Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion

Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with Nanna Prieler: Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion featured artist.

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NANNA Prieler - man vs crab
I discovered Nanna Prieler‘s work on instagram and invited her to submit her work for Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion. I’m so glad she took me up on the offer, contributing the engaging Creative Life in her unique style.

Nanna Prieler portrait
Where are you from and where do you live now?
Originally I’m from a small village in the South of Austria. I left my home very early, so that I could attend an art school in Graz, one of the bigger towns in Austria. After my graduation I started working as a graphic designer for several agencies in Vienna. But it was not enough to fulfill me. After a busy day of 8 hours working as a graphic designer, I tirelessy developed my illustrative style. Finally in 2014 I decided to found my own illustration business in my current hometown Vienna. Now I’m very happy that I made this big step.

NANNA Prieler - strangers in the park
Who do you work for and how do you set about finding work?
I’m working for national and international clients in different fields. Fortunately I don’t have to search for work, at the moment. The projects are coming by themselves. But it hasn’t always been like this: I’ve worked a lot and tried to use the internet to spread my work all over the world. I will keep on working hard in the future, but always with a lot of passion. I really love to work as an illustrator and can’t imagine living another life.

NANNA Prieler - Horse dressed as butterfly
I hear you’ve got a children’s book on the way – can you give us a brief glimpse inside?
Yes, at the moment I’m working on a new children’s book called „Ganz schön super“ (in German), which will be published in Spring 2016. That’s quite exciting! Each book is a new challenge. Especially this one because it is a lot of work; I have written and illustrated it myself. The main character is a little cat, which meets a lot of other animals. In short it’s a book about tolerance and acceptance, of course told in a funny way.

NANNA Prieler - travel memories Norway
Where do you find inspiration?
At the beginning I was inspired by amazing illustrators like Blexbolex. He was my first hero in illustration and still gives me so much motivation. Now I’m using instagram and other social media platforms to discover the current flow of illustration. But my favourite source of inspiration is nature, I love drawing outside. There is so much beauty everywhere around, I could draw for hours and never get bored.

NANNA Prieler - Horoscope cancer
How do you put your illustrations together?
My work is a mix of the handmade and digital. For me the sketch is the start and it is the most important part of an illustration. In the next step, it gets scanned and I go over it with the path tool in Photoshop. There I can paste in my typical structure as well. Working with the computer is perfect to try a lot of different colour combinations.

NANNA Prieler - Colouring Book Preview
Can you tell us about the title of your double page and what it means?
The title of my artwork is Creative Life. It’s a composition of an artistic mind’s world.
Living together – creating and inspiring each other. Working on this project was a lot of fun, hopefully that’s noticeable in the illustration.

NANNA Prieler - raspberry
How would you describe your studio space and routine?
My cozy little flat in Vienna is also used as my studio. Working from home is a great opportunity to wear pyjamas during the day! There is no exact daily routine. The work is quite different, that’s the thing I love about being an illustrator. Generally it’s a mix of illustration work, social media, interviews and unfortunately a little bit of bookkeeping as well…

NANNA Prieler - kids
What else do you like to do in your spare time to relax?
I enjoy the amazing peace of nature, as often as possible. Cooking over an open fire, sleeping in a tent and drawing in northern woods – that’s my favorite pastime. In Vienna I try to relax myself with preparing extravagant meals with ingredients in rainbow colors.

NANNA Prieler - Animal pattern
What motto do you live by?
Try to do everything – however small it may be – with love and passion. For me that’s the simple secret for a happy life.

Follow Nanna Prieler on instagram here. She is featured in Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion alongside over 40 other international artists, funding for just 8 more hours on Kickstarter today.

Written by Amelia Gregory on Monday November 23rd, 2015 1:15 pm

Categories ,#ameliasccc, ,Adult Colouring Book, ,Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, ,Blexbolex, ,Coloring, ,Colouring Book, ,Creative Life, ,Graz, ,interview, ,Kickstarter, ,Nanna Prieler, ,Vienna

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

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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!

Written by Amelia Gregory on Wednesday October 7th, 2015 12:12 pm

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 Hannah Rollings: Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion featured artist.

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Hannah Rollings
Hannah Rollings recently published An Artist Once Said with Michael O’Mara books, a beautiful interactive art book. Her piece for Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion follows on from this idea, taking the style and ideas of Henri Rousseau as a starting point.

