Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with Lydia Coventry: Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion featured artist.

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Lydia Coventry contributes a super fun bird-filled image for Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion. She tells us more about life as a designer at Macmillan Children’s books, and the colourful influence of Oilily.

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Why did you choose to study at Plymouth University and what was the best part of your course?
It’s a funny story actually, I had never visited Plymouth before applying – I knew it was by the sea and that was a bonus alone! I applied to a range of different universities and when I was called for an interview at Plymouth that was my time to explore. Not only did the Illustration course sound fantastic, Plymouth itself just felt . . . right. I think the best part was probably the skills, knowledge and confidence I developed there but also the people I met. I met my boyfriend and some of the best friends I’ve ever had there. To have like-minded people studying with you is just the best feeling!

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How did you get your job at Macmillan Children’s books and what is most enjoyable about your job?
I just finished my Illustration course, and my boyfriend had just started working at publishers Profile Books in London. So I had an extra month alone in our Plymouth flat before I would need to move out. I was constantly looking online for design jobs (well any job really!) and then I came across an amazing advert on The Bookseller for an Assistant Designer. I love absolutely everything about my job, I’ve learnt so much since I started and not just in terms of software but the actual production of a book. You never realise how much hard work and how many people are involved in the production, it has been such a fantastic experience. It’s also incredibly rewarding working with talented Illustrators, which has really helped me develop – every day I’m inspired.

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How have you been building up your portfolio in the past year?
It sounds silly but I’ve been trying to draw exactly what I want to draw and when I want to draw it. The nice thing about finishing University is the freedom. I was so used to working on a brief, researching and drawing constantly to meet a deadline – it felt a bit robotic and at times forced, I didn’t have time to develop my drawing skills as much as I wanted. When I finished I wanted to get control back and just doodle away without thinking which is exactly what I have been doing this year. My next step is to take my doodles and develop them into a project or final stand alone pieces, which I’m really looking forward to.

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What is your favourite way to work?
I love being as free as I can when drawing. I don’t really think about anything else whilst doodling and I have found that approach to be the most effective. I love using collage and ink brush pens, I find that they really help with the looseness of my lines and colour. I also love using colouring pencils and wax crayons. I tend to work in layers then combine them in Photoshop, I think experimentation and playfulness is key, I love not knowing exactly what the end result will look like.

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What was the brief for the recent Ohh Deer competition that you entered and what was the outcome?
Ohh Deer always have such fabulous competitions! Recently they were on the look out for designs which they could add to their greeting card collection. They were looking for something fresh but something that would also fit in with their cute and quirky brand. I remembered a little doodle I did while at Uni; it was something a bit soppy I did for my boyfriend and I thought it was something cute that other people could relate too, so I entered it! I was very lucky to win along with 9 others whose cards have been added to their collection.

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Where and how did your love of colour and pattern begin?
My mum has played a huge part with my love for colour and pattern! From a young age I grew up with her love for the gorgeous Dutch brand – Oilily. She dressed myself and my siblings in it for years (until we got to the age when we wanted to just wear denim to her dismay). I have always been incredibly fond of their eye for detail, and their wacky colour combinations are so quirky and inspiring. I have been very lucky to inherit her love for the brand, which has really helped my confidence for using colour.

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What inspired your artwork for my colouring book?
I absolutely love colour, texture and character design so this was the perfect brief to fuse them together. This piece focuses on my love for nature depicting beautifully coloured birds of paradise allowing for the ‘colourer’ to explore any combination of colours they wish. Within this scene nothing needs to be an ordinary colour, not even the plantlife, as a rich diverse Jungle can offer a huge variety of colours!

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What do you find most exciting about the prospect of your work appearing in the colouring book?
I’m really thrilled to be appearing in the colouring book. I am eager to see what colours/patterns people use when they colour in my page. I love not knowing what the end result will look like so that is something to really look forward too!

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What do you do to unwind and does it ever influence your designs?
Oh it definitely influences my work! I love watching old movies and cartoons I grew up with like ‘The Secret Garden’, ‘Breakfast at Tiffanys’ and ‘Madeline’ (based on the original illustrations by Ludwig Bemelmans). I am constantly on the look out for inspiration whether it be the clothes they wear, the expression in a face, the flowers in a certain scene – it all pops up in my work one way or another. It’s also a must to take time out of work and just relax, I love going to the cinema, watching old movies, sewing, and spending time with my family and friends.

Lydia Coventry is featured in Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, jam-packed with artistic talent, and available on Kickstarter soon!

Categories ,#ameliasccc, ,Adult Coloring Book, ,Adult Colouring Book, ,Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, ,Coloring, ,Coloring Book, ,Colouring, ,Colouring Book, ,illustration, ,Kickstarter, ,Ludwig Bemelmans, ,Lydia Coventry, ,Macmillan Children’s Books, ,Ohh Deer, ,Oilily, ,Plymouth University, ,Profile Books

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Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with Ana Jaks: Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion featured artist.

ANAJAKS-FigurePracticeInspiredbyHoliday_Season
I found Ana Jaks at New Designers, where she was also discovered by the likes of Creative Review. She contributes a bold design for Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion inspired by recent holidays.

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What did you learn and how did you develop as an artist at university?
I’m a recent graduate who studied illustration at Falmouth University which was probably one of the best environments anyone could ever ask to develop in. Before going to university I already had a very set drawing style which was mainly black and white and was all done in fine liner with barely any colour – it had more of a fine art feel to it than illustration, and being at Falmouth meant I had to break that down, strip everything back and start again. This did prove to be a massive struggle for me and at one point I didn’t think I was good enough to continue the course but the tutors there are honestly some of the most supportive I have ever been around and they really taught me how to use colour and not be afraid to take risks and so I really embraced my time there and I honestly don’t think I could have developed the style I did if it wasn’t for being there.

ANAJAKS-NY
What was the best part about studying at Falmouth Uni?
The best part about being there meant going to New York and showing massive clients like Vice and 3×3 your work, where you would get really focused feedback and as soon as I got back to the UK I took it all on board and tried to really bring my work together a lot more and realised how inspiring architecture is, which is why I created my New York piece. This piece of work really felt like a landmark for me, it was finally something that I thought “yes this is how I want my work to look to an audience.”

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I found your work at New Designers, what was the most exciting bit to come out of your show there?
The Selfie Phenomenon, which was a project I showed at both New Designers and New Blood, and was fortunately lucky enough to be chosen by the Creative Review and JCDecaux’s Talent Spotting Showcase 2015 where 20 graduates got chosen to have their work shown nationwide. I thought I would include this in the images I have sent to you because it was one of the most exciting things to have happened straight after finishing my degree and seemed somewhat unbelievable. 

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What recent projects have you been working on?
Recently I have been working on an image for a collaborative project to do with helping the environment and focuses around the idea of stopping people from using plastic bags and so instead are selling tote bags for a pound in order to get people to help the environment. I was invited to design an image for the tote bags which involved me drawing animals which is really something I never do and so it was quite interesting for me I suppose? I usually stick to buildings, figures and environments as it’s something I much prefer but this was actually really fun!

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What areas of illustration do you hope to work on in the future?
My main interests lie in editorial because I always think you manage to get the most interesting images out of them. I also really love fashion and so the idea of being able to work on advertising campaigns with some sort of fashion house would be my absolute dream. Anything that I can apply bright colour, pattern, shape and an element of design to is perfect for me and I’ve even found that children’s books (although not what I had originally expected to like) are something I could really see myself enjoying.

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How did you become a member of YCN and what have you been commissioned for as a result of being on the website?
I am currently a member of YCN and am lucky enough to have my portfolio showcased on their website which has meant I am able to say my first ever commission was for the Financial Times Magazine which was amazing. It was an article about Gastropubs and so I had to draw pubs and food which was bloody great as they are both things I love! This was really important for me as it really gave me a taste of how the professional world worked in terms of being a freelance illustrator.

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What inspired your double page for my book?
My colouring book pages for you were inspired by my summer holiday I had in summer. I wanted each page to contain an element I enjoyed most about the holiday, which is obviously why there is just one page full of people lying down doing nothing because I felt like I’d been on my feet for a full 3 years doing my degree and being able to do nothing for 2 weeks was bliss haha. When I was drawing this image it was the first time in quite a while that I had actually gone back to hardcore drawing and it was really good for me because it meant I pushed myself a lot on what I was doing. The other half of the image that is in black and white of the buildings is supposed to be the part I enjoy most which is walking around and discovering things – I actually much prefer this page and can’t wait to see how people colour it in!

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How does your interest in social media materialise in your work?
Being on holiday also inspired me to draw other images like tourists flouncing around trying to maniacally take pictures of everything but not really looking at anything. Social media is a big thing for me and my work and a lot of focus tends to lie around it. It’s interesting because we are obviously in a day and age where it can be detrimental to a creative’s career, but then you see how much it takes over some peoples lives and I love trying to wrap my head around it and create solutions to it through illustration.

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How do you try and evolve your style?
I am constantly trying to recreate and evolve my style because I think it’s incredibly important not to get stuck or comfortable in what you’re doing and so I always try and develop the way I draw the figure. Fashion has a huge influence on how I create my pictures and so I always try and do portraits just as little fun experiments! It’s also good to do just to let everyone know you are still working, because I want the world to know I am still drawing and I am still enjoying it and that I am really serious about it all and not just getting lazy, but it does get hard difficult running out of inspiration.

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What are you working on next?
I have plans for an upcoming project which I don’t want to reveal just yet but I feel like it’s something a lot of people my age can relate to. I tried for ages to think about something that would be “cool” or “appealing” or about something I love. It’s hard to stay inspired straight after your degree and I think it’s a really important time to keep pushing – especially when you are just working a job you don’t want to be to pay the bills. Ideally I would love to work freelance and be working within a company too.

You can colour Ana Jaks‘ art in Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion alongside that of 40 other international artists. Funding on Kickstarter now! Make sure you grab a copy or two, it makes a fantastic Christmas gift!

Categories ,#ameliasccc, ,Adult Colouring, ,Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, ,Ana Jaks, ,Coloring, ,Colouring Book, ,Creative Review, ,Falmouth University, ,Financial Times Magazine, ,Holiday, ,illustration, ,interview, ,JCDecaux’s Talent Spotting Showcase 2015, ,New Blood, ,New Designers, ,The Selfie Phenomenon, ,YCN

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Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with María Andrea Miranda Serna: Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion featured artist.

Maria Andrea Serna
María Andrea Miranda Serna is a Colombian illustrator and artist inspired by the minutae of our personal environments. Her delightful artworks are chock full of intricate detail from contemporary life and she has even imagined a wonderful story for the illustration she has made for Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion.

