Fab Felt Find!

Just thought I'd post this picture of one of Sarah's recent finds. Whilst growing up Fuzzy Felt was always a favourite of mine. I love everything about the design on this box!

the bold colours, the typefaces, but especially the character in the hat on the right. I would definitely want to be friends with some one like him - I bet we would have some crazy adventures!

Makey Makey!

We are running a series of craft workshops for adults at Worthing Museum and Art Gallery

every Saturday from the 29th of September. we sure are looking forward to them.

They should be a lot of fun, Hope some of you can make it!

Workshops in Worthing!

We will be running some workhops based on old Sussex Folklore including the

Knucker Dragon and the Midsummer Oak tree at Worthing Museum and Art Gallery

during August. The activities we will be covering are: shadow puppets, mobiles, masks

and 3D paper dioramas.

They should be a lot of fun, we hope some of you can make it!

P.S. These will be our first ever workshops so we are equally nervous and excited!

Wonder Wall

I have been meaning to post a pic of this wall for a while. It's on the side of an office near where we live in Lancing. Its a really nice example of 60's mosiac and a seemingly rare survivor. All too frequently decor from this era seems to be torn down and replaced with the latest idea of 'modern'.

You can't really tell the scale from the photo but its about 8ft by 5ft. I think its a really fun and quirky design, I'm not sure of the relevence of George and the Dragon though!

Coming soon...

Heres a quick round up of forthcoming events that i'm involved in...

Toovey's Contemporary Art Auction
Toovey's hold annual sales of contemporary art at auction at their Spring Gardens
salerooms in Washington. The work will be displayed at Horsham Museum and Art
Gallery from 1st June to 7th July in their preview exhibition 'Off The Wall'

I have three large paper-cut pictures in the auction. It was great to be asked to take
part with so many other great artists, it will be exciting and nerve wracking on the
day of the auction.

for more info please see here:
http://www.tooveys.com/cat-overview.asp?CATID=27

and here:
http://www.horshammuseum.org/

Rye Art Gallery Summer show
Opening in early July. Details to follow shortly!

'Crafted' Exhibition at Huyton Art Gallery, Knowsley 16 July - 7 October
'Crafted is a celebration of contemporary craft makers, with particular emphasis
on innovative design practices'

I have four small paper-cut pictures in the show.I was really chuffed to be asked
to take part in this and I hope it goes well for everyone involved with it.

for more info please see here:
www.knowsley.gov.uk/things-to-see-and-do/exhibitions.aspx

And finally I'm really pleased to say that the Quay Arts Centre Craft Shop now stock
a small range of my items including the Apple and Worm and the Cheese
with removable mouse models pictured above.

for more onfo please see here:
http://www.quayarts.org/about_quay_arts.aspx

Northampton Museum: 'Telling Tales' on now!

The thing that has probably taken up the most of our time recently is producing all the work for what is probably our biggest exhibition yet.

Its on at Northampton Museum and Art Gallery from the 9th June to the 5th August.

A brief description:

Models, papercut pictures and embellished photographs combine to tell the story of a missing Prince lost deep in mysterious woods. Inspired by the rich variety of local tales and legends associated with Northamptonshire.

Most of the work in the show is for sale, and there is something to suit all budgets.

Entry to the Museum is free, its a fun and family oriented venue so if you are in the area its well worth checking out (or even if you are not!)

We wrote the story the exhibition is based around ourselves by selecting our  favourite elements from various Northamptonshire Folklore and Legends and then wrote a new story linking them all.
It was a lot of fun to do, but really hard to edit down, our original story was waaay too long!

It was a lot of work but the exhibition looks really good, and we're really please with it.
I even got photographed for the Northamton Chronicle, now theres a claim to fame!

We hope some of you can make it down there!

P.S. One of my Sleepy rabbits had a little adventure before the exhibition began.

You can find out what he got upto here:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.439000582791207.108688.238636039494330&type=1

Return to sender...

I recently entered the 'Worthing Tourist Board Design a Postcard Competition'
after only finding out about it the evening before the competition deadline!

I managed to come up with the design below in under a couple of hours. I didn't win which was a little disappointing but I am still pretty pleased with how the design turned out.
There's nothing like a retro looking Sun to cheer you up!

The winning entry by Erica Sturla was really good though and it will now be printed up into a bona fide postcard for sale in the Worthing Tourist Information Centre.

Our Adventures in Anorak!

Hello! we're back after a bit of a break!

Things have been a bit of a blur since our first baby 'Charley' arrived back in February :-)

But we are just about on top of things now and ready to get back into regular Blog updates!

Apart from changing a mini mountain of nappies we've also been super busy with a whole
load of other projects which I will write about soon.

The first of which is Our Adventures in Anorak!

Yup, thats right you can see a whole weeks worth of our adventures in the latest issue of the awesome Anorak magazine (or you can look below, but I would still urge you to buy the magazine as it is a real treat for the eyes)

 I had intended it to be a double page spread allowing readers to fill in their own adventures on the next page but due to a lack of space sadly they could only print the one page.

Nifty Nooks

Our study is always the wrong side of tidy and trying to tidy it is usually a pretty fruitless exercise, resulting in me moving objects from one side of the room to other, with no visible improvement afterwards.

A couple of Birthdays ago, in an attempt to curb the clutter, Sarah got me the storage unit pictured below. I've always liked alcove storage units ever since seeing the film Labyrinth as a child and noticing the one the heroine Sarah has in her bedroom.

But instead of providing a storage solution it has become home to all manner of things, including a Groke, a shrivelled parsnip piece, and a duck call, oh well.

P.S. I know the year date on the clock is wrong but I keep forgetting to change it!

Our Latest Adventure...

