Enjoying Watercolour

Hello,

One of the things I enjoyed doing this time last year was taking long breaks from my computer screen to sit in a sunny spot and do some inky doodling mixed with watercolour - just for the fun of it!  

 The reason I know it was this time last year is because it was around the time of the Contemporary Craft Festival in Bovey Tracey and I have just booked my ticket to go there again weekend after next.

Having done so many new designs so far this year, I've really felt the need to step away from my machine and play with paint again, so have been dabbling with just watercolour this time.  Based on my 'Bloomin' Lovely' collection, I've been doodling little birds and flowers - all things colourful & pretty.

I really wanted to see if I could bring the same vibrancy of colour to my watercolour work as I get when I colour my designs up digitally.  I also have in my head that if I create little clusters of birds and flowers, I may be able to use the images scanned as repeats and on future products, notecards, stationery, planners etc....

For now though, it's more a case of enjoying the flow of painting and mixing colours without having to click my mouse at my screen...

I used to watercolour all the time when I was an art student, but these days I get very little opportunity.  What I did realise though is how much I tend to apply some of the same painting techniques when I colour my designs on screen.  I use a graphics tablet and though I frequently work in illustrator to create icons and shapes to use throughout my designs - more often than not for my detailed illustrations, such as my card designs, they are created in photoshop.   That's where I feel I can colour in layers and practically 'paint' with my graphics pen - to me it feels similar to working with paint, but without any mess or chance of my kids knocking my water pot over!

I mounted up the paintings I've done over the past week and added them to my Folksy shop.  One has already found a new home, but I fully intend to do more of these as I'm really enjoying it and have ideas for more little images to build a collection based on British wildlife...

Here's where the finished paintings are being listed over at my Folksy shop:

https://folksy.com/shops/artworkbyangie/collections/219591

I hope to share more with you soon.  Meanwhile, it's back to my computer for more commission work, all refreshed thanks to my painting break!

Have a lovely day!

Best wishes

Happily Ever After...

Hello!

Long time no blog post again. Sorry about that.  I've been immersed in working on my newest collection.  For the past few weeks I've been following up my new occasions card designs with a new collection called Happily Ever After.  I'm still working on some more illustrations in this range, but wanted to share where I'm at so far with it all.  Mainly because  as soon the the illustrations are complete, they are being listed over on my Folksy and Etsy shops.  I think they work well together as nursery prints and are also ideal to personalise by simply adding a child's name and date of birth on them.

There's an Alice and Wonderland themed illustration in this collection too, to celebrate 150 years of Alice, and it is my entry in the Etsy and British Library competition - 'Redesigning Alice'...

Not only am I releasing these as prints, slowly but surely, some are being added to my Society 6 shop so that they become available on a wider range of accessories and homewares....

I began work on this range last Autumn and you may recognise my Fox and Hare print from that time.   Other work needed to be attended to, so there's been a bit of break in the middle of working on these, but I'm enjoying picking up where I left off and have been getting really stuck in to them lately.... 

To celebrate the launch of these new designs, I'm running a limited period multi buy offer on nursery prints.  There are 2 packs of 4 Unframed A4 Prints to choose from.   At £28 plus P&P, each pack saves a whopping £20 off the cost of buying each print individually (normally each individual print is £12 - with this offer it comes down to £7 each)...

Choose from either the 'Fairy Tales' pack which includes:

Rapunzel, The Princess and The Pea, Alice and The Hatter, The Elves and the Shoemaker.

https://folksy.com/items/6661932-OFFER-4-x-Unframed-Nursery-Prints-Multi-Buy-Fairy-Tales-Pack

Or the 'Sunshine' pack which includes:

My Sunshine, When Skies are Grey, Fox and Hare, The Tortoise and Hare.

https://folksy.com/items/6661942-OFFER-4-x-Unframed-Nursery-Prints-Multi-Buy-Sunshine-Pack

Also, if you are a subscriber to my newsletter, don't forget you should have your exclusive 20% OFF code for May, which you can apply to these offers for further discount until 8th June.

If you'd like to receive my email newsletter offer codes, you can sign up for my emails here:

http://artworkbyangie.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=652aea9078616834d3a2f003e&id=97f65c83e6

Have a lovely day!

Best wishes

My Escape to Outlaw Bristol...

Hello!

This weekend I managed to escape to Bristol for a few precious hours on my own, to go and visit the Artisan Craft Market, Outlaw - which has been a big success in Cornwall since it began a couple of years ago.  This was the first ever Outlaw market in Bristol and it was fantastic.  Easy to get to by train too as it was held in The Passenger Shed just at the front of Temple Meads station.  

I really enjoyed the few hours I spent there, it had a lovely relaxed atmosphere with craft workshops, music, good food and plenty of talented designer maker's wares to see.... 

Best of all for me, I got to meet and chat with some of the wonderful Westcountry Creative Women Business I met a few weeks ago when I gave a talk at Kindred Rose's meet up.

It was lovely to catch up Lauren Aston Designs and her marvellous chunky knitted homewares - her stand was a such a cosy corner, it was very hard to leave it...

http://www.laurenastondesigns.com/

I had a lovely long chat with Artist Nicky Harwood, AKA. The Cow Lady (because of her amazing cow paintings).  Nicky was launching a fascinating new colourful collection of layered acrylic paintings which are oh so tactile!  To get a better view of each of these pieces, hop over to Nicky's facebook page where she has posted up some great close up photographs of each piece:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nicky-Harwood-Artist/526478524072255?fref=photo

http://www.thecowlady.co.uk/

It was lovely to meet Charlotte Macey there too, I have been a long time follower of her work on social media and seeing her work there in front of me did not disappoint.  In fact, I absolutely had to make a purchase, so I bought one of her delightful little jugs to pop cuttings from my garden in...

 Here it is. My new Charlotte Macey jug to remind me of my lovely day at Outlaw.  We have lots of bluebells out in our back garden at the moment, so a few of those look splendid in that jug, don't you think?  Here's where you can find more of Charlotte's products:

http://www.charlottemacey.co.uk/

I am very happy with my purchase and thoroughly recommend Outlaw Bristol when they return next year! To find out more, visit their website here:

http://outlawevents.co.uk/

Best wishes