Hannah Rollings portrait
Your PhD thesis is extremely interesting – can you tell us a bit more about it in layperson’s terms?
I am looking at developing illustrated interactive books or digital outcomes for children aged 8-11 on the subject of woodland stewardship specifically communicating the carbon cycle. I hope to work with children themselves to co-design narratives and resources that they find meaningful.

Dev Hannah Rollings
What draws you to educate youngsters about the natural world, and where did this interest start?
I’ve always enjoyed animal documentaries and used to have a WWF filofax that I used to study and draw from. The outdoors has always been a massive part of my life and has come to mean more to me as I begin to think about what is important in my own life. That natural childlike fascination of learning about things you see or find on a walk in the woods is very liberating and gives me a great sense of freedom that I hope I can communicate to big and small explorers.

Hannah Rollings
You also teach, what do you enjoy most about the engagement with students?
Teaching is a very inspiring conversation as you often question your own thoughts on subjects and it is always a privilege to see someone develop their work and to have a small helping hand in that is very rewarding. It is about asking the right questions at the right time, not necessarily having the answers.

Development Hannah Rollings
Why has academic study in general been so important to your artistic process?
Illustration can be quite an isolated working environment so I have always found that study has given me a good balance to broaden my work and gain critical discussion. Academic study has allowed me the structure and collaboration to develop a more reflective practice, giving me the space and confidence to shape my own direction. I also quite like certificates.

Hannah Rollings
As part of your research you coppiced an ancient woodland – what did you learn from this process?
It was a rollercoaster of an experience: amazing discoveries coupled with the practical difficulties alongside general misunderstandings about coppicing such as often being asked why are you cutting down trees. It was beautiful to see a small coppiced area come back to life through the seasons; the bluebells come up as you’ve given them more light and the butterflies and insects take over while new shoots of tree come up doubling the trees capacity to grow and live on.

Hannah Rollings
What inspired you to create your recently published book “An Artist Once Said”? It’s a beautiful tome.
Whilst lecturing in the studio staff and students would often put on the wall their favourite quotes from artists they admired – each unique and fitting to that persons work – and I thought what a lovely idea for a book. As I often need a creative nudge to get over the blank page.

Diary of a Redundant Cow Shed Hannah Rollings3
What is your favourite way to work?
I love the looseness of inks and watercolour but also find I want to create a little friction and contrast and then that is when collaging on the computer can be very exciting as it allows you to bring very different elements, scale and textures together to experiment and surprise yourself.

What made you want to take part in my colouring book?
My work is focusing on building in interaction and the refreshing menagerie of illustrators and approaches I thought would be very exciting to see and be apart of.

Double Page Hannah Rollings
How did you decide on your theme and realise the image for the colouring book?
I wanted to lead on from an ‘An Artist Once Said’ and had been looking at Henri Rousseau as part of my research in depicting foreign lands that people may not have first hand experience of but have magical naive images of. So I looked at this idea of travel and exploring to discover, as Henri Rousseau himself did to produce beautiful images, through the medium of colouring.

I am so excited that Hannah Rollings is part of Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion. Available to pre-order as soon as my Kickstarter campaign is live!

Written by Amelia Gregory on Tuesday October 6th, 2015 8:26 am

Categories ,#ameliasccc, ,Adult Coloring Book, ,Adult Colouring Book, ,Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, ,An Artist Once Said, ,Coloring, ,Coloring Book, ,Colouring, ,Colouring Book, ,Hannah Rollings, ,Henri Rousseau, ,interview, ,jungle, ,Kickstarter, ,Michael O’Mara, ,PhD

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Amelia’s Magazine | 3 DAYS LEFT on KICKSTARTER to get your copy of Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion

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Sua Agape Shannelle
There are just a few days left to secure a copy of Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion before Christmas. My Kickstarter Campaign closes on Monday 23rd November and I’ll be producing as many copies as have been paid for and possibly a few more if I raise enough money, to be sold online. It makes an awesome and unusual gift so make sure you get it now! (I sold out of my last book within a month of printing it). Here’s a few more updates:

Jenn Leem Bruggen East End Prints
Dancers by Jennifer Leem Bruggen

Through the Window by Hazel Partridge
Through the Window by Hazel Partridge

Colouring Print Sets:
I’ve made a fabulous addition to the campaign in the form of A3 colouring print sets: 6 lucky artists from the book have been chosen for a publishing deal with East End Prints, who will produce high quality prints of their double pages: one full colour A3 print and one black line A3 print to colour in. These beautiful prints can be displayed on the wall alone or as a spectacular diptych of your making! The twin sets will retail at £19.95 but we’re offering them at a special price of just £15 prior to their launch at the London Illustration Fair in December.

