Winter Arts Market

This weekend I'm taking part in the Winter Arts Market at St George's Hall in Liverpool. I'll be sharing a table with Caitlin Howard and we'll both be selling various pieces of our work and other wonderful potential gifts. I've got cards, postcards, bags, tea towels, prints and badges for sale all adorned with my illustration work. The event is on Saturday and Sunday (though Caitlin and I will only be there on Saturday) from 10 til 5 so come down and say hello!

Here's the lovely flyer:

Abattoir Blues....

....is this weekend!

On Saturday (8th September) The Castle and Gullivers will be hosting 'Nothin' but...Abattoir Blues' a one day blues festival. I have been working away on posters, flyers and programmes for the past few months and this week they launched a website for the event which also features my drawings and designs! Have a look for yourselves, it contains everything you need to know about the day! It should be brilliant so come down.

Abattoir Blues Website

Abattoir Blues

Recently I created some posters and flyers for Nothin' But...Abattoir Blues a free one day event happening on the 8th September (a month from today!). Manchester based club nights Abattoir Blues and Nothin' But...Blues teamed up to organise the music event which will be showcasing some of the best acts that have performed at the two club nights in the past year.

For more information about the event visit their Facebook and Twitter pages...or have a look at my poster below! 

Abattoir Blues Twitter

Nothin' But...Abattoir Blues Facebook

Some links to a selection of the acts:

Will Jeffery

Death Vignettes

Euchrid Eucrow

Worn Journal

I produced an illustration to accompany a haiku for Worn Journal in February. The issue (issue 14) was released in May however I haven't had the chance to see the work printed...until now! I just found this charming little video flip through of the magazine made by Worn and spotted my piece! It's about 30 seconds in, the illustration of the glasses on the right is mine, unfortunately you can't see the amound of detail that I put in to the lenses through the video but that is a great excuse to buy a copy of the magazine!

Here's a little preview screenshot:

And a link to the video: click here!

Visit the Worn Journal website to buy the issue.

St. Davids Sketches

My trip to St. Davids was meant to be a complete break from work but I still made a few small sketches; it was really enjoyable to draw without it leading to a real piece of work or being for a particular purpose. The sketches were a nice chance to play around with mark making and try and capture some of the shapes of the hills and cliffs.

St. Davids

Last week I stayed in St Davids for a week at Whitesands Bay. I’ve never been to Pembrokeshire before so I had no idea what to expect but everywhere was beautiful, quiet and sleepy it was lovely! While I was there I visited a couple of exhibitions as the area has a strong traditional fine art scene. I went to a small exhibition of work by Graham Sutherland a British artist who worked from the 1930s to the 1970s.  His work was fantastic; my particular favourites being the earlier work from his time in Pembrokeshire and his work as a war artist. He used so many interesting marks and shapes turning landscapes and buildings into very abstract forms. The colours were all murky browns, greens, reds, yellows and greys perfectly capturing the tones of the hills, stones and beaches.

Some of my favourites:

 

Welsh Landscape (1936)

 

Road to Porth Clais with Setting Sun (1975)

How Sweet I Roamed (1936)

I also visited a couple of small independent galleries in Porthgain; all of the work (almost all I think) was inspired by or based on the local surroundings and there were some really amazing pieces - inky landscapes and amazing rich coloured skies. My absolute favourites though were the linocut prints by Bernard Green the subtle colours and faded tones were beautiful and the level of detail was incredible. The other gallery contained work by Alun Davies, again mostly scenes from the local area but some really lovely loose paintings of landscapes. Plus paintings of his giant dogs (one came into the gallery and it looked exactly like a polar bear!) which were very sweet.

Some highlights:

 

Alun Davies (Title and Date unknown)

 Bernard Green - 'Fishguard Harbour'

 Bernard Green  - 'Newport Castle'

  Bernard Green - 'St. Hywels Church, Llanhowel'

 Bernard Green - 'Evening Ffynonfaethog'

 Gillian McDonald - 'Coastal Path'

  Gillian McDonald - 'Sea Village IV'

Gillian McDonald - 'Autumn Farm'

I also picked up one of these lovely postcards that have been designed to celebrate 60 years of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. 

 Images courtesy of: 

BBC News South West Wales

National Museum of Wales Art Collection

London Transport Museum Pick + Mix

public.PGFL.org (Pembrokeshire Artists)

Art2By.com

Pembrokeshirecoast.com 

Website Update

I've just added a new piece of work to my website that was created for Inc. Magazine, a lovely poetry zine that can be bought here: Inc. Zine.

I've also been busy working on some really exciting projects which I'm going to showcase online as soon as possible so lookout for those! In the meantime have a peep at the Inc. Zine work here: EmmaBrownOwl

UPDATE!!