María Andrea Miranda Serna
You have said your work is inspired by every day objects and spaces – where do you find inspiration for your intricate environments?
I believe artsits have naturally wide open eyes, I mean we are always looking at the things are around us. So most of the spaces I create for my illustration are collages of things that I have at my house, that I see in movies, in magazines and books, in the internet and basically wherever I go. I’ve realized I’m also interested in achiving that kind of eclecticness on my images, not only because I like it but because I think its important to connect with different audiences. I want my images to work elsewhere the same way they work in Colombia.

María Andrea Miranda Serna
How do you like to work?
Most of the time I work at home in my bedroom where I have a table full of things I need to produce my images: paper, pencils, watercolors, brushes, etc. This means that my room is the place where I spend most of the time and it’s always completely full of different other things. Not only the things that I use to draw, as I’ve said before, there are also things from my everyday life, like hair brushes, shoes, my clothes, and of course my bed. Maybe that’s why I’m so interested in objects and details in every of my images, because most of the time I feel exactly like any of the characters of my illustrations.

María Andrea Miranda Serna
What is happening in the illustration you have made for my colouring book?
In the case of your colouring book I thought it would be nice to write a story and give the image a kind of narrative sequence. So to answer your question I would like to share the small story I wrote for it:
Mary’s mom was impressed. She was in the first floor of the house washing the dishes, when she suddenly heard her daughter making the sounds of the animals that she was always playing with. That wasn’t the weird part, Mary always makes those sounds when she plays but this time they were not the same, they were extremely life like. She could even hear the paws and claws knocking her ceiling. But after a few seconds of amusement and a tiny smile she went back to those dishes. What she didn’t know was that those noises didn’t come from her girl, in Mary’s room the pieces of plastic that look so much like the thing they represent were becoming real right in front of Mary’s eyes. In fact, she couldn’t make any sounds, she was just sitting there hopping for them not to turn back to what they originally were.

María Andrea Miranda Serna
Why do you think you are so drawn to images of solitude?
I’m not quite sure but I believe it must be related to the fact that in our generation (or maybe just me) we spend a lot of time alone and specifically in my case I’m always working in my room/studio. It might be because it is the way I relate with space and that is reflected in every image I create.

María Andrea Miranda Serna
What was the best thing about your BA in Visual Arts?
Well, I think the one of the best things about my BA in Visual Arts was that the program is extremely open to different disciplines within the art world. In my particular case, especially at the beginning of my career, I was able to learn about audiovisual art and I learned how to think in terms of narrative and in images with full details and characters. Later on I became interested in drawing and illustration, and in the multiple techniques of this discipline, such as screen print, engraving and etching. So I have been able to combine everything to create narrative images full with detail and atmosphere.

María Andrea Miranda Serna
María Andrea Miranda Serna
How easy is it to make a career as an illustrator in Columbia?
It is not easy because there are a lot of young talented artists to “compete” with and not so many scenarios to show your work. Even if you’re able to publish your work in books or magazines it is not common to be well paid. Non the less, there are new small spaces that are trying to show emerging and young artists and illustrators, so the scene is growing.

María Andrea Miranda Serna
How important is it to make contacts abroad for work and how do you set about making them?
I think this question is connected with the previous one due to the fact that the market in Colombia is really small and it’s barely growing, artists like me always have to be pay attention to what’s going on around the world. Luckily for us nowadays that task is much easier since the whole world fits into the little screen of a computer and phones. So I’m always connecting with people around the world through social media and the internet. Just like you and I; you invited me to submit to this project through Instagram.

María Andrea Miranda Serna
María Andrea Miranda Serna
Can you tell us more about your “dduoo” project? The images you have shared online are beautiful, but very different to your illustration work.
Thank you! dduoo is a project that I founded with my partner and because of this collaboration we try to combine our different styles and interest to have one unique and balanced result. Anyway, I believe that there’s a lot of me and my work, not literally in the images, but within the use of colour and palettes, composition and design. I’m trying as well to explore new and different things: sculpture and 3D objects plus screen printing and textiles.

María Andrea Miranda Serna
What other projects are you pursuing at the moment?
At the moment I’m trying expand my BA thesis project called ‘Universos Domésticos‘ (Domestic Universes), it’s more of what I’ve been doing. New scenes, new characters, new situations where I hope people can see a reflection of their own reality, their own everyday life and objects.

Artwork by María Andrea Miranda Serna is found in my new book Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, available now on Kickstarter here.

Categories ,#ameliasccc, ,Adult Coloring Book, ,Adult Colouring Book, ,Bogotá, ,Colombia, ,Coloring Book, ,Colouring Book, ,dduoo, ,Domestic Universes, ,illustration, ,instagram, ,interview, ,Kickstarter, ,María Andrea Miranda Serna, ,Pontifica Universidad Javeriana, ,Universos Domésticos, ,Visual Arts

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Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with Augusta Akerman: Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion featured artist.

Augusta Akerman 'a section of my first litho print'
Augusta Akerman is yes, you got it, yet another Camberwell College of Arts graduate. She contributes a painterly image to my colouring book inspired by a love of 50s modernism. Find her in Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, available now on Kickstarter.

Augusta Akerman 'Couples and Technology'
I love the way you draw figures, which artists have inspired you? I think they look very Henry Moore-esue
Yes you are very right! I have always been very inspired by that particular period around 1950‘s modernism, Festival of Britain era, having been brought up on artists like Moore, Hepworth, Ravilious and Bawden. These were the artists my parents loved, so we were always going to galleries to see this kind of work. Every summer we go to Cornwall and St.Ives was and still is an annual pilgrimage to see Hepworth‘s studio and garden, I could probably draw it from memory. After finishing my MA I had been introduced to what I would call ‘Now Illustration‘ and I found myself constantly looking at contemporaries’ work and worrying about my style. Earlier this year I decided that I was just going to let myself be influenced by the painters, sculptors and designers I grew up loving and have found myself much happier with my work.

Augusta Akerman 'Swimming Against'
Why did you decide to move away from your first degree in fine art photography towards illustration?
Towards the end of my BA at Glasgow College of Art I was already starting to move away from photography. I was making small artist books with a combination of illustrations and photographs and enjoying putting them together, designing covers and hand binding them. I returned to London and worked as a photographers assistant all the while drawing at home in the evenings and weekends. I think this was a real time of discovery for me. I was so embarrassed about my drawing skills that I didn’t really show or tell anyone but kept hundreds of small A5 sketchbooks with random illustrations in. In the end I became more and more confident and illustration naturally took over. I also wasn’t particularly interested in digital photography as I enjoyed using film so I think cost and lack of regular access to a darkroom also contributed to me moving away from it. However I still take photographs, film and digital, who knows what will happen next.

Augusta Akerman 'Sea to Stone'
What did you do in the period between your BA and MA studies?
I worked as a Set Decorator in film and advertising. I fell into this career, starting as an art department assistant and gradually working my way up. It was a very enjoyable job most of the time but could be also be extremely intense and stressful. In the end the feeling that I wasn’t doing exactly what I wanted to do took over and I made the decision to do the MA. I was so frightened to leave that job, because in that world you spend years making contacts and working for little money in the hope of getting somewhere. I am very lucky to have made some good friends whilst working in film and still do the odd job here and there.

Augusta Akerman 'mono print portrait'
Why did you choose Camberwell for your MA?
I chose Camberwell because it was the nearest illustration course to my parent’s house! In order to do the MA I had to move back home and save as much as I could, and I could walk there in under half an hour. The MA represented a way to take a year off from film and see if Illustration could possibly be an option for me. I didn’t apply anywhere else so it was Camberwell or nothing. When meeting the head tutor Jan Woolley and visiting lecturer Chloe Cheese, I had an overwhelming feeling that this was it, I was very close to making a big change in my life, I would have cried my eyes out if they had said no!

Augusta Akerman 'Plastic Sea Soup' nominated for One to Watch
You have described your work as a combination of classic illustration and abstraction, what does this mean in practice?
This is because I think it sits between these two worlds, sometimes I can be quite real in my representation of animals and people, and at other times I just want to work with shapes and textures. I also tend to prefer work that takes a theme or idea and presents it not as a realistic depiction, but one that leaves room for the viewer to project their subconscious onto it.

I definitely think there is an influence of the classic in what I do as inspired by great artists like Tove Jansson and Pauline Baynes. But I aim to give a sense of modern movement and sculptural weight to some pieces by working with dark texture and light washes. I spent a long time being quite soft and delicate with my line and colour choices, so I’m enjoying this moment right now where I’m being braver using black crayons and ink to be more blocky and meshing them with the silky lace lines of water colour and gouache.

Augusta Akerman 'a section from the Great Migration'
What is your preferred way to approach a new piece of work when first starting to create it?
Depending on whether it is a personal project or a commission I tend to do things differently. However they both start the same way, with research. I love researching the subject and finding out different meanings or views or small snippets of information that can be included in the work to give a little extra detail that maybe only 2 percent will ever ‘get’ but will still interest others. I work either at my desk or sometimes in my dad’s studio. When at my desk I usually put on Radio 4 or a documentary on my computer that I listen to like a radio play, otherwise I get distracted by the images if I can see the screen! When in my dad’s studio I’m usually doing something a bit more messy like mono printing or lino, he tends to listen to the radio too or is working on the computer.

How do you combine pen with litho and other methods of production?
I always work by hand, first sketching in my sketchbook, then taking the images to another level of finish either by painting over them or developing them with mono printing or another print process until I like the way they look. I like the play between hand and digital imagery, computers are extremely useful when cleaning and adding colour to images but I sometimes feel I get overwhelmed by the possibilities. I think in this extremely accessible digital age it’s easy to put off the actual thinking of the development of a piece until it is staring you in the face with 100 layers in Photoshop. I find it hard to think clearly with the back lit white screen and feel more in control with a bit of paper in front of me.

Augusta Akerman 'Amelia's Colouring Book' for online interview RGB
What inspired your piece for my colouring book?
Whilst on holiday in Cornwall I had been drawing in my sketchbook, letting my hand and brain sort of automatic draw. I was not thinking about anything in particular but allowing what I had seen or heard that day come out onto the paper. I thought it looked like a diary in a pattern format. When I came back from holiday and thought about the colouring book I returned to the pattern idea and thought it might be nice for people to colour it in. I started automatic drawing again but this time I thought about all the themes I would like to explore in new projects and shapes and images I was interested in. I decided to create a seated figure drawing what would eventually become the wallpaper as I felt this developed the idea of a dreamy state of doodling, of letting your mind wander around your worries and dreams. The male figure was added later and I liked the idea of it also speaking about a relationship with another person who understands your dreams and helps you conquer your worries. They are both just quietly enjoying a moment supporting each other to make this big mural that charts all the ups and downs of creative making. It’s the most colourful piece I’ve made in a while so the brief did pull me out of my comfort zone a bit.