Eleanor Percival by Steph Moulden KICK
Eleanor Percival by Steph Moulden.


Artist Jenny Tang colouring in her page.

Press:
Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion has been featured on Grafik Magazine, Creative Boom, Anorak Magazine, Bust, Colour with Claire and Made in Shoreditch. Read revealing interviews on The Early Hour, Motherland and Mumspo if you want to know about life as a single ‘mumpreneur’. I also wrote my first ever blog for the Huffington Post, titled 8 Things You Didn’t Know About Colouring Books For Adults, which I have also posted on Amelia’s Magazine. This is well worth a read if you want to know why colouring is so damn fantastic. It is aimed at people who are not sure what all the fuss is about and perhaps don’t think that colouring is for them, (like myself for instance, not long ago!)

Sophie Corrigan by Sua Agape
Sophie Corrigan by Sua Agape

Lorna Scobie colour by Libby Parra
Lorna Scobie colour by Libby Parra

Artists from the book colour each other’s work:
In other news, I’ve asked the artists featured in Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion to colour in each other’s artwork and the results have been so fantastic that I’m already cooking up ideas for an exhibition. I hope these examples will whet your own colouring appetites and cannot wait to see what you do with your pages.

Get your copy of Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion from Kickstarter now!

Top image by Sua Agape, coloured by Shannelle Schutz.

Written by Amelia Gregory on Friday November 20th, 2015 10:55 am

Categories ,#ameliasccc, ,8 Things You Didn’t Know About Colouring Books For Adults, ,Adult Colouring, ,Adult Colouring Book, ,Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, ,Becky Dinnage, ,Coloring, ,Coloring Book, ,Colouring Book, ,Colouring print set, ,Colouring Print Sets, ,East End Prints, ,Eleanor Percival, ,Hazel Partridge, ,Huffington Post, ,Jenny Tang, ,Kickstarter, ,Libby Parra, ,London Illustration Fair, ,Lorna Scobie, ,Shannelle Schutz, ,Sophie Corrigan, ,Steph Moulden, ,Sua Agape, ,Twin print sets

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

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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!

Written by Amelia Gregory on Wednesday November 11th, 2015 12:52 pm

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 | 8 Things You Didn’t Know About Colouring Books For Adults

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Amelia Gregory portrait
Adult Colouring is a trend you can’t escape, so why not embrace the phenomenon with gusto this Christmas? You might be surprised by how much you and your loved ones enjoy it. I first became fascinated by the growth in popularity of adult colouring a year ago, and although sure it would not appeal to me as a personal hobby I thought the format provided the perfect forum for artists to showcase their work. So I posted a brief on Amelia’s Magazine and set about making Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion. In the interests of research I decided to try adult colouring myself, and before I knew it I was a total convert: from intrigued sceptic to full on addict, here’s what I’ve learnt during my colouring journey so far.

Sophie Corrigan by Sua Agape Adult Colouring Book
Sophie Corrigan coloured by Sua Agape.

1. Colouring Can Be Daunting
Yes, really! Making marks on a blank bit of paper can be daunting to most, but colouring is not necessarily the easy route out. Choosing the right medium and colours can be a scary process, so don’t be surprised if you occasionally find yourself stumped. Colouring is given a bad rap as uncreative but as a colourist you impose your own creativity on that page. Yes, I said colourist. Being a colourist is a thing in the adult colouring world. And I’m not talking hair dye.

2. Colouring Is For Everyone
Don’t let the above put you off: there are many ways to make the creative choices less stressful. Try the wonderful website Color Hunt for simple colour palettes if you’re stuck on what to use. Or, don’t think about what colour you pick up, just use whatever medium you have to hand and be impulsive. There are no rights and wrongs so enjoy the process; it’s supposed to be fun and relaxing. Colouring builds creative confidence so it is a great entry point into further artistic endeavour.

Lorna Scobie by Libby Parra Adult Colouring Book
Lorna Scobie coloured by Libby Parra.