Hello to anyone who reads this blog, sorry for my lack of posting recently. I'm just a very forgetful person and my blog has suffered because of this! Anyway I've been busy working away with various projects, some of which are still ongoing. I can't really post any pictures unfortunately because some pieces haven't been published yet but there should be a couple of things coming out this month and I will blog them right away!

For now though take a look at the website Shirtload (click here!) where some of my drawings are currently on sale in the form of t shirts. You can choose the colour of the t shirt as well which I think is fantastic! I'll be adding more designs to the website over the next few months as I gather my thoughts and create some new drawings. At the moment the foxes (from Tee Twelve) have been rejigged and are up there, plus some new animal merges (farm animals), feathers, arrowheads...all sorts. My personal favourite is the Staffordshire Dog Figurine head, inspired by my love for the pair that my Nana owned when she was still alive. Have a peep at the website and keep checking back for more designs.

Also if you have a chance then take a peek at the interview that I did with Business Boom, a Bolton based website that helps to promote creative businesses and freelancers with features and interviews. Here's a link to the site: Business Boom

International Drawing Project

Today is the launch of the International Drawing Project, an exhibition celebrating and demonstrating the importance and diversity of drawing, for a better explanation of the project and the exhibition follow the link below!

Anyway I have a few pieces of work featured in the show, I'm screening 2 of my animations and some of my Crufts inspired pieces will be on display, including some new dogs! The event sounds completely different to any other exhibitions that I've been to or been involved in so I'm excited to see how the evening unfolds.

I'll be blogging some time next week about my experiences hopefully with some images. Here's the link to the info about the project and the details about tonight: International Drawing Project

Derbyshire

Over the Christmas period I went away with my parents, we stayed in a really lovely cottage in a quaint little village called Lytton (I think, bad memory!). During this time we went on a few walks and I took my camera with me on one of these walks. This was actually a bit of a mistake as it was really windy and at one point the lenscap blew out of my hand. Anyway I took some photos of the hills and rocks and over the past few weeks, when I've had a spare moment I've started to paint/draw some of these scenes. I just really wanted to use some colour and do something creative, I feel like I've been so busy recently I haven't had time to enjoy drawing and painting. Anyway here's a couple of them and one that I photocopied and worked into more.

Postcard Swap

Yesterday I received a collection of postcards by Carol Chien as part of the Postcards From Europe project. I was pleasently surprised when I opened the package as I was only expecting one card and Carol had produced 5 plus there was one sent by the exhibition as well. The cards are lovely and it was a great way for me to be introduced to Carol's work. I particularly like the garden postcard and that will be making it's way onto my wall. It's exciting to think that somewhere someone will be opening up an envelope and finding my postcard, I hope they enjoy it!

Here are some photos of the contents of the package and a link to Carol's website:

Carol's Website

Life Drawing

During September and October last year I attended a life drawing class in Warrington. I'd never actually done any life drawing before, somehow the chance never came up despite the fact that I studied art at GCSE, A Level and Foundation. I thought it would be a good way to practice and improve my drawing skills; drawing the human form is something that I feel quite intimidated by and this fear is something that I need to conquer and move past in order to further my work.

The class was quite hard but it was really good to be back in an environment of shared learning. After being away from education for a year it felt quite strange to be part of a lesson and to work alongside other people but it was very relaxed and I think I benefitted from being able to look at the work of the other members of the class and see how they approached the task. I went to about 5 classes, all of them started with quick poses and then progressed to 20 minute and half an hour poses. I think I improved slightly with proportion but I still found it quite hard to let go and work in a looser more expressive style. I've become accustomed to working in small spaces and with tiny detail and I think it's important to be able to work quickly and loosely as well. Below are some (very quick) snaps of the drawings.

Mull It Over

I'm currently showing some work at an exhibition in Brighton called 'Mull It Over'. The exhibition was organised by Collate Presents a curatorial team made up of two creatives from Brighton; Gem a furniture designer/maker and features editor and Carly a sculptor and artist. The exhibition brief was to send in some work that hadn't really had much exposure so I chose 2 pages from my Grow Your Own sketchbook from 2009. I'm really excited that the work is on show and hopefully it will be well received. The exhibition contains the work of 83 2d artists and had approxiamately 200 pieces in it, all of which are for sale. Unfortunately I couldn't make it to the private view (and won't be able to see the exhibition at all in fact!) due to travel/time issues but I was able to enjoy a video of the private view (see link below) and even spotted a piece of my work! If you're in Brighton any time in the next few days it's on until the 17th January at Artist Residence in Regency Square.

To see the here and read a bit more about Collate Presents click below!
http://www.collatepresents.com/mull-it-over-jan-12.html