Drink And Draw With The Ouse Muse Poets

Last night The Circus of illustration joined forces with Ouse Muse Poetry for their open mic spoken word night. We gathered in the über-cool cellar bar at Hapurs with it's pretty vaulted ceiling. Being illustrators, we were a bit shy, so we sat at the back, trying to look inconspicuous, but the poetry regulars made us feel really welcome.

Each performer had approximately a 3 or 4 minute slot each. I decided to speed draw any imagery that was evoked from the performances straight into my sketchbook, but other illustrators took different approaches. Here's what I drew. I wasn't sure if I properly captured the sentiment of the poems.

The first performance was designed to loosen up the audience's inhibitions! Everyone was encouraged to join in with making some crazy traffic noises. Then I think there was a poem about an old painting of a woodland track, and I caught a phrase from another poem about a man with a burning back, but I couldn't be sure. I think I missed information whilst I was colouring the trees and looking for pencils!

Next up was a funny poem likening busy toddlers to little piggies in a sty. Then a poem about the rise of the worker's unions. I got distracted with it's details though, as I was doodling a toff's profile. 

I decided to quickly draw a lady who was in the audience, followed by a poem about the Norfolk landscape at night, a gardener who loved his plants but suffered from ill health, and a poem about yesterday's weather, which was incredibly windy for Bedford. 

We had a poem about a seaside pier, a poem about working in a shop (it's not that boring), and a poem about the warm nostalgia of T.V. adverts from your childhood. There was a piece about wanting to telephone someone you really like, but your stomach gets so knotted you can't go through with it. One of my favourites was a poem called "Catechism", depicted here by the Pope eating a Yorkie bar!

Kristina from the Circus even took to the stage to perform some poetry from our new fanzine, which was really brave of her! My favourite sketch came about from a poem about Amy Winehouse. There was poetry inspired by Cyprus (or was it Greece?) It was like a verbal postcard. There were musings about meeting up with a girl you fancied (she sounded cute, even with her moustache) and a poem about how being a bit fat was preferable to being dependent on some worthless bloke. Oh, and someone had a brilliant rant about Margaret Thatcher. Nice to know that there are some socialists in Bedford!

On the left is a quick sketch of Sarah, one of the readers. Her poem was so short I didn't have much time to draw her! There's Hitler and Hitler's pet, called Hitler and the final poem was a very cheeky trap. It was about the vajazzle. I didn't really want to draw that, but "give your muff a buff" was one of my favourite lines of the night.

Ouse Muse poetry night was brilliant fun! There was a great mix of spoken word styles and deliveries. There was a lot of humour and heart in all the performances. I can't wait to go to the next one. I think some of these very loose, quick sketches I've made from the night could have the potential to be worked up and finished into some interesting paintings or embroideries, so it was a good exercise for me. I never seem to get enough time to do some personal development these days.

In A Flap

Work in progress for Bunnycup

This weekend has been a good opportunity to catch up with some new doodles for Ashlea at Bunnycup. It's been ages since I've last done something. I'm working on a set of cute 1920s inspired flapper girls, which should look really sweet once they're stitched out. Pinterest has been a great source of reference as always. 

Source: host.pappapak8.com via Marisa on Pinterest

Source: theblackapple.typepad.com via Marisa on Pinterest

Source: cassieloo.polyvore.com via Marisa on Pinterest

The Circus of illustration: In the Woods

The Circus of Illustration  is a collective of local illustrators form Bedfordshire. This month we've released our first 'zine featuring illustrations from 13 Bedfordshire illustrators who have worked or exhibited with the Circus. We were working with the theme ‘In the Woods.’ Each illustrator chose a piece of text, be it a song, poem, comic or excerpt from a book and illustrated it in their own varied styles. I chose a traditional English poem about a Cuckoo. I'm not very happy with my submission, as always I was pressed for time, but at least I produced something new for the first issue.

There are limited edition copies available at out next Drink & Draw. It's on Thursday 18th April at Harpur's Wine Bar in Bedford.

For this month's D&D we're collaborating with 'Ouse Muse', a local collective of poets who host their open mic nights there. They'll be reciting poetry based on our work and we'll be live drawing during their performances.

My Sister is getting married

These are some 'Save the Date' designs for my sister, Sophie. As a joke we've changed Kevin's name to "Kalvin" on some of the samples to see if he will notice. Sophie's colour scheme is going to be coral pinks and dusky greens. I think she wants to have some succulent cactus flowers in her flower arrangements, which I think look beautiful.

Source: Uploaded by user via Sophie on Pinterest

April Bedford Clanger

April 2013 Edition of The Bedford Clanger

Close up #1

close up #2

The Bedford Clanger is a monthly local arts and culture newspaper that I do the layout and artwork for. I don't really get paid for it, so it's my way of contributing to the community using my modest skills as a designer. We promote as many art, music and community events in the area as possible.

This month, I did the the illustration for the front cover. The issue focuses on 'Bedford's DNA'. Bedfordians talk about how the local people, along with the river, the historic buildings, and our markets are one of the many things that give Bedford it's unique character.