3. Colouring Is A Creative Collaboration
You may be colouring someone else’s creation, but your decisions enable that line drawing to come to life – so don’t underestimate your input. When you spend a lot of time colouring in you get to know the artist’s artwork intimately, so it really helps if you like their style. Go for a theme that appeals to you: from mandalas to mohicans, there are thousands of books now available with designs to suit all tastes. Why not seek your interests out? A good colouring book artist will keep you inspired for days on end.

4. The Colouring Community Thrives Online
You know how colouring is touted as the best way to switch off and step away from the screen? Well that’s true, but there is a thriving adult colouring community sharing artwork online, swapping tips and admiring each other’s work. Facebook is the best place to ogle at some true masterpieces, learn how to achieve the best shading and get into discussions about the pros and cons of vaseline versus baby oil (for blending, nothing nefarious I promise.) No one person will colour a picture the same way and it’s a real thrill to see how differently everyone approaches a similar image.

Suzanne Carpenter Adult Colouring Book
Double page by Suzanne Carpenter.

5. Be Prepared To Be Peaceful
If you really want to get in the zone it’s a good idea to set yourself up with the right equipment. Colouring at night with scratchy pencils under a low wattage lamp without a sharpener to hand does not make for a pleasant experience, so be prepared to invest in some super duper accessories like a lap desk with integral lamp. Headaches are far from restful!

6. Colouring Soon Gets Costly
The online colouring world is full of colourists with hundreds of colouring books and cupboards that spilleth over with pens and pencils. There are many options and they all give different results, so be prepared to spend money on your new habit and become a pencil/pen geek with alarming rapidity. If you are anything like me you will need only the merest excuse to buy new art materials: so before you know it you’ll be salivating over Marco Raffines, comparing Prismacolor colours and experimenting with Gelly Rolls.

Enchanted Forest by Johanna Basford Hack by Colour With Claire
Enchanted Forest by Johanna Basford, Hack by Colour With Claire.

7. Colouring Pages Get Hacked
It seems that everything can be hacked these days, and by this I do not mean steal – you should always get your colouring pages from a legitimate source and ensure the artists are paid for their work. But why not have a bit of fun and hack an original colouring page image? There’s no law to say you have to stay within the lines, so go wild and add your own elements to the original creation, such as these Disney characters in a Johanna Basford tree by Colour with Claire.

8. Lastly, Colouring Is Addictive
It’s exciting. You can make an image come alive with colour, and there’s a real sense of achievement when you finish colouring a page, especially one that has taken a long time to complete. Which probably explains why colouring is so darn addictive… and can become very time consuming if your addiction really takes hold. Don’t say you haven’t been warned!

Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion is funding now on Kickstarter and features 40 artists from all over the world.

AmeliasCCC Kickstarter campaign image
This article also appears on the Huffington Post.

Written by Amelia Gregory on Sunday November 15th, 2015 9:47 am

Categories ,#ameliasccc, ,Adult Colouring, ,Adult Colouring Books, ,Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, ,Christmas, ,Color Hunt, ,Coloring Books, ,Colour with Claire, ,Colouring Books, ,Colouring Books For Adults, ,Gelly Rolls, ,Hobbies, ,Huffington Post, ,Johanna Basford, ,Kickstarter, ,Libby Parra, ,Lorna Scobie, ,Marco Raffine, ,Prismacolor, ,Sakura, ,Sophie Corrigan, ,Sua Agape, ,Suzanne Carpenter

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

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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.

Hazel Partidge Image 9
Hazel Partidge Image 6
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.

Hazel Partridge Image 4
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.

Hazel Partidge Image 8
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.

Hazel Partridge Image 3
Hazel Partidge Image 7
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.

Hazel Partridge Image 3
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!

Written by Amelia Gregory on Friday November 13th, 2015 6:38 pm

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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Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with Alex McGinn: Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion featured artist.

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Alex McGinn Artwork example 2
Illustrator Alex McGinn was one of a slew of graduates discovered at this summer’s New Designers show. Her distinctive artwork features a strong palette of autumnal colours, which lend themselves perfectly to a host of subjects.

Alex McGinn Artwork example 2
What was the best bit about studying at Falmouth Uni?
At Falmouth University I think the most helpful part of our course was the amount of tutor time and group critiques we had to discuss the development of our work. The university felt like a community, probably because the campus is situated in such a small town. As a student, I really felt the tutors really knew me and were always aware of what particular problem I was trying to overcome.

