I have been enjoying the subtlety, and gentle ‘silence’, of the winter sky at dusk…
… an infinite variation of soft greys, cool and warm tones.
But I’m ready for something a bit more colourful…
Happily, things are looking up!
I think the ongoing demise of the handwritten letter & the ‘snail mail’ posting of cards or notes to mark occasions (special or otherwise) is rather sad. A txt msg or email will never be a good substitute for receiving an interesting piece of post – you can’t beat the excitement and anticipation of finding an intriguing envelope waiting for you in your letterbox! And what about penmanship?! Do the kids still handwrite… you know, with ink and actual pens?
I love this postcard, found a couple of years ago at the wonderful (
but now sadly closed downupdate: open again! see comments :) Bowne & Co. Stationers in the South Street Seaport area of Lower Manhattan
(postcard © John Derian Company, Inc)
As I appear to be a confirmed (and grumpy!) Luddite when it comes to the ubiquity of digital communications I’m very happy to have some of my work included in the screen printing and papercutting sections of this nifty new book by Charlotte Rivers (published earlier this month):
And I’m delighted to find myself sharing its pages with a super-talented friend…
Jesse Breytenbach, Cape Town, South Africa (letterpress & block printing)
… and a whole host of other great, old-school stationery practitioners. The book is divided into eight sections: hand-drawn illustration, screen printing, letterpress printing, block printing, digital illustration, calligraphy, papercutting and collage/3-D/sewn, and includes brief but informative descriptions of each technique followed by inspirational examples from around the globe. Here are some of my favourite discoveries from the book:
MrYen, Leeds, UK (papercutting)
Sesame Letterpress, New York, USA (letterpress printing)
Winged Wheel, Tokyo, Japan (letterpress printing)
Karolin Schnoor, London, UK (hand-drawn illustration)
Katharine Watson, Washington DC, USA (block printing)
If you’re looking for some inspirational stationery eye-candy the book can be found online here (Amazon UK) or here (Amazon US) >
Like this:
This winter in Amsterdam has, for the most part, been a fairly mild one (crocuses and daffs springing up along the canals in early January and other unseasonal happenings*). But when temperatures plummeted a few weeks ago, and snow made its first appearance shortly thereafter, I thought the local birds would enjoy a supplementary snack.
A sack o’ nuts (& seeds) hung out on the tiny fourth floor
roof terrace outside my studio window…
proved very popular,
but tantalisingly out of reach…
if one lacks the finely-honed perching skills of these little fellas:
A definite crowd-pleaser!
Apparently snow is cosy,
as is taking a winter dip in the drinking water.
The blackbirds are always welcome visitors…
mum, dad…
… and junior (* an unseasonal happening?)
correction – this handsome fella is a thrush, not a blackbird baby!
(thanks, nick!)
All this activity (in four square metres, four-floors up, in the middle of the city!) is endlessly fascinating and rewarding (and it’s a wonder I ever get any work done!).
I spotted this fancy sack o’ nuts hanging in the Vondelpark…
Clearly where the posh parakeets dine out!
The RSPB website has some useful tips for helping wild birds here >
In order of appearance:
stock dove | jackdaw | woodpigeon | long-tailed tits | great tits | blue tit | ring-necked parakeets | great tit | long-tailed tits | rock doves (feral pigeons) | blackbirds (female, male) | thrush | ring-necked parakeets[please let me know if I've misidentified anyone!]
Like this:
Soon after I had started work on the drawings for my ‘amateur naturalist’s specimen collection’ print series I was approached by Chômu Press about creating a book cover illustration for one of their new releases (Nick Jackson’s ‘The Secret Life of the Panda’). The brief I received from Chômu contained phrases like “There’s a scholar studying tiny creatures under a microscope in sixteenth century Holland” and “There are repeated animal references… (birds of various kinds, an ermine, a cockroach, a water flea, vipers, rabbits, fish, river dolphins and so on). Often these have a scientific quality – like the study of biology and anatomy, or the collecting of specimens” – Um… yes please! I’d like to work on that!
concept sketch & drawings for the book cover illustration
I presented several different concept sketches to Chômu, but it was the rough sketch of a collection of specimens laid out in a grid (intended to simply represent a specimen display cabinet as though viewed from above) that they wished to pursue… and so the early work I had done on my ‘specimen collection’ project inspired and informed the creation of the book cover illustration, and work on the book cover illustration fed back into my growing series of specimens. A very happy bit of synchronicity!
some of the drawings made for ‘The Secret Life of the Panda’ book cover
The author and the publisher made the bold (and exciting!) decision to leave the cover entirely, mysteriously free of text (apart from the ISBN on the back and the Chômu Press logo on the spine).
‘The Secret Life of the Panda’ book cover
I had the opportunity to read the book in its entirety earlier this year… it’s a hauntingly memorable “fusion of realism and dream-like fantasy”, an always intriguing, at times disturbing, collection of finely-crafted stories. But I am no skilled literary reviewer – you can read reviews and find out more about ‘The Secret Life of the Panda’ on the Chomu Press website >
* apparently not a valid Scrabble word… but I like it!
Like this:
With the drawing, printing and hand-colouring finally complete, these little (each one is ±9x9cm), colourful specimen screenprints are now available in my shop >
I was glad to use this project as an opportunity to play with lots of colour, but while I was at it I couldn’t resist pulling a few clean, black-only prints. I do love the clarity and simplicity of a velvety black screenprint! These are also now available in my shop >
And I love the cobweb-on-a-frosty-morning quality that white ink on a darker background has, so I made a few variations in white on coloured pastel paper. These aren’t currently available in my shop, but if you’re in Amsterdam you can pick ‘em up at the always awesome Otherist store [Leliegracht 6, 1015DE, Amsterdam]
