Retro Boutique

Just look at this *fabulous* shop! James and I discovered Retro Boutique at the weekend. It's a big shop on Hyde Park Corner in Leeds (for anyone who may want to visit.) I'm a total sucker for retro and vintage shops, and if someone slaps the word 'vintage' on anything it instantly looks 10 times more attractive to me! I think a lot of shops know this trick now, so finding a genuine vintage shop is a treat. Everything was set out beautifully with gorgeous furniture and clothes, fabrics and jewellery. Delicious.

Before and after

I did these card designs which I was happy with but after talking to the very helpful Penny, I decided to re-design them to make sure more of the 'action' was happening in the top third of the cards. I think the designs below are ready to be sent out to publishers now.

Ideas

Here are two card ideas with the same girl but different coloured outfits. I need to put text on them so that they'll be ready to send out but apart from that they're finished. Think I prefer the red and pink girl myself. Bright pink is my favourite colour to use in my work and yet I would never ever wear anything in any shade of pink! It's just not me. Weird.

Sally Go Round the Sun

Sally Go Round the Sun is a children's rhyme book I found in Oxfam. It is illustrated by a Venetian man called Carlos Marchiori and the book was printed in 1969.
The illustrations are so cool and I've been meaning to put them on my blog for ages. All the illustrations look like prints (not sure exactly how they were done) and there are quite a few thumb prints that the illustrator has used in his work. The heads of the clowns at the circus with the elephant above them are all made of thumb prints. Most of the illustrations use a maximum of 3 colours which is something I really like and would love to be able to do myself.
The book itself has lots of rhymes and songs in it, a lot of which would probably not be allowed to be published today! Many of the rhymes are really silly or weird or mean...I can't see any of these being published now!
Fatty, Fatty, two by four,
Couldn't get through the bathroom door!

Peter and Paul and Pinch Me
Went down to the beach to bathe.
Peter and Paul were drowned,
And who do you think was saved?
- Pinch me.

Ice cream and jelly
And a punch in the belly.

Open your mouth and shut your eyes
And I'll give you something to make you wise.

Look at all these red and pink buttons that arrived today from Ebay! I love buttons and have a few craft projects in mind for these. They were a bargain at £2 for over 150!

For those who can bear to look, here is the offending illustration! (Read post below- can't work out how to move this below it!)

Latest work

For those of you who haven't seen them, here are the two card designs I've done recently. I need to do a number 1 card next. The number 4 card was finished with some help from James last night. I originally had a blue sky, no shadows and the boy and donkey were very small in the foreground so that you could see the whole of the donkey. It really didn't work as they looked so dwarfed by the gigantic number 4 cactus. I was in a mood and decided (as I so often do) that I can't draw and I should give up illustration (for the day or forever, depending on how bad my mood is). James always helps me through these times and luckily his suggestions meant this card now looks 10 times better. Thanks James x

Feeling stuck

Over the last few weeks or so I've been going through a bit of a mopey period. There's nothing like having no work to knock your confidence and make you start to doubt your work. I'm on the up again now and am coming up with some children's cards ideas to send to publishers. The trouble is I can't quite decide which direction to go in. Looking through all the different card designs in the shops made me feel more confused as there are so many styles of card that I couldn't work out the do's and don't's of designing a card. So I decided to just do what I wanted and hopefully a publisher will like what I've done.
I've done two versions of the same card and am unsure as to which version I should stick with. The first style is a more commercial, bright (garish?) approach. After looking at children's cards in WHSmith I felt I should change my colours and make them brighter although it's not 100% my taste. I do want to get work though and am willing to compromise a bit with my work.

The second version I've done is in my painterly style and I did this one first, so wasn't originally planning to have a lion in the illustration. I do prefer this version and can add the lion to it but my main dilemma is whether or not it is bright enough and the right style for a children's card. Hmmmm. I think a parent would probably buy the first one. Any feedback would be great as I'm feeling stuck.

Skipton

Over the bank holiday weekend James and I went to Skipton for the day. It just happened to be the Waterways Festival with lots of canal boats brightly decorated. It turned out to be a nice, sunny day too so that was a bonus. We went for a walk in Skipton woods which was lovely. Here are a few of my photos. My favourite is the close-up of the flower. I love using the macro lens on my camera and looking for little details to photograph.

Grrr

These signs are just down the road from my flat and whenever I walk past I get annoyed and then laugh about the stupid use of speech marks and apostrophes. I know my dad hates this too so I'm posting these photos for him.