Alex McGinn Artwork example 4
How do you start a piece of artwork and what is your favourite part of the art making process?
Generally my favourite part of creating an illustration is the ‘thumbnail’ stage. Which is where I am literally laying out every idea that pops into my head until I have this massive page filled with plenty of different visuals to compare and choose from. At this part of the creative process I feel very liberated as I don’t have a fixed idea about what my final outcome will be.

Alex McGinn Artwork example 7
You favour a very particular colour palette, where do you find inspiration for the colours you use?
I think when I was starting to create more editorial illustrations I looked into the kind of colour palettes other successful editorial illustrators use, such as Neil Webb and David Doran. My main aim was however to make the illustrations really jump out at the viewer which is why my colour palette is vivid and bright.

Alex McGinn Double Page colouring book
How did you create the artwork for the colouring book?
I started off by making a few sketches and thumbnails and decided what subject matter would work best for a wide audience. Once I had decided I wanted to create a nature themed image the rest of the process was fairly simple. All my drawings are rather large so I can place all the necessary detail, and then digitally edit using the Adobe Suite.

Alex McGinn Artwork example 6
What are your favourite Dorset landscapes and why?
I personally enjoy the view from the Purbeck peninsula looking towards Corfe Castle which is an area I visited regularly as a child.

Alex McGinn Artwork example 3
How did you get involved with Write to Freedom and what have you done for them?
One of my Falmouth tutors was in contact with a member of Write to Freedom who were collaborating with the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA), and it was through this connection I got one of my first commissions. For this particular commission I was asked to produce a leaflet depicting the History of the Workers’ Educational Association within Dartington, and an illustrated map. The illustrated map was designed to lead the viewer along a trail around Dartington Estate and the surrounding countryside. It was called the ‘Dartington Then and Now‘ Trail. Throughout the trail there were a series of ‘then’ and ‘now’ statements displayed, explaining the past and current projects the WEA undertook in Dartington.

Alex McGinn Artwork example 1
What kind of illustration are you producing for Workers’ Educational Association?
At the moment I am working on another commission now specifically for the Workers’ Educational Association. I am creating large illustrations summarising the development of the WEA over the last 100 years. These illustrations will eventually be displayed in an exhibition towards the end of the year.

Alex McGinn Artwork example 5
Why have you decided to train as a teacher and where do you hope to pass on your skills in the future?
I decided to train to be a teacher whilst keeping up with my freelance work as I really do have a passion for passing on the knowledge I have learnt throughout my education. I enjoy the opportunity to inspire creative thinking at any given opportunity which is why teaching was a logical path for me to undertake. At the moment I am training to teach Secondary Level Art and Design but potentially, in the future, I may qualify to teach at University level as well.

Stay tuned for many more interviews with featured artists from Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion.

Written by Amelia Gregory on Tuesday September 29th, 2015 10:28 am

Categories ,Adult Coloring Book, ,Adult Colouring Book, ,Alex McGinn, ,Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, ,Coloring, ,Coloring Book, ,Colouring, ,Colouring Book, ,Corfe Castle, ,Dartington Estate, ,Dartington Then and Now, ,David Doran, ,Dorset, ,Falmouth University, ,illustration, ,interview, ,Neil Webb, ,New Designers, ,Purbeck peninsula, ,Workers’ Educational Association, ,Write to Freedom

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Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with Ignacia Ruiz: Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion featured artist.

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Ignacia Ruiz
Ignacia Ruiz was born near the Andes but has chosen London as her home. Since graduation from her degree she’s had a packed schedule, featuring in numerous exhibitions but happily finding time to produce some artwork for Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion too.

ignacia Ruiz Portrait
What has prompted your lifelong obsession with greenhouses and plants in general?
I think it started with the very first place I lived in. There was a small greenhouse in the centre of the house and I can remember being about 4 years old and going in to water plants with my mum. It always seemed like the most magical place! I think that has remained my impression ever since. Being from the city and surrounded mostly by buildings has made me see plants and greenery as a precious thing.

Ignacia Ruiz
Ignacia Ruiz
You love to sketch on location – how did you set about capturing the hothouse atmosphere of the greenhouse?
For me it was getting the mix of the delicate architecture of the steel frame and glass against the organic structural shapes of the plants themselves. The tropical heat of the greenhouse hopefully comes across on the vivid colours of the plants in the drawings!

