Liberty Open Call. 'Best of British'

Yesterday saw the latest Open Call for Designers at Liberty's in London.
Entitled the 'Best of British' the day was an opportunity for artists & designers in all fields to showcase their ideas and designs to an expert panel of designers and buyers from the Liberty store and gain an insight into how to progress and market their wares. There was obviously also the very real opportunity to impress the buyers and for some the glimmer of hope that maybe one of their products might get noticed and snapped up.

Liberty, unfortunately isn't the most ideal market place for my own particular line of work, so I was not expecting too much. A rare opportunity for constructive advice from such experts for redirecting my Wallop Design work was just too good to miss though so I gathered up a selection of my Rubbish Pictures and a portfolio of my children's book mock ups using those same pictures and with a little trepidation set off to Regent Street.

The doors did not open until 10.00am but the grapevine whispered that queues would be long. It was right. As I arrived at 7.30am, at least 20 people were stood in the freezing cold already and the queue just grew and grew from that point on. The Starbucks opposite must have made a roaring trade from people clutching lattes just to keep their hands warm.

Queue time wasn't wasted time though. I was fortunate enough to be stood chatting with a fantastically talented pair of textile designers from Glasgow, PringleMurray who I have a feeling, will most definitely be featuring strongly on the Liberty shelves in the future, plus a couple of jewelry designers with a very beautiful and I'd say unique product for ladies, named 'shy' which I can definitely say had a certain buzz about it ;-)

We finally moved inside to the lovely union jack bunting bedecked upper gallery area of the store itself, where row upon row of gold chairs awaited, for a further (seated at least - phew) queue before we met our designated panel of experts.

After the somewhat nerve wracking wait, the actual designated presentation time went in a flash. The feedback I was given however, was very positive, the advice of which direction to head in next for optimum market appeal, just what I needed to hear and all in all - I left feeling very positive and encouraged.

Had I not been concentrating hard on lugging a ruddy great peacock against the tide on Oxford Street on a Saturday lunchtime, I may even have had a small skip in my step....

I believe Liberty hold Open Calls annually, for more information on the next one keep an eye on their blog http://blog.liberty.co.uk/

The day will also be featured on 'The buying Game' by Maverick TV, due to air on BBC2 this Autumn following the rise of the various designers who Liberty took on. I'll be watching, fascinated, to see how everybody gets on.

Spring views...

Another day, another Rubbish picture. Todays is inspired by Spring and the view out of my window.... the leaves are finally on the trees, the sky is blue and as my apprentice loves to point out, the bunnies are so happy they just can't stop cuddling each other...

Running dogs

I have a very dull dog. Don't get me wrong he's beautiful, he's friendly, he's quiet, he's great with kids and is very low maintenance. I love him to bits and in most ways, he is the perfect pet in fact. But in the interest stakes.... he'd rate pretty low.
He sleeps a lot does our Ned. You give him a ball, he might raise one eyebrow at you briefly, you give him a chewy, he'll bury it for later....when he's less tired.
My dog does....nothing. Official. He sleeps for approximately 23.5 hours of the day.
So why is it I wonder that Ned has his very own fan club of adoring friends and neighbours? Why do complete strangers chat to me every single morning whilst we're out on a daily walk (The 0.5 hour of the day not accounted for above)
It's because Ned is a whippet that's why. People, I have discovered, just love whippets (or maybe people actually love greyhounds and a whippet is just a mini me greyhound so it kind of counts). These dogs have something about them that makes folk go 'awwwww'.

Testament to that is the new range of Rubbish Pictures I am making up at the moment to restock my Folksy shop. Folksy allows you to manage your items. Once you have added an item you can see how many hits it has had. Within minutes of this latest rubbish picture entitled 'running whippet', Seven people had checked it out and one had even been so kind as to make it one of their favourite items. More than one per minute?! How very lovely and it proves my theory , you just gotta love a whippet.
The first few of the new series of pictures will focus on the running variety as that is when they're at their most impressive, but I think I may have to add at least one or two at some point, of their natural state which is illustrated by Ned right now. Spark out. With a big doggy smile on his chops.

Beach Huts

Hooray - I sold a Rubbish Chicken this week! Which left a little hole in my Folksy shop, just big enough for this latest Rubbish Picture of beach huts. My stash of blue rubbish bits has now been replenished, since the dog bit through the kids paddling pool. It's a nice translucent blue plastic and will be very handy in seaside scenes. Sorry kids. Your loss my gain!

Not just me and the Wombles...

I used to think it was just me and the Wombles who made stuff out of rubbish, but I went to see Mark Watson doing a show the other night. He's a very amusing fella so I brought his book and lo and behold, it turns out he's not only very amusing but also may well also be a link to a whole load of other womble-esque characters out there in the big wide world.
Mark Watson is crap at the environment. Official.

