Very Pheasant To Meet You...

Hello!

My goodness, it's April already.  

I feel like I've fallen off the blogging train a little.  April is always a chaotic month for me - we have many birthdays & celebrations in our house this month, including my own - so it's hard to remain focused as family life takes over.

That said, it's the social media stuff that has suffered more as I have lots of ideas for illustrations brewing at the moment and have been enjoying spending some precious creative time at my desk.  

I think it's about time I started gathering some of the new work and sharing it here on my blog. 

These pieces have been shared over on my Instagram and Facebook pages, but I think it's nice to put everything together and showcase them here (if only for me to document my work as it progresses)...

Today's piece is a woodland creature inspired illustration featuring a badger and pheasant which I've named 'Very Pheasant To Meet You'.  This pair began as a little sharpie sketchbook doodle following a weekend walk on The Quantock Hills, just a few short miles from our house....

The colours are certainly inspired by the hues of the wild flowers in the nearby woods.

I've already added this new design to my Society 6 and Etsy shops, but have plans for this to become part of a new mini collection...

I hope to be back here soon to share more work in progress and inspirations.

Have a lovely week

Best wishes

Summer...

Hello!

The image above sums up the summer for me because it is a peep at work in progress of a new collection of greetings cards coming soon called 'Home Is...' 

This summer has mostly been a delicate juggling act of entertaining our two girls whilst working on this new range.  With this particular design, the first has directly inspired the latter!...

Here's another little peep at how this collection is shaping up.  I'll be able to reveal all in September.  This collection will be available as wholesale greetings cards through my friends at the publishing company, more details are available on the Trade section of my website.  

I am also steadily releasing some of the designs as illustration prints, two if which, 'I'm In Charge' and 'Energy Saving Mode' are already listed on all my online shops (website, Folksy and Etsy)....

Of course it's not all been about work.  There have been plenty of days out, new experiences, birthdays to celebrate and fun to be had these past few weeks....

Whilst out and about there have been a few sightings of my cards in shops, like this one in Waterstones...

On the whole, it's been a laid back summer with plenty of sunny days to enjoy.  

Which has kept me nicely inspired and alongside working on the new greetings card range I've been tinkering with patterns, mostly on a summery theme.  

I have plans to develop some new patterns for gift wrap and fabrics so am steadily building up a stock of new designs to eventually add to my Spoonflower shop...

Starting with this one called 'Wild Strawberries'.  This design is already listed on my Society 6 shop so is available on all sorts of things from totes to t-shirts...

I also began playing with this 'Kingfisher' design, inspired by a watercolour painting I did earlier in the year...

It began as a simple line arrangement which I always intended to colour up.  Once I saw the line drawing, I knew I had to save that version too as I think this will make a nice version for fabrics when I come to order Spoonflower & Print Me Pretty samples soon...

Meanwhile, the colour version is already available on all kinds of everything over at my Society 6.

I hope you are all enjoying summer too!

Best wishes

Angie

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

What I've been up to so far this year - a peep at work in progress...

Hello,

The weeks seem to be flying by again and I've been struggling to slot in a regular blog update on what I've been up to.  Since the end of last year, I have been steadily working my way through a long list to fill the gaps in my occasions card range.  It's something I've been wanting to do for a while to have a more complete greetings portfolio. It's certainly something the publishing company I license my work to have been keen for me to do too.  So, with that kind of encouragement it was time to get to work, and that is what's filling my time at the moment, aside from my children, usual commission work and managing my online shops...

The additions to the range aren't quite ready to reveal altogether yet, but I'm letting you have a cheeky peep at these work in progress crops because I've shared many of these snippets on facebook and instagram as I've been working on them.... 

There has been lots of progress and I can see the collection gradually coming together nicely now.  Most importantly, I'm having great fun working on them because some of the occasions I'm designing for are taking me out of my comfort zone in terms of stretching my style, use of colours and understanding the target market...

 In particular, creating age cards for men has made me think hard and dig deep.  I always struggle to find decent occasion cards for the men in my life, so wanted to create designs that I'd want to give myself.  In the end, I surprised myself at how much I enjoyed creating these and how I was still able to make them colourful and lively without relying on my usual explosion of flowers and prettiness ...

I particularly enjoyed the rock music themed father's day card - it involved a morning listening to some great music and maybe just a little bit of air guitar with the pen of my graphics tablet! ;)...  

The other thing I've been up to is setting up a collection of phone cases with Swag My Case..

For the past 18 months I've been selling my designs on phone cases via my Society 6 shop.  Which is great, BUT as they are based in California and most of my customers are based in Britain, it's never been ideal.  

So, I am very happy to announce that I've teamed up with the London based phone case company: SwagMyCase.com They produce my designs to order onto cases for a wide variety of phone models, to very high standards in Britain. Here's a link to my collection on their site:http://swagmycase.com/collections/angela-spurgeon

As I type this, I'm a just a couple of weeks away from completing my occasions card list and then I start on some more new ranges which I'm looking forward to working on.  I've been feeling very productive lately with ideas and new designs and am embracing that feeling to make the most of it whilst I'm blessed with it, because as all creative people know, that feeling should never be taken for granted - it can go as soon as it comes.  Here's keeping everything crossed that it sticks around for a while so that I can continue enjoying creating new work.

Have a lovely weekend!

Best wishes

New Designs for all occasions...

