Amelia’s Magazine | New Designers 2014 Review: Best New Illustration & One Year On Textiles

New Designers Adam Corns 2
Illustration by Adam Corns.

I sadly missed the first weekend of New Designers this year, but I made it to the second weekend and made a beeline for the illustration degree and graphic design stands.

New Designers Horses Josephine Birch
I began with the Cambridge School of Art stand, which is always one of the strongest in show. These characterful horses are by Josephine Birch.

New Designers Francesca Esme Morris
I adored this colourful patterned work by Francesca Esme Morris.

New Designers Aleesha Nandra guitars
These wooden cutout guitars by Aleesha Nandhra feature lyrics and imagery from favourite songs.

New Designers 2014 -Jess Bennett
Jess Bennett updated Snakes and Ladders with her Space Race board game, part of a project to ‘make space cool again.’

New Designers Louise Hall- churches
Louise Hall was inspired by the churches of East London for her London Bells series.

New Designers hannah Kurz
Hannah Kurz created these truly stunning illustrations for a book inspired by Nordic folklore.

New Designers Ella Catt
This cute papercut card design is by Ella Catt at Nottingham Trent University.

New Designers Chris Worker
I was most impressed by the monochrome artworks of Chris Worker, who gives a modern spin to the art deco style of Metropolis. This rocket is part of a stencilled visual history of spacecraft and he also did some amazing tarot card designs. A really awesome body of work, do check out his website.

New Designers Claire Evans
I made a quick trip downstairs to check out the always impressive University of Brighton Design & Craft stand and discovered these samples of recycled plastics by Claire Evans, who explores new ways of working with used materials.

New Designers Holly Alexander
This interactive musical quilt by Holly Alexander blends new and old ideas together to encourage the act of storytelling.

New Designers 2014 -gordon gorilla
Hayley Moisley developed her Gordon the Gorilla character as a learning aid, with interchangeable facial features to create different emotions.

New Designers Amy Clare Barden
New Designers Amy Clare Barden crocNew Designers Amy Clare Barden croc
Back on the top floor I discovered yet more talent amongst the Falmouth University graduates. These awesome animals and the crocodile lift the flap book are by Amy Clare Barden.

New Designers Katie Ponder 2
New Designers Katie Ponder
Katie Ponder was the deserving winner of an AOI award for her From the Rite of Spring series.

New Designers Sessions Surf Shop by Joe Baines
Joe Baines created this eye catching identity for the Sessions Surf Shop.

There is something no nonsense about the way that Falmouth put their identikit boards together and bed down at both New Blood and New Designers every summer, but I would really love to see what the students could do with a stand alone show in London one year.

New Designers Jordan Wray at Plymouth College of Art
Over at Plymouth College of Art Jordan Wray depicted a host of fish in The Element of Surprise.

New Designers Katie Turner
New Designers katie turner foxes
Cute patterns featuring badgers, strawberries, foxes and mushrooms by Katie Turner would look great on wrapping paper.

New Designers Sam Thorne
Sam Thorne’s shouty lady is the best kind of optical madness.

New Designers Adam Corns
People on their iPads everywhere, and fabulous brights (see top of the post). There was some awesome work on show from Adam Corns at Birmingham City University.

New Designers Bunnies by Hollie Crooker
This tumbling pile of bunnies by Hollie Crooker is an astonishingly detailed bit of art.

New Designers award winner Matthew Alker
Over at UCA Farnham I was introduced to the award winning work of Matthew Alker.

New Designers Dogs, by Angelica Hood at UCA Farnham
These plush dogs with lolling tongues are by Angelica Hood.

New Designers Otro Mundo Libby Parra
New Designers 2014 -libby parra
I was immensely chuffed to be gifted one of the best things I found at New Designers; Otro Mundo, a beautiful limited edition risograph zine by Libby Parra, printed by Ditto Press. Her otherworldly creatures are bathed in a neon glow as they wriggle across the pages.

New Designers sparklymouse
New Designers sparklymouse face
At the end of my visit I just had time to visit the One Year On zone. This cheerful hoop embroidery is by Louise Jones, aka Sparklymouse.

New Designers Berty B
This great retro inspired textile design is by BertyB.

New Designers Neon weave
Angie Parker hand weaves these epic neon textiles; absolutely stunning.

New designers charlie mortley
Charlie Mortley’s galactic textile designs were used to great effect in upholstery.

New Designers rosie moss
And finally (phew) these lush figurative textiles are by Rosie Moss, who contributed illustrations to Amelia’s Magazine many moons ago.

Categories ,2014, ,Adam Corns, ,Aleesha Nandhra, ,Amy Clare Barden, ,Angelica Hood, ,Angie Parker, ,BertyB, ,Birmingham City University, ,Business Design Centre, ,Cambridge School of Art, ,Charlie Mortley, ,Chris Worker, ,Claire Evans, ,Design & Craft, ,Ditto Press, ,Ella Catt, ,Falmouth University, ,Francesca Esme Morris, ,Gordon the Gorilla, ,Hannah Kurz, ,Hayley Moisley, ,Hollie Crooker, ,Holly Alexander, ,illustration, ,Jess Bennett, ,Joe Baines, ,Jordan Wray, ,Josephine Birch, ,Katie Ponder, ,Katie Turner, ,Libby Parra, ,London Bells, ,Louise Hall, ,Louise Jones, ,Matthew Alker, ,Metropolis, ,New Blood, ,New Designers, ,Nottingham Trent University, ,One Year On, ,Otro Mundo, ,Plymouth College of Art, ,review, ,Rite of Spring, ,Rosie Moss, ,Sam Thorne, ,Sense of Making, ,Sessions Surf Shop, ,Space Race, ,Sparklymouse, ,textiles, ,The Element of Surprise, ,UCA Farnham, ,University of Brighton

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

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.

