Dip

Love Heart Lolly

Which is your favourite sweet?  Personally, I love a mix of tangy apples and milk bottles :-)