Matthew is One of Six Children...

On Friday night I met up with a friend at the preview for an exhibition of two painters - Alec Cumming and Matthew Lanyon at the Art 18/21 gallery in Norwich.

I love the paintings of Peter Lanyon - and saw the show at the Castle Museum a few years ago which had one of his last paintings...he died in a gliding accident aged only forty-six.
Matthew is one of his six children.  Read about him and see more of his Cornishly inspired work here

Alec Cumming is a young artist who works in a mid-twentieth century tradition too really.

His paintings are like abstracted still lives for me. 

They could be a blend of Patrick Heron and William Scott's paintings

It's great to see a former City College student doing so well..here

Meet New People - Learn New Stuff

Spent an inspiring day on Saturday with other emerging and published children's book writers and illustrators - a critique and networking workshop.
It was organised by other SCBWI members
Emma Graham came up from Ipswich and chatting to her was inspiring. Here's one of her drawings I liked from the portfolio she brought with her

Probably my favourite image of Emma's was Gardeners' World - take a look... Also what I learned from Emma was that you can get out there and trawl round publishers and they will have a look at your portfolio

My colleague Julia Groves was there in the morning.  She is having a very exciting time at the moment with one of her illustrations winning a recent SCBWI competition and published in an illustrated book of new writing. See what she says about it here.

I love this birdies in a tree image - lovely simple use of the textures in the print combined with the flat (digital?) grey. She knows how to leave space - something I learned from looking at Julia's work.

My work can only benefit from meeting new people, seeing their work and listening to their wise words.

In the afternoon I worked with writer Lisa Mann and author of the Adventure Island series Helen Moss to develop an idea for a picture book - so watch this space...!

Helen writes a chapter a day - for a whole month - to produce one of the books in her series... She suggested I do one illustration a day - I'd SO love to have the time! With two or three hours maximum in any one day to spend on my art work - maybe one illustration a fortnight is more realistic!! - Oh, to have an eight hour stretch in one go...

You wouldn't think they'd develop so fully...

I drew some leaf and floral shapes in a grey marker as I wanted to make a delicate repeat. 

You can see where I drew ideas for alternative flower motifs but decided against them - I cross them out so I don't get confused after I've scanned it in and I start to work digitally.

I thought the final design (shown in half drop repeat below) looked good to use as a background for some more bold motifs to sit on top...

And here it is - I gave it a subtle green ground and used it for the background for this cute little woodland creatures design

So designs can start out as something very simple.

You wouldn't think they'd develop so fully to become a design that could work alone or as part of something more complex

You've probably seen this already...?

If you like contemporary, quirky illustration, you've probably seen Gemma Correll's work. She's very lovely; based in Norwich, adores pugs and has a fab funny slightly cynical outlook on life - neatly captured in her artwork.
These pics of her studio are from her website where you can see her work and visit her shop.

Got something worth Noting?

They're here!

Lovely little A6 notebooks - for when you're at the house at Kettles Yard and just need to draw....
And you'll say I need something to note stuff down, wish I had....here's one of Annie's little notebooks, thank goodness I had this - it's PERFECT!

Or - when you see a new magazine - like oh comely or Anorak on the shelf and you can't get it today, but want to remember it so you can check it out online when you get home - there's that lovely notebook in your bag that Annie made - that's PERFECT!

Or - maybe your sister's birthday is soon and you don't live that near to her, but something sweet, unique, simple and useful that can be popped into the post would be an ideal pressie - here's a neat notebook that does the trick - PERFECT!

And I just put two sister-designs in to the printers for bigger A5 notebooks, so look out...
Enjoy the rest of the week -

Let's hope he doesn't read my blog...

I just found this lovely website and read about the brave and interesting people who create the beautiful artwork, designs and prints sold at Arthouse Meath

And I have bought this lovely letters mug for my lil'bro for his birthday...

Let's hope he doesn't read my blog!!!

Visit the website - and feel really good about buying such fantastic products!

He Could Have Been A Surface Pattern Designer

A few years ago when we visited Cockermouth as part of a holiday in Tim's parents' little campervan Audrey, I came across a small book with the most arresting sketches and paintings - a celebration of that very British art of the mid twentieth century that I feel such a connection to. They are by artist Percy Kelly - and here are a few images

'Whitewash and Brown Paint - Lovely - The Sketchbooks of Percy Kelly' is the book.
It's written by Chris Wadsworth of the Castlegate House gallery and self-published; one of several books produced.
See more images on the Percy Kelly page of the Castlegate website here

He has such a lovely sense of scale and placement and of composition - and clearly liked pattern - would have made an amazing surface pattern designer! - He died and lived most of his life in poverty as he found it really hard to bring himself to part with his work. Silly fella - plenty of people making money out of it now...

I love the work of Elaine Pamphilon and some of her paintings are reminiscent of Kelly's. 
Elaine Pamphilon has a lovely website if you want more landscape and still life inspiration here
Pamphilon lives in St Ives and Kelly stayed and worked there

And Why Circles?

A bit of doodling 

This dear little chap below sat very still like a good boy for me to make little pics of him

My oldest's friend's Mum made the dog and the dear little rabbit for my youngest. So sweet

After going out into the snow on Sunday, whilst little one was napping, I did these circles - don't ask me why!! - The colours just mixed themselves

And why circles? - Not sure but we were the first into the playpark after the snow fall and I loved the shapes of the swings and 'shop' as we call it under the slide.

Diddley-darn it I thought as I realised we hadn't brought the camera

Did You Think it was Feathers?

Me too!
Lummee Cripes - I just had to add this image - lovely!
It's called 'Zebras at the Water Hole' at the Etsy shop unitedthread paintings and illustration by the very talented Michelle from Salem in that there United of States

Right I'm off-ski to do some art stuff - to post here soon...

Interesting Inspiration-ness..

This little book is by Alison Worman - Flickr and a blog - it's called 'Small Book' and is only a tiddy 2inches by 2inches. How cute is that? The photo and the confident brush marks make it look much larger. Worman uses the motif of a headless figure often throughout her work - she's a student in the US.

This image is so sweet - just the arrangement of dots and the glimpse of a figure - or two! - hint at what might be happening.
I'll try to put links here to Alison Worman's blog  - hope this works

This makes me want to have a little teeny tiny painting session - to make iddy biddy paintings... You got any tiny art work you want me to show here? - let me know...