You recently took part in New Designers One Year On – how did you get involved and what project were you showcasing?
I applied to New Designers One Year On on a whim, because I wanted to be proactive to see if I could promote myself and my work in a professional situation. When I was selected I was very happy but also a little terrified as I knew there would be a lot of preparation and self promotion needed to really get the most out of it. I was showcasing the wallpapers and textiles I had made on my MA as well as newer designs and illustrations. I was very lucky to be surrounded by some amazing designers and illustrators and got a lot out of the experience. I had done Pulse earlier in the year with UAL and do think that in the future I might only do one design fair a year, not only due to cost but also due to the amount of energy you need to sustain that level of self promotion to justify it.

Why have you chosen subjects such as climate change for the basis of your designs?
I am very influenced by nature and the natural order of things and have developed a huge respect for the world around us. I am also a constant watcher of all of David Attenborough‘s programs which means I’m a little obsessed with life cycles and repeating patterns. During my MA I knew I wanted to work with pattern and create an illustrated collection of wallpapers and textiles. The life cycles seemed to be a perfect subject as they repeat over and over again. Climate change sneaked into the work, because of researching the migration of animals and reading about the effect climate change is having on their lives, habitats and evolution. For me this is an ongoing theme and subject, I wanted to introduce and present the many circular structures that exist around us in a beautiful and accessible way, as well as providing a piece of information that some may not already be aware of.

Augusta Akerman 'Botanical Institute Wallpaper'
How do you create DIY wallpaper?
There are many ways! I have recently taught a DIY wallpaper class at the South London Botanical Institute where we used craft foam stamps, lino, foam rollers, stencils and direct printing (covering leaves and flowers in paint and pressing onto paper) to create repeat imagery. If you have the time and the space you can buy a roll of lining paper from B&Q and create your own.

What does your residency at the London Print Studio encompass?
I have been working with Lithography, a process I’ve been wanting to explore in more detail for a long time. I love the quality and possibilities of this particular printing process, you can use a number of materials to make your image as well as scratching away layers in the drawing that gives an almost etching like quality. Lithography is a lengthy process which I think puts a lot of people off. I spent 3 and a half hours grinding my large stone to get it right. I have the blisters to prove it! But even this I really enjoyed, it feels quite ancient grinding and preparing the stone then working into it with litho crayons and tusche. You can get an extremely varied quality of line that is then perfectly replicated when printing, but each print is unique with minute changes due to ink placement and roller pressure. I just love it! Although I did find the printing the hardest part this time. I was working one Saturday printing the largest stone and realised I had no more strength left to turn the wheel on the press, thank god I had nearly run out of paper!

How do you hope to grow your fabric design and wallpaper business?
After the Homes and Gardens Fabric Awards, I felt encouraged to continue with my new collection of wallpapers. I have to admit I was starting to feel a little helpless, I had applied for funding to help build the business which I didn’t get and had thought I might need to put it on hold for a while. I am now working on the new collection and hope to have it done by March 2016. It’s very hard trying to start a side business when you’re looking for freelance work and working a part time job, but I enjoy constantly working and thinking up ideas for projects. This is what I wanted! This is why I gave up other careers; in order to be in charge of my own creativity.

Augusta Akerman contributes her work to Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, available now on Kickstarter. Make sure you grab a copy before the campaign closes later this month! Read a previous interview with Augusta here.

Categories ,#ameliasccc, ,Adult Coloring Book, ,Adult Colouring, ,Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, ,Augusta Akerman, ,Bawden, ,Camberwell College of Arts, ,Chloe Cheese, ,Climate Change, ,Colouring Book, ,Cornwall, ,David Attenborough, ,Festival of Britain, ,Glasgow College of Art, ,Hepworth, ,Homes and Gardens Fabric Awards, ,illustration, ,interview, ,Jan Woolley, ,Kickstarter, ,Lithography, ,ma, ,Moore, ,New Designers, ,One Year On, ,Pauline Baynes, ,photography, ,Pulse, ,Radio 4, ,Ravilious, ,Set Decorator, ,South London Botanical Institute, ,St.Ives, ,Tove Jansson, ,Wallpaper

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Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with McBess about Big Mother

bigmother mcbess

He’s just held an exhibition titled The Folding Knife at The Book Club and he’s produced a fabulous A3 sized monograph with Nobrow. Let’s find out more about the bendy monochrome force of illustration that is McBess.

Where did the name McBess come from?
?It came at school, approved there were too many Matthieus in my class and a mate contracted my last name and first name to make it more memorable… it went from matbess to mcbess quite quickly.??

McBess Big Mother
How did your recent exhibition at the The Book Club come about, order and how did you choose what to display??
Well I was invited by Liat Chen, pill the curator of The Book Club, but because the place is so big I decided to invite some fellow illustrators. Everything there was made for the show, so I didn’t pick and choose from previous work.??

mcbess big mother
How long have you been working with Nobrow and how did the relationship start??
I’ve been working with Nobrow for 3 years I think, they invited me to be in the first Nobrow magazine God & Monsters. We became friends and kept on working together.

McBess Big Mother
??What is the defining characteristic of Big Mother, your A3 monograph with Nobrow??
Well it’s a A3 book for a start which is very cool since my work is about tiny details, most of the work in there is real size. Also it’s like a sum up of everything I’ve done for the last 3 years, I guess it’s a chance to see an evolution or a recurrence in the themes.??

mcbess big mother
What is the process of creating your illustrations?
How do they begin, and what kind of working environment do you like? ?Well it depends but I tend to look at a lot of different things: movies, music, book, the Internet. Then I focus on a mood and try to find what it’s made out of, for instance if I was to do something about bikers, I’ll try to find all the iconography and play with them, the beards, the bikes, but also the pattern in the clothing, the types on the oil tanks and some not as obvious details that would set a dense mood. Then I’ll first flesh out a rough drawing either on paper or straight on photoshop, and I’ll refine it several time until I can start shading. I usually watch TV series when I work, music makes me too exited.

McBess Big Mother
??You are also a musician – what kind of music do you like and what kind do you make?
?I like a lot different types of music: rock, hip hop, electro, jazz… but I write rock tunes for the band. I try to keep it simple and catchy, I find it very hard to step back and listen to a track like you would do with a drawing, but that also why it’s a thrilling experience.??

mcbess big mother
How does music influence your art?
?Well I’ve always used music themes in my work, I’ve always been playing music and so it’s always been one of the most important things for me. I try to talk a bit about what I like in my illustration, so naturally music has a huge place in it. Now it’s funny because the illustrations are also influencing the music, and we try to make sounds that fit the mood of some illustrations. I think it will give more depth to everything.??

McBess Big Mother
You grew up in the South of France… what do people think of art like yours in your home town?
?I don’t know really, I started drawing when I was in London, there’s not that many young people from where I live and the rest tend to look at my illustrations as funny doodles, which might be why I sometimes make them quite violent. Anyway I don’t think the south of France is the best place to develop a style and be supported for it, but if you want to open a hot dog stand or a swingers night club then you might think otherwise.??

mcbess big mother
You mention that you can’t draw arms and knees, hence your bendy limbs – anything else you can’t draw or hate drawing??
Aha, well it started like that indeed, I was very bad at junctions, drawing good angles while keeping a harmony in the curves. Now I think I can draw knees and elbows but it doesn’t mean I like to. I also don’t like drawing buildings, sports, veggie food, cars, phones, penises, clean shaved men, planes…??

McBess Big Mother
Why do you only work in black and white, and can you foresee a time in the future when you might be tempted by colour??
I work in colour for my commercial work and I find pleasure in it but I love black and white. It started like that because I used to only do pencil drawings and when I started to rework them on the computer I would ink them black and then add the colour, but that colour stage always made the drawing less emblematic, less iconic, so I never though I’d use it for my work, and I’ll keep it consistent. If I ever want to do colour I’ll start something else with another name.??

McBess Big Mother
What’s next in the pipeline with Nobrow?
?Well we’ve been working on a possible toy, and for the rest I’m not too sure for now, I need to go back to the drawing board to make some more stuff and then they might be interested in putting it on paper.??

Any other exciting collaborations that you can tell us about??
I’m working on a bike with the Dudes Factory in Berlin which should come out with a range of biker themed tee shirts. For now that’s all I’ve got in the pipeline.?

The new McBess book Big Mother can be bought from Nobrow here.

Categories ,A3, ,Big Mother, ,Dudes Factory, ,french, ,God & Monsters, ,illustration, ,liat chen, ,Matthieus, ,McBess, ,monochrome, ,Monograph, ,Nobrow, ,South of France, ,The Book Club, ,The Folding Knife

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Amelia’s Magazine | An Interview with Daniel McNaboe

danielmacnaboe3

I’d like to start my interview with Daniel MacNaboe through an inquiry into the ideas, viagra order side effects views or politics that inspire his illustrations. Daniel is a graduate from the Illustration degree at the University of West England.

I’ve always been inspired by achieving some degree of realism in my artwork. Contemporary realist portraiture has been a continuing influence in the development of my work. I’m fascinated by the world around me. Both my mum and dad were always big on reading, cialis 40mg my dad would sit on the same patch of the sofa, reading the Guardian front to back for what seemed like hours each evening. His fascination with the world around him, simply his awareness of current affairs really intrigued me. I like to think he enlightened me to a lot of information. Always encouraging me not to take the things I have for granted.

Secondly I’m inspired by ordinary stories, I worked for a number of years during college and university holidays as a cleaner at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford. The job was a true life-experience. Not only the nature of the job itself, which consisted of working within sometimes distressing situations and environments. But also the people I got to know through working there. The cleaning staff comprised workers from all over the world, all with unique and amazing life stories that definitely affected the way in which I consequently look at the world. Their varying cultures, ideals, views really opened my eyes to a lot of things that in any other job I don’t think I would have been so fortunate as to experience. The many long hours I spent mopping floors, cleaning toilets and sitting on upturned mop buckets in cleaning cupboards chatting away with colleagues has continued to influence my thinking and motivations in regards to my artwork.

danielmacnaboe2

How do you decide which medium is best to represent your ideas?

I initially stick with what it is I know best, and from there let the ideas and aesthetics I’m exploring influence the mediums I use. I always begin with pencil and paper, and progress from there. I really enjoy printmaking, and spent a long time at University exploring hand-drawn and four-color photographic lithography techniques. I’m drawn to mediums, which complement my drawing, and general practical approach.

