Sunday, November 28

New Brooches






At uni we were taught to use the laser cutter and since then my lovely friend Nikki and I have been cutting out a few shapes. We've actually been gearing up for the Mill Road Winter Fair which is this Saturday but we had time to cut a few brooches for ourselves too.

I'll be listing some perspex shapes over the next couple of weeks too, but here are some wooden goodies to get your teeth into! These are now in the shop.

Saturday, November 27

1 hour













Saturdays have lately become days in which I chain myself to my desk and get some serious Dissertation work done. Today however, I escaped the house for a clear hour to go to a jumble sale. I hadn't been expecting it to be any good but found a few pretty things - the fabric is so bright isn't it great?

Tomorrow I will be listing some new things in my much-neglected Etsy shop. Exciting things!

Hope you're having a great weekend, and have some snow!

Monday, November 15

Cakestand!



I made a cakestand out of bits of spare crockery, isn't it sweet? 

The turquoise saucer is melamine by Texas Ware, the middle plate is by Royal Doulton and the dinner plate by Meakin. I thought it would be nice to see the designs in the centre of the plates so I used glasses instead of cups and the stripey base is an upturned (and rather chipped - so happy to upcycle) sugarbowl by Hornsea. 

We've been laser-cutting at uni for the Mill Road Winter Fair (a huge arts, crafts, food and local culture street fair held in early December in Cambridge) as we have a stall to raise money for our Degree Show. I'm so excited to display our line of brooches on this here cakestand. Yum!


Friday, November 12

The Lost Mariner







These are the images I've been working on for my latest uni brief - Oliver Sacks' The Lost Mariner, a case study from The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. 

Jimmy G, the character in the story has amnesia that has wiped all memory from the age of 19 to 49, at which point he arrives at the residential home where Sacks works as a neurologist. He has short-term memory of just a few minutes but remembers his youth and life on a navy submarine in 1945 as if it were the present. He struggles to find any long-term interest in games and puzzles (at which he is adept) and remembers little from one day to the next - a kind of limbo. This is until he finds gardening and chapel, which fulfil him on a higher level and hold his attention, giving his existence some meaning. 

It was a really interesting read but not an easy thing to illustrate! I wanted to go for a kind of vintage textbook feel, to suit both the era that the story was set and to entertain myself. I decided on an abstract way of handling the equally abstract themes, and although I realise the images don't do much on their own, I hope they add something to the text.



Tuesday, November 9

Vintage goodness









I picked up this cute set of children's books on Ebay recently. They're all written by Irene Dark (brilliant name) and I really like that each is illustrated by someone different. Another interesting thing that my friend pointed out is that next to their credit at the front, most say "Birmingham School of Design",which I can't find any evidence of on google. I wonder if they were students, and what happened to the school...