New Gocco Prints

Here's a little peek at Miss Beehive, actually she didn't misbehave too badly and printed quite well.  She could also be called Miss Register!  I always try to achieve a slightly misregistered feel to my digital work and I've enjoyed creating a similar feel with these new prints. There is something so nice about printing work by hand and it's such a shame that Gocco have ceased production.  Now that I've got the printing bug I'm hoping supplies will be available for a little while longer...

New Gocco Prints

I've been busy gocco printing today, fun and frustration in equal measure!  Here's a sneak peek of my first new design 'Custard the Cat' hanging up on the drying rack fashioned by my handy husband.  I'm participating in the latest gocco pika package project so a few of these will be included in my contribution and the rest will go in my etsy shop.  I'm planning to print some more new designs tomorrow, watch this space.....

Illustration Friday - Double

Well I've been neglecting my blog a little of late, so I must make amends!
Here's a little image for Illustration Friday.  This week's theme is Double, so being an identical twin myself I had to draw twins!  My sister and her family were up for a visit this weekend which was lovely.  Despite living quite some distance apart and leading very different lives we still have a very strong bond although it's a long time since we looked like this and we don't do much skipping these days!

Here we are in glorious 1970's technicolour.  Just look at those cool
matching outfits and ragdolls!  That's me on the right, so now I know where my love of orange comes from!

Ripple Project - Hope Floats

I've just contributed this image to the Ripple blog set up by illustrator Kelly Light to raise funds to help the birds and animals affected by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  Please take a look at the blog here.  Artists from around the world have contributed small works of art which can be purchased by donating $10 to one of 2 charities helping with the clean-up operation.

It's so terribly sad to see all the wildlife affected by this manmade disaster and I hope my contribution will raise a little for this very worthy cause.

Illustration Friday - Paisley

The Paton family from Paisley were a close-knit clan!

Here's my contribution for this week's Illustration Friday topic.  I had fun working on this one and learnt a few interesting facts too!  The paisley pattern which originated from Kashmir was used on shawls which were made in Paisley, Scotland in the 19th Century.

Shelf Life No 2

I was the lucky winner in 2 blog giveaways recently, so I have a couple of new additions brightening up my studio windowsill: a fab Nelly the elephant card from Bee which I framed and a cute stained glass egg man from Flora.  I think they both sit nicely with my 70's cat mug, a recent charity shop find.  Be sure to check out their lovely blogs and head over to Bee's for a new giveaway this week...

Vintage Children's Books

I recently spent a lovely few days visiting my parents and while I was there I found these 2 fab books which I had collected years ago and forgotten about.  It was great to rediscover them and bring them back to the studio to join all the rest of my books.

I particularly love the bold illustrations in this one, and I've just found a flickr group dedicated to the work of Bernice Myers. Take a peek for some fantastic vintage illustration...