I allow the materials I use to help me form my ideas. I’ve always, for as long as I can remember been very much drawn to working with pencil and paper. It’s the simplicity of it that I get a kick from. I love rendering images onto the papers surface, in a similar way as to how I love watching a photograph develop in a dark room. I have a tendency to work slowly and methodically on each piece. I’ll never forget an art teacher telling me there are no lines in real life, and ever since have tried to avoid harsh, linear marks in my drawings when aiming towards realism. I tend to work softly and gently with my materials.

danielmacnaboethumb

What has been your favorite self directed illustration project?

The project I produced for my degree show at the University of the West of England. I chose to spend my last few months at university focusing on portraiture, this being a field I was keen to pursue after leaving University. Initially I was working through old family photographs for inspiration. I came across an image of my grandfather, a crisp military portrait of him in his first year as a U.S. Marine at age 18. What struck me was his youthfulness in the photograph. His innocence, and maybe naivety that was to be sadly short lived. It was interesting to me pondering that we were roughly at the same points in our lives, but under such different circumstances. Through consequent research I discovered he was deployed in the third wave of Marines onto the Japanese island of Iwo Jima on the 19th February 1945, and was incredibly lucky. Of the 340 U.S. Marines in his company only 17 of them, him included survived, many of them wounded. In one of my drawings for the project, I rendered from a photograph depicting my grandfather and a very good friend not long before they were both deployed to Iwo Jima. I learnt that his friend never made it off. On return to America after being disbanded he was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in battle. In total 21,703 Japanese soldiers were killed on the island, and 6,825 U.S. Marines, with 29,909 American casualties over a 36-day period, a figure greater than the total Allied casualties on the D-Day landings. I decided to produce a series of images concerning his early life. From growing up as a young boy during the Great Depression in rural Illinois through to his time serving in the South Pacific during the Second World War. In a way the time I spent rendering these images allowed my to put my own life into some sort of perspective. What I seem to get most out of portraiture, whether it be portraits i’m working on myself or other peoples, is simply just gazing, trying to relate with the subject.
danielmacnaboe1

What was the thinking process behind the project?

Depsite living thousands of miles apart, I’ve always felt very close to my grandfather, and his experience during the war struck a chord with me. He is a quiet man, who is now 86 years old and very rarely mentioned his service. I was keen for the work to form a kind of homage to him. I guess the way I work is process based. I accumulate a collection of images that best convey what it is I want to express, and then begin rendering from them. As my work progresses it gives me more ideas as to how I would like to develop the work further. As I was working on the portraits of my grandfather I began to employ collage, Photoshop and printmaking to try and convey a particular aesthetic I thought was missing from the drawings. I loved the smokey aesthetic of the old black and white photographs I was studying, so I consequently decided to work with an assortment of soft-very soft graphite on smooth and thick off-white cartridge paper. I experimented with drawing in reverse with coloured conte pencils on black paper. Both techniques worked well. I also painted with Acrylic onto smoothly sanded gesso on Board. There were a couple images of the farmhouse my grandfather grew up in that I was keen to incorporate, and I felt the best way to represent this would be to move on to paint. Throughout the duration of the project I maintained a keen interest in the aesthetics of old documentation. I loved the qualities of the old military papers I was looking through.

danielmacnaboe2

I’d like to start my interview with Daniel MacNaboe through an inquiry into the ideas, viagra 100mg views or politics that inspire his illustrations. Daniel is a graduate from the Illustration degree at the University of West England.

I’ve always been inspired by achieving some degree of realism in my artwork. Contemporary realist portraiture has been a continuing influence in the development of my work. I’m fascinated by the world around me. Both my mum and dad were always big on reading, abortion my dad would sit on the same patch of the sofa, reading the Guardian front to back for what seemed like hours each evening. His fascination with the world around him, simply his awareness of current affairs really intrigued me. I like to think he enlightened me to a lot of information. Always encouraging me not to take the things I have for granted.

Secondly I’m inspired by ordinary stories, I worked for a number of years during college and university holidays as a cleaner at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford. The job was a true life-experience. Not only the nature of the job itself, which consisted of working within sometimes distressing situations and environments. But also the people I got to know through working there. The cleaning staff comprised workers from all over the world, all with unique and amazing life stories that definitely affected the way in which I consequently look at the world. Their varying cultures, ideals, views really opened my eyes to a lot of things that in any other job I don’t think I would have been so fortunate as to experience. The many long hours I spent mopping floors, cleaning toilets and sitting on upturned mop buckets in cleaning cupboards chatting away with colleagues has continued to influence my thinking and motivations in regards to my artwork.

danielmacnaboe3

How do you decide which medium is best to represent your ideas?

I initially stick with what it is I know best, and from there let the ideas and aesthetics I’m exploring influence the mediums I use. I always begin with pencil and paper, and progress from there. I really enjoy printmaking, and spent a long time at University exploring hand-drawn and four-color photographic lithography techniques. I’m drawn to mediums, which complement my drawing, and general practical approach.

I allow the materials I use to help me form my ideas. I’ve always, for as long as I can remember been very much drawn to working with pencil and paper. It’s the simplicity of it that I get a kick from. I love rendering images onto the papers surface, in a similar way as to how I love watching a photograph develop in a dark room. I have a tendency to work slowly and methodically on each piece. I’ll never forget an art teacher telling me there are no lines in real life, and ever since have tried to avoid harsh, linear marks in my drawings when aiming towards realism. I tend to work softly and gently with my materials.

danielmacnaboe

What has been your favorite self directed illustration project?

The project I produced for my degree show at the University of the West of England. I chose to spend my last few months at university focusing on portraiture, this being a field I was keen to pursue after leaving University. Initially I was working through old family photographs for inspiration. I came across an image of my grandfather, a crisp military portrait of him in his first year as a U.S. Marine at age 18. What struck me was his youthfulness in the photograph. His innocence, and maybe naivety that was to be sadly short lived. It was interesting to me pondering that we were roughly at the same points in our lives, but under such different circumstances. Through consequent research I discovered he was deployed in the third wave of Marines onto the Japanese island of Iwo Jima on the 19th February 1945, and was incredibly lucky. Of the 340 U.S. Marines in his company only 17 of them, him included survived, many of them wounded. In one of my drawings for the project, I rendered from a photograph depicting my grandfather and a very good friend not long before they were both deployed to Iwo Jima. I learnt that his friend never made it off. On return to America after being disbanded he was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in battle. In total 21,703 Japanese soldiers were killed on the island, and 6,825 U.S. Marines, with 29,909 American casualties over a 36-day period, a figure greater than the total Allied casualties on the D-Day landings. I decided to produce a series of images concerning his early life. From growing up as a young boy during the Great Depression in rural Illinois through to his time serving in the South Pacific during the Second World War. In a way the time I spent rendering these images allowed my to put my own life into some sort of perspective. What I seem to get most out of portraiture, whether it be portraits i’m working on myself or other peoples, is simply just gazing, trying to relate with the subject.
danielmacnaboe1

What was the thinking process behind the project?

Depsite living thousands of miles apart, I’ve always felt very close to my grandfather, and his experience during the war struck a chord with me. He is a quiet man, who is now 86 years old and very rarely mentioned his service. I was keen for the work to form a kind of homage to him. I guess the way I work is process based. I accumulate a collection of images that best convey what it is I want to express, and then begin rendering from them. As my work progresses it gives me more ideas as to how I would like to develop the work further. As I was working on the portraits of my grandfather I began to employ collage, Photoshop and printmaking to try and convey a particular aesthetic I thought was missing from the drawings. I loved the smokey aesthetic of the old black and white photographs I was studying, so I consequently decided to work with an assortment of soft-very soft graphite on smooth and thick off-white cartridge paper. I experimented with drawing in reverse with coloured conte pencils on black paper. Both techniques worked well. I also painted with Acrylic onto smoothly sanded gesso on Board. There were a couple images of the farmhouse my grandfather grew up in that I was keen to incorporate, and I felt the best way to represent this would be to move on to paint. Throughout the duration of the project I maintained a keen interest in the aesthetics of old documentation. I loved the qualities of the old military papers I was looking through.

danielmacnaboe2

I’d like to start my interview with Daniel MacNaboe through an inquiry into the ideas, page views or politics that inspire his illustrations. Daniel is a graduate from the Illustration degree at the University of West England.

I’ve always been inspired by achieving some degree of realism in my artwork. Contemporary realist portraiture has been a continuing influence in the development of my work. I’m fascinated by the world around me. Both my mum and dad were always big on reading, page my dad would sit on the same patch of the sofa, reading the Guardian front to back for what seemed like hours each evening. His fascination with the world around him, simply his awareness of current affairs really intrigued me. I like to think he enlightened me to a lot of information. Always encouraging me not to take the things I have for granted.

Secondly I’m inspired by ordinary stories, I worked for a number of years during college and university holidays as a cleaner at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford. The job was a true life-experience. Not only the nature of the job itself, which consisted of working within sometimes distressing situations and environments. But also the people I got to know through working there. The cleaning staff comprised workers from all over the world, all with unique and amazing life stories that definitely affected the way in which I consequently look at the world. Their varying cultures, ideals, views really opened my eyes to a lot of things that in any other job I don’t think I would have been so fortunate as to experience. The many long hours I spent mopping floors, cleaning toilets and sitting on upturned mop buckets in cleaning cupboards chatting away with colleagues has continued to influence my thinking and motivations in regards to my artwork.

danielmacnaboe3

How do you decide which medium is best to represent your ideas?

I initially stick with what it is I know best, and from there let the ideas and aesthetics I’m exploring influence the mediums I use. I always begin with pencil and paper, and progress from there. I really enjoy printmaking, and spent a long time at University exploring hand-drawn and four-color photographic lithography techniques. I’m drawn to mediums, which complement my drawing, and general practical approach.

I allow the materials I use to help me form my ideas. I’ve always, for as long as I can remember been very much drawn to working with pencil and paper. It’s the simplicity of it that I get a kick from. I love rendering images onto the papers surface, in a similar way as to how I love watching a photograph develop in a dark room. I have a tendency to work slowly and methodically on each piece. I’ll never forget an art teacher telling me there are no lines in real life, and ever since have tried to avoid harsh, linear marks in my drawings when aiming towards realism. I tend to work softly and gently with my materials.

danielmacnaboe

What has been your favorite self directed illustration project?