Ignacia Ruiz
What was the best bit about growing up in Santiago de Chile?
Weirdly enough I think it was probably the topography of it. You can drive from the city to the seaside in an hour to have a swim and later drive up the snowy mountains all in the same day. The variety of landscapes is lovely. My favourite thing in Santiago is seeing the Andes mountains at sunset. The snow turns red and orange and you can see the beauty of them in stark contrast with the glass and steel of the buildings.

Ignacia Ruiz
Why did you pick London for your study?
Initially I was only coming to London for maybe a year, but a lot happened in that time and I felt like it was the right place for me. I then applied to do the Graphic Design and Illustration BA at Central Saint Martins and got offered a place. That’s when I decided I wanted to stay here and try to develop my career. It’s been going well ever since!

Ignacia Ruiz
How do you translate your location sketches into finished works of art and what is the process?
My sketches are usually very fast and loose, so I like to have finished work that retains some of that quality. I have found that with print methods like linocut and woodcut I can emulate the drawing pen with the chisel. I guess it’s the same idea, just a different tool. I love playing with negative space and the bold flat colour you get with relief printing. I also like the imperfections of the print that relate to the initial rough sketch. I’m not a perfectionist printmaker at all!

Ignacia Ruiz
I believe you’ve just completed a residency in Italy – can you tell us more about this?
Yes, I was very lucky to have been asked by the print studio Opificio della Rosa to come and work in an artist book. I decided to make a reportage project of the area the studio is located in, the Conca Valley. I travelled around with my sketchbook documenting the people and places I encountered. Later I returned to the studio to turn the drawings into woodcuts. It is an ongoing project that will be finished and published in 2016.

Ignacia Ruiz
How did you get the commission to illustrate a Penguin book and what was the process of producing your final artwork?
One of Penguin‘s art editors came to our second year illustration exhibition and liked some of the work I was exhibiting. We kept in touch until finally she said she had a project that would suit my work. It was a book about the planning and logistics of the Crusades. I was so excited, especially since all the research consisted in looking at beautiful period illuminations and films depicting the Crusades. The artwork went through several roughs before it was approved by Penguin and was finally rendered in a woodcut style with thick black outline and very little colour.

Ignacia Ruiz
Can you tell us more about the recent exhibitions you have taken part in?
There has been a few this year apart from my degree show. I had a piece in the AOI’s Places and Spaces exhibition at the London Transport Museum, I did a cover for Alice in Wonderland which was featured at the YCN Student Awards at the Barbican Centre, I had a project about depicting boxers training in a gym in Islington featured in the Reportager Award at the UWE in Bristol and my City linocuts series appeared at the Cheltenham Illustration Awards. It’s been a busy year!

Ignacia Ruiz
What next, will you stay in London and if so why?
I have some commissions and teaching jobs on at the moment so London feels like the right place to be. We shall see what the future brings!

You will be able to own your very own copy of Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion featuring the work of Ignacia and many others… just make sure you grab your book once my Kickstarter campaign launches in a few weeks time.

Written by Amelia Gregory on Thursday October 1st, 2015 8:55 am

Categories ,#ameliasccc, ,Adult Coloring Book, ,Adult Colouring Book, ,Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, ,AOI, ,Central Saint Martins, ,Cheltenham Illustration Awards, ,Coloring, ,Colouring, ,Conca Valley, ,Crusades, ,Ignacia Ruiz, ,illustation, ,Kickstarter, ,linocut, ,London Transport Museum, ,Opificio della Rosa, ,Penguin, ,Places and Spaces, ,Reportager Award, ,Santiago de Chile, ,woodcut, ,YCN Student Awards

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

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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.

ANAJAKSDRAWING
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.”

ANAJAKS-theselfiephenomenon
ANAJAKS-CreativeReviewBillboard2
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. 

ANAJAKS-EcoCallobforToteBag
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!

`ANAJAKS-Inspiredbyrecentholiday
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.

ANAJAKS-CommissionbyFTMagazine2
ANAJAKS-CommissionbyFTMagazine
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.

`ANAJAKS-dblepg
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!

ANAJAKS-FigurePracticeInsipredbySeasons
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.

ANAJAKS-FigurePractice
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.

ANAJAKS-CreativeReviewBillboard3
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!

Written by Amelia Gregory on Sunday November 15th, 2015 11:55 am

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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