He even runs 'CATE'. The project started with the intention of 'saving the world, despite not being very good at it'. It aims to promote amateur environmentalism. I thought Rubbish Pictures was a pretty obscure way of being eco friendly but it seems there are a few more of us out there than first thought, trying to do our bit in our own little, slightly odd, way.... CATE encourages ordinary folk to small challenges, little things to change in your everyday life that will result in some environmental benefit. So if you want to know how to pimp your plant pot or create a bubble wrap dress - or just want to nose at slightly odd people doing amazing things in the name of saving the world. Go check out CATE.

A house on a hill

Spring is here. The sun is shining. My 'proper' work project is very nearly complete and I have 5 entire days left until school holidays and chaos reigns...
The glue is out, the stacks of old papers have been sorted into colour piles and the food cupboards have been raided for all their colourful and oooooh so unneccessary wrappings. Rubbish Pictures are GO. again.
I have been neglecting my little shop over at Folksy of late and so the first few pictures will be appearing there and I shall do my utmost to actually getting around to doing a little bit of marketing this time, rather than just leaving them to stagnate.
Heres the first:http://www.folksy.com/shops/wallop. It's made entirely out of bits of food packaging and a leaflet thrust into my hand on the way out of the local swimming pool, that would have been thrust straight back again, had it not been a rather nice shade of 'sky blue'....... ;-)

A 'Rubbish' Photo shoot

It's a busy time for Wallop. Rubbish Pictures are taking off and the Wallop website is growing and going through a thorough redesign, to incorporate this blog for starters, expanding the 'oodles of doodles' section and bringing everything together in one place, now that I seem to have my fingers in so many pies... it seems timely.

Todays job was the fun bit though - the marketing photographs for Rubbish Pictures which will also be featuring on the front page of the new site, now that I have purchased the domain name, www.rubbishpictures.co.uk (coming soon!)

We had a glorious afternoon leaping about in a lovely Hampshire field and I'm chuffed to bits with the results...
Thanks have to go out to our lovely friends Flair and Martin, who not only allowed us to leap about in their field, but didn't question the fact that we wanted to. Or why we turned up with a giant peacock picture.
Thanks guys. You know you've got good friends when they'll spend their afternoon off sat in Sheeps poo for you....

Teapots, bunnys, mermaids... what next?

Todays ponderings have come about through cabin fever mostly... My young apprentice is centre of attention again this week after a day in hospital on Monday having her adenoids removed. She was such a brave girl and has well deserved her entire week off school being pampered and cossetted. But, maaaaan a week is a long time when you're 7 with a sore throat and it's an even longer time when you're the one kept firmly inside away from germs and sources of infection with a boooored 7 year old. (actually.... on reflection, with 2 siblings in the house there's probably more chance of infection inside these walls than out.... but hey, I'm sticking to what it says in the leaflet!)

So.... to spare my sanity after the first 7 loops of High School Musical 3, (plus obligatory bloopers and behind the scenes hilarity), I've snuck into my den and have been creating away like a crazy lady, making the most of this enforced at home time to fulfil a new order of rubbish pictures for next week. But then here comes the dilema...
What exactly to create? An 'open order' is a wondrous thing. A customer who would like 'some pictures', similar to the last batch, but the subject can be 'whatever I fancy'. Wow. After years as 'Wallop' - illustrating for children's publishing in it's various forms, I have become very used to being dictated to exactly what is required. In this pc world we live in, each project generally requires a child of each gender, colour, height, weight, you name it and so artwork briefs are notoriously precise. When they're not, it inevitably means a reworking and so it's become ingrained to try to understand exactly the clients requirements first before ever setting pen to paper or mouse to...erm.... table.
So now I'm all of a wobble. Teetering on the edge of an 'artists block'? Dithering over the possibilities.... So far the Rubbish pictures portfolio has been pretty diverse featuring mermaids, dragons, dogs, cats all sorts... but how to know what will be a best seller? What should I do next, now that I can do....anything? I'd love to know - suggestions on a postcard please.... (or just in a comment would do and would save a stamp :-) )
In the meantime - I'm trying hard not to be distracted by the warblings of the delectable Troy Bolton and concentrating on a few more pre easter bunnys and pre mothers day teacups. Just to be safe.

The demise of Tallulah...