The project I produced for my degree show at the University of the West of England. I chose to spend my last few months at university focusing on portraiture, this being a field I was keen to pursue after leaving University. Initially I was working through old family photographs for inspiration. I came across an image of my grandfather, a crisp military portrait of him in his first year as a U.S. Marine at age 18. What struck me was his youthfulness in the photograph. His innocence, and maybe naivety that was to be sadly short lived. It was interesting to me pondering that we were roughly at the same points in our lives, but under such different circumstances. Through consequent research I discovered he was deployed in the third wave of Marines onto the Japanese island of Iwo Jima on the 19th February 1945, and was incredibly lucky. Of the 340 U.S. Marines in his company only 17 of them, him included survived, many of them wounded. In one of my drawings for the project, I rendered from a photograph depicting my grandfather and a very good friend not long before they were both deployed to Iwo Jima. I learnt that his friend never made it off. On return to America after being disbanded he was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in battle. In total 21,703 Japanese soldiers were killed on the island, and 6,825 U.S. Marines, with 29,909 American casualties over a 36-day period, a figure greater than the total Allied casualties on the D-Day landings. I decided to produce a series of images concerning his early life. From growing up as a young boy during the Great Depression in rural Illinois through to his time serving in the South Pacific during the Second World War. In a way the time I spent rendering these images allowed my to put my own life into some sort of perspective. What I seem to get most out of portraiture, whether it be portraits i’m working on myself or other peoples, is simply just gazing, trying to relate with the subject.
danielmacnaboe1

What was the thinking process behind the project?

Depsite living thousands of miles apart, I’ve always felt very close to my grandfather, and his experience during the war struck a chord with me. He is a quiet man, who is now 86 years old and very rarely mentioned his service. I was keen for the work to form a kind of homage to him. I guess the way I work is process based. I accumulate a collection of images that best convey what it is I want to express, and then begin rendering from them. As my work progresses it gives me more ideas as to how I would like to develop the work further. As I was working on the portraits of my grandfather I began to employ collage, Photoshop and printmaking to try and convey a particular aesthetic I thought was missing from the drawings. I loved the smokey aesthetic of the old black and white photographs I was studying, so I consequently decided to work with an assortment of soft-very soft graphite on smooth and thick off-white cartridge paper. I experimented with drawing in reverse with coloured conte pencils on black paper. Both techniques worked well. I also painted with Acrylic onto smoothly sanded gesso on Board. There were a couple images of the farmhouse my grandfather grew up in that I was keen to incorporate, and I felt the best way to represent this would be to move on to paint. Throughout the duration of the project I maintained a keen interest in the aesthetics of old documentation. I loved the qualities of the old military papers I was looking through.

Yesterday Bloom In Bloomsbury was held in Torrington Square in SOAS, stuff the gathering was held to get people involved and engaged with the Climate Change problem. Luckily it was held under a big marquee as we were subjected to a few downpours throughout the day.

BL

There was a Stall to get people involved with The Great Climate Swoop, viagra dosage the direct action to shut down Ratcliffe On Soar Coal Power station in 10 days time, doctor Outreach also got people signed up to transport to get down to Nottingham, which is going from all across the country at activist cut prices.

bl1

One of the aims was to also get people involved in the run up to Cop 15 in December where world leaders will meet in a ‘last chance’ conference to tackle Climate Change in Copenhagen. A people’s summit is being held on the 16th of December in the conference to show that we are not willing to let government agenda govern the proceedings, and that as a social movement we need to take a stand. Again Transport from across the country will be going and coaches are being booked right now to ensure we can all get there. Climate Justice Action. is an umbrella organisation that encompasses a broad range of activist and organisations that will have a range of details and contacts for the climatic event.

Bl2

A stall highlighting the problem of Agrofuels was also providing information to passers by, bio fuels are linked to accelerated climate change, deforestation, human rights abuses, water and soil degradation, and are still labeled by many NGO’s and government as an answer to conventional oil practice. There is ademonstration outside The Department for Energy and Climate Change in London on Monday the 12th to protest against the so-called ‘green energy’ Subsidies.

Bl3

There was also the SOAS food Co-op, which provides wholesale food and is run as a non-profit group set up by students. The bike maintenance workshop put on was also really popular. If you missed the event make sure you get down to Powershift being held over the weekend at the Institute of Education in London.

As the event wound down and we were outreached out, a group headed to the City University as a certain energy company, E.ON, were holding a talk at the student recruitment fair. The company is responsible for the planned new coal power stations at Kingsnorth, which combined would produce the same carbon emissions as Ghana. With the report by the Global and Humanitarian forum stating that three hundred thousand people are already dyeing already each year due to climate change, it isn’t a viable option.

Bl4

The group of activists stormed the talks, getting past the security guards who were holding a pretty tight presence outside the doors, quite possibly due to the continued protests against E.ON at student fairs last year.
While 3 burly guys jumped on one activist, the others handed out flyers to the bemused students woken up from the corporate PowerPoint slumber. An activist took to the podium to tell the audience what E.ON are really about, claiming themselves as a Green Energy Company while 95% of their investment is into non renewable energies is a clear sign of greenwashing and the corporate bullshit that students have to listen to.
Yesterday Bloom In Bloomsbury was held in Torrington Square in SOAS. The gathering was held to get people involved and engaged with the Climate Change problem. Luckily it was held under a big marquee as we were subjected to a few downpours throughout the day.

BL

There was a stall to get people involved with The Great Climate Swoop, buy the direct action to shut down Ratcliffe On Soar oal power station in 10 days time. Outreach also got people signed up to provide transport down to Nottingham, which is going from all across the country at special activist prices.

bl1

One of the aims was to also get people involved in the run up to Cop 15 in December where world leaders will meet in a ‘last chance’ conference to tackle Climate Change in Copenhagen. A people’s summit is being held on the 16th of December in the conference to show that we are not willing to let a government agenda govern the proceedings, and that as a social movement we need to take a stand. Again, transport from across the country will be going and coaches are being booked right now to ensure we can all get there. Climate Justice Action is an umbrella organisation that encompasses a broad range of activist organisations that will have a range of details and contacts for the event.

Bl2

A stall highlighting the problem of Agrofuels was also providing information to passers by, bio fuels are linked to accelerated climate change, deforestation, human rights abuses, water and soil degradation, and are still labeled by many NGO’s and government as an answer to conventional oil practice. There is ademonstration outside The Department for Energy and Climate Change in London on Monday the 12th to protest against the so-called ‘green energy’ subsidies.

Bl3

There was also the SOAS food co-op, which provides wholesale food and is run as a non-profit group set up by students. The bike maintenance workshop put on was also really popular. If you missed the event make sure you get down to Powershift being held over the weekend at the Institute of Education in London.

As the event wound down and we were outreached out, a group headed to the City University as a certain energy company, E.ON, were holding a talk at the student recruitment fair. The company is responsible for the planned new coal power stations at Kingsnorth, which combined would produce the same carbon emissions as Ghana. With the report by the Global and Humanitarian forum stating that three hundred thousand people are already dying already each year due to climate change, it isn’t a viable option.

Bl4

The group of activists stormed the talks, getting past the security guards who were holding a pretty tight presence outside the doors, quite possibly due to the continued protests against E.ON at student fairs last year.
While three burly guys jumped on one activist, the others handed out flyers to the bemused students woken up from the corporate PowerPoint slumber. An activist took to the podium to tell the audience what E.ON are really about. Claiming themselves as a Green Energy Company while 95% of their investment is into non renewable energies is a clear sign of greenwashing and the corporate bullshit that students have to listen to.
Yesterday Bloom In Bloomsbury was held in Torrington Square in SOAS. The gathering was held to get people involved and engaged with the Climate Change problem. Luckily it was held under a big marquee as we were subjected to a few downpours throughout the day.

BL

There was a stall to get people involved with The Great Climate Swoop, page the direct action to shut down Ratcliffe On Soar oal power station in 10 days time. Outreach also got people signed up to provide transport down to Nottingham, salve which is going from all across the country at special activist prices.

bl1

One of the aims was to also get people involved in the run up to Cop 15 in December where world leaders will meet in a ‘last chance’ conference to tackle Climate Change in Copenhagen. A people’s summit is being held on the 16th of December in the conference to show that we are not willing to let a government agenda govern the proceedings, and that as a social movement we need to take a stand. Again, transport from across the country will be going and coaches are being booked right now to ensure we can all get there. Climate Justice Action is an umbrella organisation that encompasses a broad range of activist organisations that will have a range of details and contacts for the event.

Bl2

A stall highlighting the problem of Agrofuels was also providing information to passers by, bio fuels are linked to accelerated climate change, deforestation, human rights abuses, water and soil degradation, and are still labeled by many NGO’s and government as an answer to conventional oil practice. There is ademonstration outside The Department for Energy and Climate Change in London on Monday the 12th to protest against the so-called ‘green energy’ subsidies.

Bl3

There was also the SOAS food co-op, which provides wholesale food and is run as a non-profit group set up by students. The bike maintenance workshop put on was also really popular. If you missed the event make sure you get down to Powershift being held over the weekend at the Institute of Education in London.

As the event wound down and we were outreached out, a group headed to the City University as a certain energy company, E.ON, were holding a talk at the student recruitment fair. The company is responsible for the planned new coal power stations at Kingsnorth, which combined would produce the same carbon emissions as Ghana. With the report by the Global and Humanitarian forum stating that three hundred thousand people are already dying already each year due to climate change, it isn’t a viable option.

Bl4

The group of activists stormed the talks, getting past the security guards who were holding a pretty tight presence outside the doors, quite possibly due to the continued protests against E.ON at student fairs last year.
While three burly guys jumped on one activist, the others handed out flyers to the bemused students woken up from the corporate PowerPoint slumber. An activist took to the podium to tell the audience what E.ON are really about. Claiming themselves as a Green Energy Company while 95% of their investment is into non renewable energies is a clear sign of greenwashing and the corporate bullshit that students have to listen to.
Yesterday Bloom In Bloomsbury was held in Torrington Square in SOAS. The gathering was held to get people involved and engaged with the Climate Change problem. Luckily it was held under a big marquee as we were subjected to a few downpours throughout the day.

BL

There was a stall to get people involved with The Great Climate Swoop, thumb the direct action to shut down Ratcliffe On Soar oal power station in 10 days time. Outreach also got people signed up to provide transport down to Nottingham, abortion which is going from all across the country at special activist prices.

bl1

One of the aims was to also get people involved in the run up to Cop 15 in December where world leaders will meet in a ‘last chance’ conference to tackle Climate Change in Copenhagen. A people’s summit is being held on the 16th of December in the conference to show that we are not willing to let a government agenda govern the proceedings, and that as a social movement we need to take a stand. Again, transport from across the country will be going and coaches are being booked right now to ensure we can all get there. Climate Justice Action is an umbrella organisation that encompasses a broad range of activist organisations that will have a range of details and contacts for the event.

Bl2

A stall highlighting the problem of Agrofuels was also providing information to passers by, bio fuels are linked to accelerated climate change, deforestation, human rights abuses, water and soil degradation, and are still labeled by many NGO’s and government as an answer to conventional oil practice. There is ademonstration outside The Department for Energy and Climate Change in London on Monday the 12th to protest against the so-called ‘green energy’ subsidies.

