The Circus of Illustration Goes All 1950s at Bedpop.

Tickets are now available for Dress-Up Drawing, the exciting new collaboration between The Circus of Illustration, Bedpop Art School, Sarah's Doo-Wop Dos, Rose-tinted Vintage and Narnia Fancy Dress. These local organisations have clubbed together to arrange an exciting day (Saturday 17th May) of Dress-Up themed drawing activities culminating in an evening arty-partying with Vintage Life Drawing (led by Kristian Purcell) and drink and draw shenanigans with The Circus of Illustration. We would love for you to join in the festivities! Get tickets here! It's bring your own boozes, so let's do this!

Dress-Up Drawing also coincides with the opening of our Vintage Exhibition. It will be open every weekend until June 8th. Here's a VERY exclusive preview!

Simon Abbott's 1950s 'Bedford Pub' series

My 1950s embroiderd Sodapop Girl

Simon & Kristian admire Katie Allen's beautiful artwork

The incredible Agent Melon

Andrew Foster's work is bright, colourful and bloody amazing. 

Share your thoughts on our comments blackboard

My 1950s Diner and cafe scene

Kristian Purcell has recently been exhibiting at the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas

Andrew Foster's romantic diner illustrations. So cute!

April Drink and Draw

Yesterday, The Circus of Illustration met up at The Three Cups pub in Bedford for our monthly Drink Draw. This month's activity was collaborative drawing. Click the link to see a full photo album of our Drink and Draw

1950s Illustration Exhibition at Bedpop

At the Diner 

At the Cafe

The Circus of Illustration have been given the opportunity to curate an exhibition in the Bedpop pop up shop on Bedford High Street. The opening date is on Saturday 17th May 2014.

We're predominantly looking for works of a mid-century flavour... Think 1950s fashion, diners, drive-thrus and juke boxes! We are looking for general work too, but the key focus of the exhibition will be on this vintage theme. The only criteria for acceptance is that we think it’s good! 

I've done a series especially for the new exhibition: 'At the Diner' and 'At the Cafe'. I am seriously contemplating a third piece called 'At the Drive-Thru' (in honour of one of my favourite bands ever), but I think I'm running out of time!

This exhibition will coincide with an amazing vintage 'Dress-up Drawing' evening workshop with 50's styled models in an extra special life-drawing event, as well as music and drawing games in the BedPop shop. There will also be a kid friendly 'Dress-Up Drawing' event that afternoon too with a fancy dress box and face painting for the little ones to get involved in. 

All the info on how to book is on the BedPop Art School  facebook page

If you have work you’d like to showcase, please send us images and descriptions of your work by email to bedfordshireillustrators@gmail.com.

The installation date is 11th May 2014, and therefore the CLOSING DATE FOR SUBMISSIONS is MONDAY 5th MAY.

There is no charge for submissions, however you will be required to drop off and collect your work or cover cost of postage (both ways). We're really looking forward to hearing from you!

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!

The Drawing Room: My Thoughts

Photos By Andrew Foster. Wanna see more? Check out The Circus of illustration facebook page.

We made it as democratic as possible, which funnily enough resulted in what looks like anarchy. It was free to join in and the only rules were no swears and no saucy body parts (the rule was broken, but David used his skills to transform the offending article into an elephant). People of all ages, cultures and abilities got stuck in together. Families and individuals arrived to find a welcoming lively creative space. 

The room was a shop front, so passing pedestrians would stop, and have a good look at the hustle and bustle of the spectacle inside. Some were intrigued enough to join in and find out more, others took photos. The public seemed genuinely amused with what was happening.

PHEW! It got so hot in there! The south facing glass frontage magnified the heat of the warm September sun. The smell of marker pens mixed with the odour of busy bodies wasn't exactly fragrant, but it didn't seem to bother anyone. Everyone who participated did so with much enthusiasm.

The naughtiness of drawing on walls and furniture, activities that are usually strictly forbidden at home really delighted the children who took part. 

We couldn't control what or where stuff was being drawn, so it was a surprise to walk around the room once the shop was emptied. So many little details (a beautifully swirly table leg), and written messages ('Paul Young woz here'), and naughtiness (a catheter attached to a whoopee cushion) and odd characters (a cloud throwing up a rainbow) were discovered.

The day was a huge success. The final head count was almost 250 people over the 6 hours the pop-up shop was open for.

If you want to see the fun results of a day of collaborative buzzing doodling energy, the Drawing Room is at 24 Mill Street in Bedford until 23rd of September. It's opened to go into on Saturday 22nd where you can check out Anne-Marie Stijelja's Mail Art  exhibition in the adjacent room!

Finally, a HUGE THANK YOU goes out to Kayte Judge of We Are Bedford. For the Circus, putting on this event has been a doddle compared to all the boring admin, fine-tuning and stressful meetings required for organising these empty shop projects. The behind the scenes work shouldn't go unnoticed and it's not easy to do. So Kayte, on behalf of the Circus of Illustration, we salute you. Thanks for giving us this opportunity to put on our illustration show for Bedford.

Circus of Illustration

The Circus of Illustration is an illustration group I belong to in Bedford. We are professional doodlers who meet up once a month for a chit-chat and to plan workshops in our area. We assign each other little drawing tasks too. This month we had to draw each other. We picked a name from a hat and I got Katy Dynes, aka Kitty Dinners! She's the smiley funny red-head of the group.