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

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.

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 Libby Parra: Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion featured artist.

LIBBY PARRA risograph bugs
Libby Parra was a stand out find at the 2014 New Designers show, and I love her contribution to Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, a psychedelic landscape inspired by her recent trip to the Austrian mountains.

LIBBY PARRA studio pic
LIBBY PARRA afp
You’ve been very busy since I first discovered your work at the graduate shows last year, what have you been up to?
Ahh a crazy mix of stuff I never even imagined I would be doing; lots of fun freelance work – I did flyers and online ad material for a comedy group Abnormally Funny People for their shows at Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer, editorial bits, making coffee for half of Oxford, and I worked as a Graphic Designer full-time. Now I am in London and working freelance as a designer & illustrator and currently working for a company called Unlease that I’m so so excited about.

LIBBY PARRA otro mundo zine 3
LIBBY PARRA otro mundo zine 2
I loved your zine, Otro Mundo, what does it feature?
Otro Mundo is a direct Spanish translation to ‘Another World‘ and it’s just that. I obviously took a bunch of inspiration from the real world, but I had a lot of fun coming up with my own creatures, environments and plants. I wanted to make it bright and insane so using risograph was perfect for that as you can get such intense colours from it. I’m really happy that you liked it, it’s the thing I am most proud of for sure.

LIBBY PARRA otro mundo zine 1
What is it that most draws you to risograph and screen printing?
It’s so satisfying watching all the layers go down one after the other building up an image. I love a gorgeous, perfect screen print but I am a really big fan of the happy accidents you can get if a layer is misaligned, exposing the technique and showing off glimpses of other colour and you often get that with riso prints.

LIBBY PARRA plants
Why have you recently decided to move to London?
It was always the grand plan! There is so many exciting things happening in this city and I just want to be a part of it. I’d often visit my best friend in London when I was back studying in sunny ol’ Kent, and would just feel at home in all the hustle n’ bustle. I love all the graffiti’d streets – there’s art all over the place.

LIBBY PARRA creepy bug
LIBBY PARRA few london
What has been your favourite post graduate job so far and why?
Definitely working for Few London; a leather accessories company that feature limited edition designs from new, up & coming print designers. I draw the designer’s portraits that end up on the product labels and the website. They have recently started selling on Not on the High Street (and are selling out) and will have a new range released in the lead up to Christmas. I just really like that they support new designers, it’s not easy to be seen when you are just starting out and Few London are a great platform for that.

LIBBY PARRA battery
How did you get to decorate the walls of a cafe?
After uni I picked up a barista job in a fab cafe in Oxford, Rachels. The owner Kean makes the most incredible traditional Asian home baked goods and in down time I’d doodle all the little treats, inbetween eating them, and one day Kean said, “Wanna draw on the windows?“. In typical cartoony-cutesy style I would put a face on just about everything and it got a really good response from passers by. You’d have people take photos of my drawings from outside! I had a lot of fun working there. Coincidently (and insanely!) I bagged my new design job in London because my new employer used to live in Oxford and would walk past the cafe all of the time!

LIBBY PARRA how to make work fun
LIBBY PARRA amelias
I understand that your colouring book artwork was inspired by a trip to Austria – why did the Tirol offer you so much inspiration?
Tirol is often called the heart of the alps – and mountains literally surround you wherever you go there. It was insanely beautiful. I love just being engulfed by nature, I think we often forget just how incredible the world is.

LIBBY PARRA trees
Why do you think you are so drawn to the natural world?
Going from a very built up place like London to Austria is just such an enormous contrast it’s almost surreal. A photo or a drawing of a peak or a mountain valley will never compare to actually being up there and experiencing it for real. I think that life can be really dark and difficult sometimes so it’s important to concentrate on all the fun and wonder in the world and that’s what I hope to do with my work.

LIBBY PARRA penguin shortlisted design
LIBBY PARRA anxious alan
What other things inspire you?
I like watching cartoons and playing video games – I like the weird and the wonderful and cartoons and games have this artistic freedom to just do whatever, create a new world, weird and awesome monsters and characters in a whole range of styles and I just like getting sucked up into all of it. Other than that – I get a hell of a lot from other illustrators and artists. There are SO many talented people out there. With just about everyone posting work up on the internet you don’t even need to pop to a gallery to get inspired you just have to check out your favourites on Instagram or whatever and you’re flooded with amazing work that makes me just want to get drawing myself.

LIBBY PARRA kirons monster
Libby Parra features in Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion alongside a plethora of other artistic talent. Make sure you secure a copy when my Kickstarter campaign launches very soon!

Categories ,Abnormally Funny People, ,Amelia’s Colourful Colouring Companion, ,Austria, ,edinburgh fringe festival, ,Few London, ,instagram, ,interview, ,Kickstarter, ,Libby Parra, ,New Designers, ,Not On The High Street, ,Otro Mundo, ,Rachels, ,Tirol, ,Unlease

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