Bl3

There was also the SOAS food co-op, which provides wholesale food and is run as a non-profit group set up by students. The bike maintenance workshop put on was also really popular. If you missed the event make sure you get down to Powershift being held over the weekend at the Institute of Education in London.

As the event wound down and we were outreached out, a group headed to the City University as a certain energy company, E.ON, were holding a talk at the student recruitment fair. The company is responsible for the planned new coal power stations at Kingsnorth, which combined would produce the same carbon emissions as Ghana. With the report by the Global and Humanitarian forum stating that three hundred thousand people are already dying already each year due to climate change, it isn’t a viable option.

Bl4

The group of activists stormed the talks, getting past the security guards who were holding a pretty tight presence outside the doors, quite possibly due to the continued protests against E.ON at student fairs last year.
While three burly guys jumped on one activist, the others handed out flyers to the bemused students woken up from the corporate PowerPoint slumber. An activist took to the podium to tell the audience what E.ON are really about. Claiming themselves as a Green Energy Company while 95% of their investment is into non renewable energies is a clear sign of greenwashing and the corporate bullshit that students have to listen to.
Yesterday Bloom In Bloomsbury was held in Torrington Square in SOAS. The gathering was held to get people involved and engaged with the Climate Change problem. Luckily it was held under a big marquee as we were subjected to a few downpours throughout the day.

BL

There was a stall to get people involved with The Great Climate Swoop, cialis 40mg the direct action to shut down Ratcliffe On Soar oal power station in 10 days time. Outreach also got people signed up to provide transport down to Nottingham, which is going from all across the country at special activist prices.

bl1

One of the aims was to also get people involved in the run up to Cop 15 in December where world leaders will meet in a ‘last chance’ conference to tackle Climate Change in Copenhagen. A people’s summit is being held on the 16th of December in the conference to show that we are not willing to let a government agenda govern the proceedings, and that as a social movement we need to take a stand. Again, transport from across the country will be going and coaches are being booked right now to ensure we can all get there. Climate Justice Action is an umbrella organisation that encompasses a broad range of activist organisations that will have a range of details and contacts for the event.

Bl2

A stall highlighting the problem of Agrofuels was also providing information to passers by, bio fuels are linked to accelerated climate change, deforestation, human rights abuses, water and soil degradation, and are still labeled by many NGO’s and government as an answer to conventional oil practice. There is ademonstration outside The Department for Energy and Climate Change in London on Monday the 12th to protest against the so-called ‘green energy’ subsidies.

Bl3

There was also the SOAS food co-op, which provides wholesale food and is run as a non-profit group set up by students. The bike maintenance workshop put on was also really popular. If you missed the event make sure you get down to Powershift being held over the weekend at the Institute of Education in London.

As the event wound down and we were outreached out, a group headed to the City University as a certain energy company, E.ON, were holding a talk at the student recruitment fair. The company is responsible for the planned new coal power stations at Kingsnorth, which combined would produce the same carbon emissions as Ghana. With the report by the Global and Humanitarian forum stating that three hundred thousand people are already dying already each year due to climate change, it isn’t a viable option.

Bl4

The group of activists stormed the talks, getting past the security guards who were holding a pretty tight presence outside the doors, quite possibly due to the continued protests against E.ON at student fairs last year.
While three burly guys jumped on one activist, the others handed out flyers to the bemused students woken up from the corporate PowerPoint slumber. An activist took to the podium to tell the audience what E.ON are really about. Claiming themselves as a Green Energy Company while 95% of their investment is into non renewable energies is a clear sign of greenwashing and the corporate bullshit that students have to listen to.
Yesterday Bloom In Bloomsbury was held in Torrington Square in SOAS. The gathering was held to get people involved and engaged with the Climate Change problem. Luckily it was held under a big marquee as we were subjected to a few downpours throughout the day.

BL

There was a stall to get people involved with The Great Climate Swoop, order the direct action to shut down Ratcliffe On Soar oal power station in 10 days time. Outreach also got people signed up to provide transport down to Nottingham, case which is going from all across the country at special activist prices.

bl1

One of the aims was to also get people involved in the run up to Cop 15 in December where world leaders will meet in a ‘last chance’ conference to tackle Climate Change in Copenhagen. A people’s summit is being held on the 16th of December in the conference to show that we are not willing to let a government agenda govern the proceedings, cure and that as a social movement we need to take a stand. Again, transport from across the country will be going and coaches are being booked right now to ensure we can all get there. Climate Justice Action is an umbrella organisation that encompasses a broad range of activist organisations that will have a range of details and contacts for the event.

Bl2

A stall highlighting the problem of Agrofuels was also providing information to passers by, bio fuels are linked to accelerated climate change, deforestation, human rights abuses, water and soil degradation, and are still labeled by many NGO’s and government as an answer to conventional oil practice. There is ademonstration outside The Department for Energy and Climate Change in London on Monday the 12th to protest against the so-called ‘green energy’ subsidies.

Bl3

There was also the SOAS food co-op, which provides wholesale food and is run as a non-profit group set up by students. The bike maintenance workshop put on was also really popular. If you missed the event make sure you get down to Powershift being held over the weekend at the Institute of Education in London.

As the event wound down and we were outreached out, a group headed to the City University as a certain energy company, E.ON, were holding a talk at the student recruitment fair. The company is responsible for the planned new coal power stations at Kingsnorth, which combined would produce the same carbon emissions as Ghana. With the report by the Global and Humanitarian forum stating that three hundred thousand people are already dying already each year due to climate change, it isn’t a viable option.

Bl4

The group of activists stormed the talks, getting past the security guards who were holding a pretty tight presence outside the doors, quite possibly due to the continued protests against E.ON at student fairs last year.
While three burly guys jumped on one activist, the others handed out flyers to the bemused students woken up from the corporate PowerPoint slumber. An activist took to the podium to tell the audience what E.ON are really about. Claiming themselves as a Green Energy Company while 95% of their investment is into non renewable energies is a clear sign of greenwashing and the corporate bullshit that students have to listen to.
danielmacnaboe2

I’d like to start the interview with Daniel McNaboe by inquiring into the ideas, symptoms views or politics that inspire his illustrations. Daniel is a graduate from the Illustration degree at the University of West England.

I’ve always been inspired by achieving some degree of realism in my artwork. Contemporary realist portraiture has been a continuing influence in the development of my work. I’m fascinated by the world around me. Both my mum and dad were always big on reading, advice my dad would sit on the same patch of the sofa, reading the Guardian front to back for what seemed like hours each evening. His fascination with the world around him, simply his awareness of current affairs really intrigued me. I like to think he enlightened me to a lot of information. Always encouraging me not to take the things I have for granted.

Secondly I’m inspired by ordinary stories, I worked for a number of years during college and university holidays as a cleaner at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford. The job was a true life-experience. Not only the nature of the job itself, which consisted of working within sometimes distressing situations and environments. But also the people I got to know through working there. The cleaning staff comprised workers from all over the world, all with unique and amazing life stories that definitely affected the way in which I consequently look at the world. Their varying cultures, ideals, views really opened my eyes to a lot of things that in any other job I don’t think I would have been so fortunate as to experience. The many long hours I spent mopping floors, cleaning toilets and sitting on upturned mop buckets in cleaning cupboards chatting away with colleagues has continued to influence my thinking and motivations in regards to my artwork.

danielmacnaboe3

How do you decide which medium is best to represent your ideas?

I initially stick with what it is I know best, and from there let the ideas and aesthetics I’m exploring influence the mediums I use. I always begin with pencil and paper, and progress from there. I really enjoy printmaking, and spent a long time at University exploring hand-drawn and four-color photographic lithography techniques. I’m drawn to mediums, which complement my drawing, and general practical approach.

danielmcnaboewill

I allow the materials I use to help me form my ideas. I’ve always, for as long as I can remember been very much drawn to working with pencil and paper. It’s the simplicity of it that I get a kick from. I love rendering images onto the papers surface, in a similar way as to how I love watching a photograph develop in a dark room. I have a tendency to work slowly and methodically on each piece. I’ll never forget an art teacher telling me there are no lines in real life, and ever since have tried to avoid harsh, linear marks in my drawings when aiming towards realism. I tend to work softly and gently with my materials.

danielmacnaboe

What has been your favorite self directed illustration project?

The project I produced for my degree show at the University of the West of England. I chose to spend my last few months at university focusing on portraiture, this being a field I was keen to pursue after leaving University. Initially I was working through old family photographs for inspiration. I came across an image of my grandfather, a crisp military portrait of him in his first year as a U.S. Marine at age 18. What struck me was his youthfulness in the photograph. His innocence, and maybe naivety that was to be sadly short lived. It was interesting to me pondering that we were roughly at the same points in our lives, but under such different circumstances.

danielmcnaboesilver for hobbs!

Through consequent research I discovered he was deployed in the third wave of Marines onto the Japanese island of Iwo Jima on the 19th February 1945, and was incredibly lucky. Of the 340 U.S. Marines in his company only 17 of them, him included survived, many of them wounded. In one of my drawings for the project, I rendered a photograph depicting my grandfather and a very good friend not long before they were deployed to Iwo Jima. I later learnt that his friend never made it off.

On return to America My grandfather was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in battle. In total 21,703 Japanese soldiers were killed on the island, and 6,825 U.S. Marines, with 29,909 American casualties over a 36-day period, a figure greater than the total Allied casualties on the D-Day landings.

I decided to produce a series of images concerning his early life. From growing up as a young boy during the Great Depression in rural Illinois through to his time serving in the South Pacific during the Second World War. The time I spent rendering these images allowed me to put my own life into some sort of perspective.

What I seem to get most out of portraiture, whether it be portraits i’m working on myself or other peoples, is simply just gazing, trying to relate with the subject.

danielmacnaboe1

What was the thinking process behind the project?

Depsite living thousands of miles apart, I’ve always felt very close to my grandfather, and his experience during the war struck a chord with me. He is a quiet man, who is now 86 years old and very rarely mentioned his service. I was keen for the work to form a kind of homage to him.

I guess the way I work is process based. I accumulate a collection of images that best convey what it is I want to express, and then begin rendering from them. As work progresses it gives me more ideas as to how I would like to develop further. As I was working on the portraits of my grandfather I began to employ collage, Photoshop and printmaking to try and convey a particular aesthetic I thought was missing from the drawings. I loved the smokey aesthetic of the old black and white photographs I was studying, so I consequently decided to work with an assortment of soft-very soft graphite on smooth and thick off-white
cartridge paper.

danielmcnaboephill

I experimented with drawing in reverse with coloured conte pencils on black paper. Both techniques worked well. I also painted with Acrylic onto smoothly sanded gesso on Board. There were a couple images of the farmhouse my grandfather grew up in that I was keen to incorporate, and I felt the best way to represent this would be to move on to paint.

