Wednesday 16 September 2009

A seaside summer remembered in paint

My most enthusiastic apprentice and I today finished off a project that has taken several days to complete and an awful lot of patience for someone who is seven and three quarters. It happens to coincide with her starting Brownies and wanting to get her 'Artist' badge and me wanting something interesting to go on an otherwise bare bathroom wall.
With the chosen subject being the sea, experimenting with acrylics for the first time to achieve that lovely textured look and immortalize our summer holidays in paint form, seemed to be the way to go.
It's taken a while! (enthusiastically delivered-half-an-inch-deep acrylic paint takes some considerable time to dry) But turned out really quite nice. First we stuck our collection of seashells onto the canvas. Then we painted the entire surface in several layers and shades of blue. Next there was the fun hand printing for extra 'whooshy' sea texture, and finally - just to add a teeny element of a 'rubbish picture' I dropped 3 small boats, snipped out of an old Boden catalogue, onto the horizon.Memories of a seaside summer successfully immortalized and more memories of a fun few days with paints and glue and mess, created in the process.
Got to be worth that Brownie badge, surely?!

Tuesday 15 September 2009

A book to make you say 'Ooooh' out loud


I've been a bit rubbish at trying to keep up with the weekly blogs regarding awesome children's books I'm pining after, but this one, THIS one is a no-brainer. I saw it today and knew immediately it was blog worthy.
ABC in 3D by Marion Bataille is a kids pop up book that is pretty much definitely not really for kids. It's so simple it's beautiful, and is aimed I'd say fairly and squarely at the grown ups. In fact, even more fairly and squarley at the grown ups who also happen to be Graphic Designers.

Almost every letter has a three-dimensional aspect, with simple yet hugely effective paper engineering techniques used throughout. I may well give in to my urges and have to buy a copy for my kids... purely for the educational content you understand. But I'll keep it on my desk. So it's safe...

Tuesday 8 September 2009

Wallop. Fresh new start with a crash, a bang and a badger or two.

Well, the summer is officially over, schools are back. All 3 of my apprentices have been despatched to their various '9 till 3 places' which means Wallop can get back to business, routine and normality. Yay for September!
The first job in hand is a fun one. Scuba diving badgers no less, a series of character designs for The Archaeological Divers Association - a non-profit organisation that specialises in the unique sub-discipline of Underwater Archaeology, and includes archaeologists trained in the use of SCUBA equipment for the purposes of survey and recording of archaeological sites.

Scubadger, in his various forms will be emerging from the deep very soon... In the meantime, for more information on underwater archaeology - find out more from the ADA here.