Viking Embroidery

Recently I completed some cute Viking characters for Ashlea to embroider at Bunnycup. I was watching a Disney film called "Tangled" for inspiration. Most people with children of a certain must have seen it! It's based on the Rapunzel fairy tale and there's a really fun scene in it where she is at a rough 'n' tough inn full of viking style characters. Of course, it being a Disney film (and not Game of Thrones) she charms them with a song. Hopefully you'll find these little dudes charming too. These are some of my favourite designs!

Yesterday I watched another animation called "How to Train Your Dragon" and that was FULL of Viking characters! Shame I didn't watch that whilst I was doing these drawings.

Flipbooks In Bedford

My animation of a dancing bunny

On the 26th of March the Circus of Illustration met up for our regular Drink and Draw. We were at The Embankment in Bedford. The bar staff were really friendly and they gave us a private back-room which had more space for us to spread out with our books and pens. We also had some new attendees! They had seen our facebook page and had come along to see what we did (which, is to simply to drink and draw!)

Scarlett had a great idea to make Easter theme flipbooks. Which was fun to do in it's own right, but Onorio, being the tech wizard, had his iphone to hand. Using an app called Jittergram, he captured each frame in our 8 page flip-books and managed to animate them right there in the pub.

It was incredible seeing our drawings come to life so instantly! Above is the animation I did, powered by a pint of Bombardier. If you want to see the rest, check out The Circus of Illustration website.

Happy Easter!

Sea-horses for Bunnycup

Here are a few sea-horse designs I have done for Ashlea at Bunnycup. She will digitize my black and white illustrations ready for embroidery projects. These would look cute embroidered on bath-towels, swimming bags, children's summer holiday clothes and bath-robes!

Great Bedfordians

In the February 2013 issue of the Bedford Clanger my second illustration for Great Bedfordian, James Wyatt was published. You can read the article online here. (It's on page 9).

The Bunnycup Process

When designing illustrations for Ashlea over at Bunnycup, I take a theme and draw as many characters as I can in pencil in my sketchbook. I research the theme by looking at google images, Pinterest and going to my local library. Sometimes animations are full of inspiration too! With the vikings I watched a Disney film called 'Tangled' which had loads of cute barbarian-esque characters in it!

 I pick my favourite 12 and scan them into my computer. In Photoshop I isolate each design and resize it to 4x4 inches, the same size as the embroidery hoop for Bunnycup's embroiderers.

The enlarged sketch is taken into Illustrator; software that draws in vector lines. Here I trace over my sketch. It can create really crisp lines which don't loose detail if I need to shrink or enlarge parts of my design. The lines can be duplicated and reflected to make symmetrical parts of the image quickly and accurately.

Then I take the vector lines back into Photoshop to convert into a greyscale jpeg file. I do this for each of the 12 images in the set. I email them over to Ashlea and they get digitized for embroidery machine.

At the moment I am working in my sketchbook on a set of seahorses and some cute 1920s flapper girls.

Easy Pop Up Card Tutorial

This is one of the easiest ways I've seen to make a really quick but cute homemade pop-up card.

Cut out your images or photos. I used one of my own dinosaur digi-stamps. I printed him out on my home printer onto some sturdy paper.

Next colour him in. For the cute handmade touch I painted him in watercolours.

Then I added some glitter glue to give him a bit of sparkle.

Get some pretty card, fold it in half and mark out in pencil the boxes where you want your characters to go. They can be any width you like, but make sure the length is equal distance from the centre fold or your card won't close flat.  Cut (with a scalpel or craft knife) the lines perpendicular to the centre fold.

Then ease the flaps out. *Gasps!* It's 3D! Exciting huh? Keep those folds nice and crisp!

When your paint dries, stick your little dude on to the 3D tabs you've made.

It's tempting to open and close your card over and over again at this point because it looks darn fab!

Those ugly gaps need covering, so glue another piece of patterned paper that is the same size as your card over the back.

Alright! Now you can decorate the front if you want, and write your message on the inside. ROAR!  

'Papercutes'... What Do You think?

My viking digi stamps in colour

I've been looking at a lot of digital stamp websites as I've been wondering if my characters would be any good to sell as downloads to crafters who want to use characters in their papercrafts. I was thinking of opening an Etsy store. It was going to be called The Cute Arcade, but I've changed my mind and I think I prefer Papercutes now.

Just print them out at home and use them in your paper crafts

Digi stamps are like clipart (but loads better in quality!). You get a jpeg file to your desktop and you print the images on your home printer.

A digi stamp viking as a gift tag

You could use the characters in loads of creative ways... Not just in homemade cards and invitations, but in tags, sweet boxes, place names... I've tried a few things below. I even made a pop up card with one of my dinosaur illustrations, which I hand painted (tutorial to follow later this week!).

Some of my digi stamps that I've been playing with

You get a colour and a black and white version

I've even seen some sellers who sell line drawings because stampers like to colour the images in their own way with watercolour or pencil crayon. What do you think? Would people be prepared to pay a few pounds for a jpeg? It seems strange, you can't even hold it! Is an Etsy shop the best place to start? I don't want to sell for commercial use, just for home use and for small profit like to makers at craft fairs. I'd love some feedback!

The Cute Arcade

The Cute Arcade?! What on earth is that?! Well, it's a new project I'm tentatively working on... A mix of cute illustrations and paper crafts. I can't wait to tell you all about it soon. Now I really must go and make some jam tarts!