Throughout the duration of the project I maintained a keen interest in the aesthetics of old documentation. I loved the qualities of the old military papers I was looking through.

Categories ,collage, ,Daniel MacNaboe, ,illustration, ,Photoshop, ,second world war, ,University of West England

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Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with Percie Edgeler: Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion featured artist.

percie edgeler
Percie Edgeler is another recent graduate of Camberwell College of Arts, (see also Tiffany Baxter) whose work caught my eye at the graduate shows. She contributes an unusual and wonderful piece for Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion inspired by a Japanese folk tale

percie edgeler
What kind of artwork will you be creating on the theme of magic and rituals for your upcoming group exhibition?
I’m not entirely sure yet. I have a few different ideas I need to figure out the layouts for. We’ve been given some guidelines by the lovely people at Treadwell’s Books (the venue) and we can’t have anything three dimensional due to size of the space, so that’s definitely not an option. Luckily it’s with a very friendly group of people from a mix of disciplines, including Tiffany Baxter, who’s being included in the colouring book, and we can share our ideas quite easily and get feedback on what we think is best collectively.

percie edgeler
Why have you decided to push your artwork into 3 dimensions and how are you progressing?
I trained and work now as an illustrator, which most would assume is primarily a two dimensional way of working. Three dimensional work has never been my strong point, and by making ceramics I’m trying to push myself not to be limited to one skill. I guess in part it’s also a question of style: if I’m limiting myself to working in a certain way, my two dimensional work won’t evolve from what it already is because it’s not being challenged. It’s slow progress because I don’t know much about three dimensional forms, but I’m learning. I chose to start with ceramics because to me it seems the most natural. I’ve always worked quite traditionally with my hands, so being able to hold and lump of clay and form it makes more sense to me than any other three dimensional form for now. At the moment everything I try to shape is quite wobbly, I’ve made a fair few wobbly dogs, but they’re getting better over time.

percie edgeler
In what way does the built environment inspire you?
At the risk of being too political, my generation is limited in terms of housing; so it’s hard for us not to notice the built environment more than ever. It’s interesting when you go to other countries and see their architecture how in comparison the UK has a mixture of old and new that is juxtaposed. The spaces in which we work and play can no longer be limited to a building. I’m lucky in that the area I live in is the greenest borough in London, and for me it’s easy to go into a park or field without losing my connection to the city. But now we need more housing and infrastructure, those green areas are increasingly under threat. There’s a balance of being part of something man made and something natural which I really enjoy, though recently in what I’ve been drawing I’ve been erring towards the natural. Often we don’t take the time to consider what’s there already because we’re used to it, and I think now as an adult I appreciate that environment a lot more.

percie edgeler
Why did you decide to focus on a Japanese fairytale for your colouring book page?
There’s something very honest about Japanese folk stories. There’s so many different ones, and in the Japanese culture it’s not just a fairy tale, it’s a part of life, a tale of a time before our time. The way they’re told is mostly through spoken word; more reportage than storytelling like we have in Europe. And the way someone tells a story verbally is very different to how one may draw one, with the storyteller adding their own inflections or details which others may not. That culture of storytelling is still there now, I think; if you read a novel by a contemporary Japanese author, say for instance the ever popular Haruki Murakami, the facts are given with such detail that it’s fascinating. In 1Q84, Murakami writes about two people who have loved each other for years and in one scene they miss each other by minutes. That pure feeling expressed in folk stories is still there, and that’s absolutely lovely. I chose to base the artwork for my colouring book page on a folk tale for this reason. I wanted to give my own take, and share a story in a new way that people could interact with.

percie edgeler
Which cultures are you most enjoying learning the folk tales about and why?
I enjoy learning the folk tales from most cultures, be it from European cultures or further afield. I think my favourite so far is a Maori one talking about how Ta Moko, a form of facial tattooing, came to their tribe as there is no distinguishing between what happened in the story as fact or fiction. Icelandic folk tales are also quite enjoyable as they can be quite traditional by Western standards but also feature dark elements.

percie edgeler
What is it that you love about books and what kind of books do you hope to make yourself one day?
As childrens’ books are an escape. You can live a hundred times through all those characters and have all of those adventures through reading them. As an adult, the same can still apply on some level but they also help to challenge a lot of issues in society and reflect on society at that time. Precisely because of that, my long term goal is to work with books. Every opportunity I’ve had to work with books has just confirmed that. I want to make books for children that they can enjoy, but also want to make them accessible for adults; reading to children and encouraging them to read should be something to have fun with, though very few books achieve that.

percie edgeler
How did you get involved with Four Corners Books and what did you do with them?
Through my university in our final year we had a choice of external projects for a range of different people; e.g. the BBC, Tate Modern, Nexus. I chose the Four Corners one because I wanted to make something outside of my comfort zone of something narrative. By creating animal images from the Edwardian short story of Saki’s Sredni Vashtar, I was pushed to do something different but still work with books and illustration in a way that I felt made the project fun and exciting.

percie edgeler
What happens in your story about a man and a dog?
A boy loses his dog after the dog runs out of the house because the dog is tired of never being played with. The boy, desperately sorry for his actions, chases the dog out and follows him on his adventures around the world only to miss him and his incredible feats each time. It escalates and escalates until eventually, unable to find him, the boy goes home and gives up – but luckily for him, that’s not the end of the story. I don’t want to give too much away because it’s something I definitely want to complete and put out into the world. Maybe that’s a little self indulgent. When I started it for the Macmillan Prize in 2014, I felt like giving up on illustration. It made drawing exciting again and forced me to keep going.

percie edgeler
What was the best thing to come out of your graduate exhibition Rock, Paper, Scissors in Hoxton?
I think the best thing to come out of my graduate exhibition was the experience of doing something on such a large scale. I managed the Kickstarter for it with a small group of people, and that was insanely difficult. We raised about two hundred pounds over what we needed in that in the few hours before it finished, so it allowed us to cover a lot of extras which really made a difference to the exhibition as a whole. Also the venue let me recreate a mural I did inside the university, albeit on a smaller scale, which was really enjoyable. I also ran a paper marbling workshop while there and that was really fun to do, especially with little kids. It was messy though so their parents probably weren’t too pleased!

What else have you been doing this year, it sounds like you’ve been super busy!
Two weeks after I graduated I was offered a job interning at Kritical Mass, a company which works with charities and businesses trying to make a change with their products in a positive way; so through them I’ve been given some work for clients such as BirdLife International which has been great. For them I’ve made a set of illustrations concerning the decline in vulture population which has been really interesting, I’ve learnt a lot from it which I wouldn’t learn in any other job. I’ve been quite lucky this year in that I was also featured in Secret 7” which was held at Somerset House for the first time, and also had work in Belly Kids’ ‘Milhouse From Memory’ exhibition. I have a few projects in the pipelines as well now which are something a bit different to what I’ve done before; so from here I’m interested to see where I can go and what I can do, I’m excited for what’s to come.

Categories ,1Q84, ,26 illustrators, ,Adult Coloring Book, ,Adult Colouring Book, ,BirdLife International, ,Camberwell College of Arts, ,Coloring Book, ,Colouring Book, ,Four Corners Books, ,Haruki Murakami, ,illustration, ,Kickstarter, ,Kritical Mass, ,Macmillan Prize, ,Milhouse From Memory, ,Percie Edgeler, ,Rock Paper Scissors, ,Secret 7”, ,Sredni Vashtar, ,Ta Moko, ,Tiffany Baxter, ,Treadwell’s Books

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Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with Feronia Parker-Thomas: Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion featured artist.

feronia parker thomas
Feronia Parker-Thomas is yet another graduate of Camberwell College of Arts. She is now qualified as a teacher herself, signed to The Bright Agency and has just produced the illustrations for her first children’s book How the Crayons Saved the Rainbow. Her fab piece for Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion features one of her favourite animals…

feronia parker thomas
feronia parker thomas
Would it be fair to say that you liked bears? What is it about them that appeals so much?
Yes, I am incredibly in love with them! I have done since a young age but have never really thought about why I find them appealing. Thinking about it now, there are two reasons that jump out at me. Firstly, they are lovely to draw, their fur is a fun texture to render and their shape is full of beautiful curves. Secondly, I think humans have always been fascinated with bears; there are examples of bears in prehistoric cave paintings and there are lots of bears in myths and legends. They have quite human features and I think we project whatever we are feeling on to them.

feronia parker thomas
How did you settle on your idea for my colouring book?
I love picture books and this is the area of illustration I am drawn to and mainly working in, so I wanted to do a narrative piece about a girl and her ‘imaginary’ bear. I was thinking about my sister and I when we were children sitting under tables creating imaginary worlds. I liked the idea that the girl was collecting food for her bear and then we get to see the big feast that ensues.

feronia parker thomas
What is your preferred method of producing an illustration?
I draw out a loose sketch of what the illustration will look like and then flesh it out in pencil, I then use my lightbox and the original as a template. I will usually do a watercolour base and then add pencil over the top for detail. I have dabbled in digital colouring recently but I am still not sure; I like the flexibility that digital can give you, but something doesn’t feel quite right for me. There are some amazing digital illustrators out there doing a much better job that I can! I work in the flat I share with my boyfriend in Streatham, and we have lots of books and plants and artwork on the walls; it is a lovely space with lots of light.

feronia parker thomas
Since graduating from Camberwell College of Arts in 2010 what have you learnt about the business of being an illustrator?
It is a rollercoaster; it has highs and lows. A high has been signing to The Bright Agency, they are going through quite an exciting time at the moment so it is great to be a part of it. I have learnt you have to put yourself out there; your work can’t be found if you are hiding it! If I was to give one piece of advice it would be to join Twitter and Instagram and share your work, get your work seen by anyone. There is a great community of illustrators on Twitter that support each other, it is lovely to be a part of.

feronia parker thomas
Why do you enjoy teaching so much and how do you balance being a teacher with being a working artist?
I love teaching because it forces you to look at art in different ways. It sounds incredibly cheesy but I love seeing the new generation of artists develop (insert puke noise here). The arts in schools are under threat and I think it is important to try and show young people that art can have so many different applications in life, I really enjoy winning round unwilling kids. It has been hard at times to balance the two, especially when you might have a tight deadline, but I love illustrating, so when you love doing something it isn’t hard to motivate yourself.

feronia parker thomas
Can you tell us more about your first picture book? it sounds great!
How the Crayons Saved the Rainbow is about an argument between the Sun and the Clouds. Without them working together there are no rainbows, so some very determined crayons work together to try and fix the problem; it is a great story about team work. The book was really fun to do and took me out of my comfort zone a little because they wanted the illustrations in crayon, which isn’t my usual medium. I had a great working relationship with the author and editor; so it was a really positive experience for my first book.