Well it's been a sad couple of days in Wallopsville, particularly for my apprentice who is mourning the loss of Tallulah...the goldfish. She has been unable to aid me in any creative way this week partly due to her sorrow and partly due to her sudden macabre interest in funeral directing. Our Tallulah, it has to be said, wasn't a particularly much loved pet. She was well kept of course, (by me) and regularly fed (by me) and cleaned (by me) and even occasionally given such treats as a new bit of weed or a nice looking pebble from the beach.... (by me) but on the whole she was ignored for much of her soggy life. In death however, Tallulah has come into her own. Her funeral was not far off the scale of royalty, relatively speaking of course. We had an after school procession of reluctantly rounded up neighbourhood children somberly gathered at the graveside, gallantly braving the recorder recital, the placing of daisies, the reminiscing.... before making their excuses and running home for their....ahem... fish fingers and chips...

So - especially for my bereft little apprentice, todays rubbish picture is in honour of Tallulah. A lovely orange fish made up entirely of Sainsburys nappy packaging and a few old Charlie & Lola birthday invitations. RIP old gal.

Now I must dash, apparently 'Nemo -Lulah' (and friend!) are ready for collection from Petsmart.....

A rubbish cup of tea to celebrate good news

Well it had to be done...
Heres the rubbish picture I should've done to start with to set this blog off in tea slurping style...
But better late than never, eh?
Amusingly I have discovered that it's not just me that finds themselves very tea-centric, it seems half the folk on Folksy are too!
Heres just a few of the many examples you'll find there if you pop over for a visit



My particular favourite is one of a great set of prints by 'Sparklehen'... the funkiest teapot in town, you gotta love it :-)

So anyway, I digress.... what's all this merry midweek tea slurping indulgence in aid of you might ask...well, a few posts ago, I mentioned that I was sending off a new batch of Rubbish pictures to Great to be Green, the lovely eco friendly emporium, well I did...and Hooray! they've all sold already! It's a Wallop record. So I'm preparing for another week of rummaging through the bin and covering the kids with pva glue every time they need their cardi's zipping up, for a whole new set of pictures for March. In the meantime though - I reckon a party ring or two is called for to celebrate and mark the event in the tea blog style. Cheers! :-)

You can never have too many bunnys

It's easter in 48 days! As if you hadn't noticed the shops filling up with creme eggs...
To celebrate and try to actually add some stock to the Wallop shop on Folksy, todays additions being uploaded this very morning are Easter bunny cards.
More to follow... when I've unstuck my fingers. These guys maybe small but the mess to product ratio is not relative! :-)

What a load of Rubbish!

Second post... and quite enjoying this blogging malarky. It's the same feeling as I got as a kid every year when I got a new diary for Christmas and would long for the 1st of January to arrive so I could start writing all about my exhilarating life. I was 6 or 7 or maybe 8 and life wasn't hugely exhilarating to be truthful so the feeling generally wore off by about.... February. Still. I remember it well and this is it. Hopefully it won't wear off quite so quickly now I'm a grown up.

So today I'm working on my latest set of creations. I have recently started to try to be more eco friendly as and when I can, and this led to 'Rubbish Pictures' being born.

Rubbish Pictures are collages, of varying sizes ranging from A4 right up to big imposing poster sizes, made entirely of recycled household waste. Mostly food packaging and junk mail, but also old magazines and newspapers, all the irritating bits that fall out of your sunday papers into your corn flakes.... anything really that would otherwise go directly to the recycling bin or landfill.

I started with a picture or our dog Ned, created out of cheesy wotsits bags and moved on to a mermaid with a tail made of pink fruitella wrappers.... the mermaid led to another mermaid, which became a birthday gift. One birthday present led to a few more and before I knew it I was up to my elbows in glue and old stamps making an enormous ... peacock.

Now believe me, I have at several times stopped and wondered whether that 6 years of arts training, really should have led to this.... I may be turning slightly bonkers, eyeing up that 3 kilo tin of quality Street even before Christmas... not for the delights of a green triangle within, but the wonderful crinkly green foil it was clothed in and yes, I admit here I am, dishing out pink fruitellas till my kids teeth go furry all for the sake of finishing off just ....one more mermaids tail.

Its a strange life indeed.

crash bang WALLOP!

Well.... heres a thing. Me with my own blog. A new Years resolution ticked off! I'm new to this so I guess the best thing to do to get the ball rolling is to introduce myself.

I'm an illustrator, you can visit my website, Wallop! to see lots of my work and more background information, but I'll summarize again just to save you lifting that finger....just yet anyway...

I trained as a graphic designer, graduated from the University of Westminster and the Royal college of Art and spent many years working at some lovely places, from Peter Gabriels' Realworld Studios, to the weather dept at the BBC!

Now I am Wallop Illustration, I produce illustrations and animations for websites, for books, for magazines, it varies from job to job and keeps life interesting.

My most recent project has been to start up 'Rubbish Pictures' a collection of eco collages, created entirely out of recycled household rubbish, junk mail, food packaging, all those annoying bits that fall out of the sunday papers every week.... you know the kind of thing.

More on those later....

First tea / blog break officially over - bfn.