Hello,

It's taken a little while to get back in the swing of things after the summer, but I feel like I am getting on top of things gradually and have had a fairly productive week.

Here are some pics I've been sharing around my social media sites this week, which give you a peep at some work in progress on the new set of occasions cards I'm working on.  I have plenty of those to do to fill the gaps in my portfolio.  Some of these designs have been requested for licensing so should be available (all being well) for purchase wholesale and retail within the next few months...

I've also listed some of the new designs I've been developing for my calendar and occasions cards as prints in my online shops (website, Folksy and Etsy).  I'd be very happy to personalise some of these designs, like the one above for Everlasting Love, which lends itself well to being a bright and cheery anniversary or wedding gift...

I've also been allowing myself a little time to play and experiment with inks (practice, practice, practice, it's the only way to get better at anything!).  I  really relish the moments I spent on these as the further you get into running a small business, the easier it is to loose sight of the things that made you want to set up the business in the first place - which for me, one of the main reasons was to spend lots of time drawing and getting my fingers inky.

This week, whist having a play I had an idea for a personalised product I could offer in my Folksy and Etsy shops in the run up to 'a certain event that will be happening in a couple of months time!' (no need to use the 'C' word yet!)...

What do you think?  Hand drawn, pen and ink cards with a personal message inside.  Obviously they'll need to be drawn on cards... and a little more time needs to spent on each to make them lovely - but you can get the idea from the pic above.

Well that's what I've been up to this week.  I hope you all have a lovely weekend

Best wishes

Angie :)

Enjoying the great outdoors and a little interview about Art Licensing....

 Hello!

On my last blog post I did say that I'd find it tricky to keep on top of all the social media stuff in the school holidays and that is definitely the case.  The best place to find me during these holidays is over on my instagram as I'm finding that the easiest to maintain whilst I've been getting out and about and enjoying some family fun.  The images above are a selection from my most recent instagram uploads - as you can see, there's not much in the way of artwork at the moment...but then I'm of the opinion that good inspiration comes from having great experiences and soaking up the world around you - so really,  this playing by the seaside m'larky is all honest hard work!;)...

Actually, there is some honest hard work going on behind the scenes here as I have a long list of new greeting card designs to create and I'm currently working on designs for my 2015 calendar. The image above is a snap of some proof run-outs of illustrations I'm considering including in the calendar - some of which I'm also thinking of releasing as new prints for my online shops soon...

The design above for one of the summer months in the calendar is ringing very true with me at the moment and I am very much living life by this motto! It sums up what I was saying at the beginning of this post about getting outside and having fun being the best way to fuel up on inspiration and fire up imagination. 

Before I unplug and go outside again for some more fun with my daughters, I do have another little bit of news for you.  I recently did an interview for Enterprise Nation about licensing artwork.  You can now find that interview over on their blog here: https://www.enterprisenation.com/blog/posts/how-to-sell-through-licensing-to-major-retailers

 Enterprise Nation is a supportive community and inspirational environment for business owners and would-be entrepreneurs.  It offers a wealth of information and advice with books, events and a campaigning voice to help small businesses in the UK flourish.  I feel very honoured to be asked to help share a bit of what I know for their blog and I hope it helps encourage other artists and designers to feel more aware and confident about of the world of art licensing....

Hope you are all enjoying the last few weeks of summer.

Best wishes

Playing with my new calligraphy pen and ink

Hello,

A couple of weeks ago I invested in a new calligraphy pen set complete with various nibs and some inks.  I wanted to get my hands on a set like this for a while as I've been longing to practice my drawing with this medium as I love the texture of line it lends to my doodles.  It's  been such a long time since I've drawn with a pen like this, so I set myself the little challenge of doing a 30 - 40 minute 'warm up' drawing before getting stuck into any commissioned work, or any other work related tasks...

The idea came about as I was starting to grow frustrated at the lack of creative time I get to spend on simply experimenting with new work, thanks to all the admin and general housekeeping stuff that comes with running a business from home around two very busy young girls...

So, I came to the conclusion that starting the working day with a set amount of time to practice or experiment with new ways of working was no bad thing. In fact I've found it's a very soothing way to focus my mind and leaves me better prepared to tackle other jobs as it makes me feel I've achieved something before I even take a look at my emails or my diary.  

It's been half term here this past week, so I've not done any of these drawings or much work for that matter, in the past week.  However, tomorrow is the start of a new working week, so I hope to continue with more of my morning 'warm ups' and see what comes out of those little drawing sessions.

I hope you all have a lovely week too.

Bouncing into Action Developing New Designs...

Hello,

It makes me very happy to announce that today was my first 'NO COAT' day of the year!  :)

I'm keeping everything crossed that the weather stays nice and that it's the first of many no coat days this year.

For that reason I want to celebrate by sharing some cheeky peeps at some of the new designs I'm working on.  I know I have cut it very fine for new designs for Easter this year, but hey ho - they'll be ready to go nice and early for next year...

This new Easter card is at the printers right now and will be available from my online shops by the weekend.

I also need to restock some of my gift wrap designs so am taking the opportunity to slip a few new designs into that order which include my little bouncy bunnies design at the top of this post.

There's another project I've been dipping in and out of over the past few weeks and it's almost ready to go to print.  Below are some teaser images of a new recipe book I'll be adding to my stationery range soon for Spring and Summer... 

Have a lovely week.

Best wishes