feronia parker thomas
How is development of your own ideas for a children’s book coming along?
Slowly but surely! I am trying to develop characters for several different ideas at the moment, it is nice to have the freedom to flit backwards and forwards and have space and time to develop. I am huge fan of David Roberts‘ illustrations for Rosie Revere, Engineer and Iggy Peck, Architect. They are wonderfully detailed illustrations, I seem to be drawn to illustrators who use lots of detail. I love Carson Ellis‘ work and Janet Ahlberg‘s illustrations were a favourite of mine as a child. I loved Peepo and The Baby’s Catalogue; I could still look at the Jolly Postman for hours.

feronia parker thomas-highgate
I love your drawings from Highgate Cemetery – what prompted this personal work?
The Transport Museum’s ‘Places and Spaces‘ theme for last year’s Prize for Illustration my starting point for these images. I didn’t end up submitting an illustration in the end but it was great to work to a brief. I am fascinated with cemeteries; I went to Paris last year and spent a large proportion of my time looking around different cemeteries there. In many ways it is an unfinished project, I thought I might do illustrated maps for ‘The Magnificent Seven‘ cemeteries in London but never got round to it; watch this space!

feronia parker thomas-pirate
Who are the Pirate Kids?
The Pirate Kids were two characters I created about a year ago as a portfolio piece. I feel a bit guilty that I haven’t developed them more, at the moment they are frozen in time!

feronia parker thomas
feronia parker thomas
What else do you love to draw and why?
I really enjoy drawing people, I get an intense satisfaction when I do a portrait and it actually looks like the person I have drawn. Last year I did a series of portraits of women I consider to be icons, feminism is an important cause to me and I wanted to celebrate them.

feronia parker thomas
Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion will be available to preorder on Kickstarter VERY SOON, so watch this space!

Categories ,#ameliasccc, ,Adult Coloring Book, ,Adult Colouring Book, ,Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, ,bears, ,Camberwell College of Arts, ,Carson Ellis, ,Coloring, ,Colouring, ,David Roberts, ,Feronia Parker Thomas, ,How the Crayons Saved the Rainbow, ,illustration, ,interview, ,Janet Ahlberg, ,Mindful colouring, ,Pirate Kids, ,Places and Spaces, ,The Bright Agency

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Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with Harriet Plaskitt: Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion featured artist.

HARRIET PLASKITT RECIPE 2
Harriet Plaskitt contributes a fabulous tableaux featuring food for Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, inspired by her own travails. She tells us more about this, and gaining a brilliant commission for the Stereophonics thanks to Instagram.

HARRIET PLASKITT PORTRAIT
I believe your are most interested in 3 areas of illustration, what are these and why do they interest you the most?
Yes, I tend to draw three main areas, buildings and maps, food and recipes, and hand drawn typography. I enjoy travelling, and like to capture the places I have been by drawing the buildings there. And not just the ornate landmarks, but the ordinary terraces and high streets. Having been recently diagnosed with IBS, I enjoy exploring what meals I can make with the limited and unusual list of foods I can eat. When I was researching this I realised there was a gap in the market for illustrated IBS friendly recipes. Hand drawn typography has always been something that I’ve enjoyed doing, I like creating my own fonts and experimenting with what can and cannot work.

HARRIET PLASKITT - TOWN
What is your preferred way to work?
I like to work at my desk, so that I have all my materials and laptop and printer readily available. I work mainly with a set of Rotring Isograph pens with black ink. I usually draw all the components of my illustrations separately, and then scan them in and compile them on photoshop. If I colour them I either do it with colouring pencils, or on photoshop.

HARRIET PLASKITT HOUSE PORTRAIT
What was the best part of your course at the University of Gloucestershire?
I really enjoyed the independence of being at university. We did a module about promotion and I liked creating a brand for myself, and making promotional items, making sure everything you do looks like it is done by you.

HARRIET PLASKITT DOUBLE PAGE
In what way has your personal life inspired your artwork for my colouring book?
Due to being on a restrictive and unusual diet called FODMAP, I have to be creative and inventive with that I eat. The two pages for the colouring book show what I can eat on one side, and what I can’t eat on the other.

HARRIET PLASKITT STEREOPHONICS 2
How did you get your first commission from the Stereophonics and what was it for?
The wife of the lead singer found my instagram page and commissioned me to do a house portrait. She then showed her husband Kelly my website and he liked my work, so they contacted me to design their logo and do drawings which they used for the album cover and inside the album booklet. It was all very lucky and an amazing experience.

HARRIET PLASKITT QUOTE
How have you become skilled in hand lettering?
I spend a lot of time practicing and experimenting, with different fonts, different materials and different subjects. I also really like discovering other people who do hand drawn typography, and often look through Instagram for inspiration.

HARRIET PLASKITT COPPER CARD
What project have you recently done using the Adana Eight Five printing press?
I recently created a range of hand printed letterpress greetings cards. These are now all in my Etsy shop and include birthday cards, thank you cards and various hello cards. I’ve used colours that you can’t print with digitally, like gold and copper.

How do you motivate yourself to work on personal projects and why are these important to you?
When I get stuck on a commissioned project, I like to do something personal to reinspire me. I think it is really important to keep going with what you want to do, not only because it expands your portfolio, but because you can develop and experiment with your style.

HARRIET PLASKITT - CITY
What quotes from pop songs are you likely to illustrate, and in what context?
I liked the idea of creating a series of ‘motivational’ quotes, that when initially looked at appear to be the normal “live laugh love” etc which are popular at the moment, but instead are quotes from cheesy pop songs, for example S Club 7. I’ve got some ongoing commissions at the moment so this has been put on hold, but I look forward to getting back to it!

Where can we find you online?
Instagram is where I am most active @harrietplaskittillustration. My etsy shop is here and my website is www.hpillustration.co.uk.

Harriet Plaskitt is featured in Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, alongside 40 other fabulous artists, funding now on Kickstarter. Make sure you get a copy or a few as soon as possible!

Categories ,#ameliasccc, ,Adana Eight Five, ,Adult Coloring Book, ,Adult Colouring Book, ,Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, ,Coloring, ,Coloring Book, ,Colouring, ,Colouring Book, ,etsy, ,FODMAP, ,Food, ,Harriet Plaskitt, ,IBS, ,illustration, ,instagram, ,interview, ,Kickstarter, ,Rotring Isograph, ,S Club 7, ,Stereophonics, ,University of Gloucestershire

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Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with Hazel Partridge: Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion featured artist.

Hazel Partidge Image 5
Beautiful nature themed artworks by Hazel Partridge were one of my top picks at this year’s New Designers show, so I was thrilled that she took up the offer to submit for Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion. Her gorgeous papercut piece was inspired by a poem from Black Country poet Liz Berry.

Hazel Partridge Image 11
I found you at New Designers, what was the best thing about that show for you?
New Designers was really inspiring and informative, the atmosphere was great and it was packed the whole time! I really enjoyed looking at the work from all of the different disciplines and Universities; it was really encouraging to see such diverse ideas and products from this year’s graduates. The most useful aspect of the show was that it gave a great opportunity to speak to representatives from the creative industry; at the Falmouth University stand we met people from publishers, agencies and design companies, all of whom were really enthusiastic about our work.

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How did studying at Falmouth Uni inform your illustrations, it’s such a beautiful town!?
Falmouth is such an inspiring location, and I think everyone studying there would agree! Working in a collaborative studio environment is something that I really miss, it’s so useful to be able to see what others are working on, and get reliable feedback on your own work as well. Nature is a recurring theme for me, and exploring the local Cornish landscapes definitely influences my illustrations. I scuba dive and rock-climb regularly, seeing the world from a different perspective- whether it’s underwater or from halfway up a sea cliff – gets me away from my desk, and more productive when I am back there.

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Where do you like to go when you are at home in the Cotswolds and in need of inspiration?
I’m lucky to live close to so many beautiful places; I love a good long walk through the woods and fields with friends, and heading over to Wales with my family on our motorcycles. I also find a lot of inspiration through reading, I’ve recently finished The Worm Forgives the Plough by John Stewart Collis, which I enjoyed.

HAZEL PARTRIDGE
Can you tell us what inspired your double page for my book?
My colouring page was inspired by imagery from Bird by the Black Country poet Liz Berry. I caught a snatch of the poem; the lines ‘I shed my nightdress to the drowning arms of the dark, my shoes to the sun’s widening mouth’ on the radio, and jotted them down so that I could find out the rest. A little research later and I had discovered an amazing poem that was rich with themes of metamorphosis and migration, and which evoked an enticing yet slightly unsettling atmosphere.

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What are your preferred methods when making artwork?
My illustration was created using cut paper, inks and digital editing. My current favourite mediums to work in are lino print and papercutting, I really enjoy how the process flows- starting with a blank surface and then removing bits of it until the design emerges (hopefully) unbroken. Although working traditionally is by no means the fastest method of producing images in these styles, I find that the results have a warmer and more authentic quality than they would if created digitally as I have put a lot more of myself into their creation.

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You obviously have a great love for birds as they feature widely in your work, what is your favourite bird and why?
My favourite bird is probably the magpie, because not only are they intelligent and beautiful, but they have such a rich folklore surrounding them – most people know the One for Sorrow rhyme, for example. My illustrative work reflects my interests in natural history and science, and although my images are often decorative I enjoy researching the background information on my subjects and trying to keep the designs accurate.

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What new projects are you working on now?
I am currently working on a series of privately commissioned images featuring various birds in their natural habitats. It’s always hard to part with my original artworks, but it’s lovely to know that they are going to a good home where they will be displayed properly rather than sat in a folder in my studio. I’ve got a few print-based projects in the pipeline as well, but I can’t say more about them at the moment, and as Christmas is on its way I’m beginning to plan some festive projects too. I post on social media frequently, so updates can be found there.

Find Hazel on Facebook, Twitter @HP_Illustrates, Instagram @hazelpartridgeillustration and Tumblr. You can colour Hazel Partridge‘s art in Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion alongside that of 40 other international artists. Funding on Kickstarter with only 10 days left, so get your copy now, it makes a fantastic Christmas gift!

Categories ,#ameliasccc, ,Adult Coloring, ,Adult Colouring, ,Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, ,Bird, ,Christmas, ,Coloring for Adults, ,Colouring Book, ,Cotswolds, ,Falmouth University, ,Hazel Partridge, ,illustration, ,interview, ,John Stewart Collis, ,Kickstarter, ,Lino printing, ,Liz Berry, ,nature, ,New Designers, ,One for Sorrow, ,Papercut, ,The Worm Forgives the Plough, ,wales

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