'We capered in the Catacombs'

Please note:

Catacomb capering should only be done under adult supervision and with the Catacomb owners permission.

Odd Activities for Strange Children

What do you give that 'difficult to buy for' strange person in your life?
The book of 'Strange things to do and make' of course!
Published in 1976 by Puffin.

Although I'm not sure that giving this book to someone who is already feeling a little socially ostracised is going to make them feel any better or help them to become any more popular!

but it might just help them to cure their warts...

 'Fish prints' guaranteed to stink your house out...

Readers are even encouraged to dabble with the occult, by making their own Ouji Board...

The Pyramid power experiment is my favourite, the wording is brilliant:
'the second piece of meat can lie outside the pyramid on a piece of paper. Leave it all in place and don't let anything be touched for about a week' (yeah right!) The meat outside the pyramid will be hard and smelly then (yippee!) See if the piece on the platform is rotten too' (oh I do hope so!) ..'you could then use the shape as a special tomb for a small animal...' (who wouldn't want a super stinky indoor pet tomb on their bedside table??)

This book was an unexpected find in a second hand book shop, and I had fun reading it. Even if by todays standards it is a little extreme. I can't imagine many parents actively encouraging their bored offspring to 'stop moping about the house' on a rainy day and 'go play with the dark arts instead' or allow them to use rotting meat as a play thing!

Are you liking my Viking?

There is a really nice glass shop in Rye which sells a lot of 60's and 70's items, including Kosta Boda Scandanavian glass which we both really like. On one of our yearly trips to Rye to drop off some of my artwork to Rye Art Gallery we called into the glass shop and found this striking and stoic fellow, staring moodily into the middle distance. Perhaps he was wondering how he could go about his pillaging without a longboat to get about in....

Well as luck would have it, we hadn't walked more than 5 minutes down the road when we called into Rye village hall to check out a bric a brac sale that was going on, and lo and behold almost as soon as we walked in we spotted his long boat....

We were very happy to be able to reunite them. Here they are, together again! ready to go off for a quick spot of pillaging before tea time. (Once the Viking has finished his brooding that is)

Handmade Mr Fox

I try to make something for Sarah every xmas (usually finishing whatever it is i'm making for her in a flurry of panic late on Christmas eve) The image below is of my effort from a couple of xmas's ago. The wood it's painted onto is a smallish piece of victorian floorboard which has got a nice scuffed and worn feel to it. I don't paint very often, so I was pretty pleased with how this turned out. So much so that I went out and bought a load more floorboard 'bits' from the wood reclamation yard (which are now buried somewhere in the study waiting to be rediscovered!)

Retro-shop 'til you drop!

This is a book I found a while ago called 'Lets go to the shops' its to give small children an idea of what to expect when they venture out onto the high street, but after looking at this book children might be thinking 'I don't want to go to the shops!' because the photos are all really gloomy and all the people in them look pretty fed up!

from the flyleaf:
'This book tells young readers about the many widely varied items they will see that can make an everyday visit to their local shopping centre an eye-opener'

well I probably wouldn't go that far! it goes on to say:

'Also explained is the difference between the friendly corner shop and the efficient but possibly impersonal self-service store'

A tad bias, but I would definately agree, keep it local and independent anyday!

Although Sarah and myself are children of the 80's and this book was published in 1976 it still brings back a lot of fond memories for me as the high street shown in the book doesn't vary greatly from the one I was dragged along on a Saturday morning.

I'm loving the pencil moustache on mr.sweetie man! also the shop on the opposite page has possibly the worst window display ever! - a piece of outdoor garden trellis and what looks like a small explosion of childrens clothing sprayed up the far wall, barmy!

The shop on the left sells 'calculator machines', which I imagine were probably the size of a small washing machine, had wheels on the bottom, flashing lights and a robot voice.
Also check out 'Mr Burt' on the right looking super sauve to the max with his whopping lapels, ace!

I have to admit I did geek out a little bit trying to spot what toys they had in the window of the toy shop...

Nice Nursery Rhymes

These scans come from a recent Oxfam Book shop find. Printed in 1967 and with charming illustrations including endpapers by Jenny Williams it was a really nice find.

Prove it! - Science stylee!

These are a few scans from a 'Science I CAN READ' Book that I found a couple of years ago in a second hand book shop. It has some really nice minimal line outline drawings and a great restrained use of colour by the illustrator Talivaldis Stubis.
It was printed in 1963.

I like the plot suggestion they come up with for your magnetic puppet show:
'Make the man chase the dog into the house,
then make the dog chase the man at the end of the show.
At the end of the show, let them be friends'
I also like how the two children in the background are getting wildly over excited by the story too!

A pattern emerging

Recently I started becoming really interested in pattern and pattern making. It wasn't something I had really thought much about before until I was playing with some elements form an illustration that I had just finished for Okido magazine, just copying and pasting things to fill an area by tessalating all the bits. It was surprisingly satisfying and fun!
before long I was scouring my computer for old illustration parts, and bits and bobs that I could put together in new ways. I'm not sure what to do with them yet, but I think they would look nice as fabric maybe in a childs bedroom, or possibly as wrapping paper. Heres a selection of them:

Completely potty

I've got lots of 'modern' ceramic books from the 60's and 70's full of groovy and original creations, complete with pictures of introspective / moody looking potters all gazing into space whilst sporting some pretty impressive facial hair. Whenever i'm low on inspiration I have a  flick through them, whats surprising is just how modern and strikingly 'new' some of the designs still look. I thought i'd post a few pics from one of them.

Some very sweet and slightly camera shy clay jars...

I'm including this one, not because its ever so slightly rude, but because its a very very clever design!

These two are upto something, their vacant expressions are fooling no one...

Some very cool looking zodiac signs

lots and lots of little faces all looking at you...