April update

I am pleased to announce the opening of my new online shop on the fantastic Not On The High Street website. Over the last couple of weeks I've been busy working on improved product shots and new items to feature in the shop. New note cards and limited edition prints coming soon!

Next weekend I am running a two day workshop that will look at all aspects of turning illustration into a business and how I have gone about it. We'll also have a go at gocco printing and create designs to screen print onto fabric. This will take place at The Bowery in Leeds. This class is fully booked but it will run again in November, more information here.

I have a number of other workshops coming up at the Bowery including Drawing & Illustration, Print Making (commencing 19/6/12), Screen Printed Tote Bags and Print Your Own Fat Quarter.

I will also be teaching a Zine Making workshop at West Yorkshire Print Workshop on 19th May.

So I busy few month are coming up! New products to follow early next week.

new mini tote bags!

New 'Zines mini totes' now in stock in my etsy shop! they are mint green, small but perfectly formed and ready to be stuffed full of zines. Hang one on a hook and you're got yourself a zine library!

In other zine related news I'll be at the Loosely Bound zine fair in Bradford this Saturday 10-4pm.

Cube chaps cover your eyes.

So it's a sad day when I have to dedicate a blog post to something negative. Not something I wanted to do but I felt it was necessary to point out this mornings find.

It seems ASOS have taken my little cube chap and made him into a necklace pendant. I used to doodle this little fella as a student all over my sketchbooks. In 2006 I decided to develop the idea further and make a 3d model. Cube chaps became hand stitched little people and key rings, and also screen printed stationery and stickers etc...

Cube chaps have been my friends and my invention for quite some time, so seeing my idea taken and mass produced by a well known fashion brand is pretty upsetting.

Theft of creative works happens so often now. Several good friends of mine have had their work mimicked by big companies that should know better, for some it happens repeatedly and often.

I work for myself. I design and create my own ideas and I produce everything with my own hands. I do what I do because I don't want to be part of a bland mass produced society, I'm not interested in that. I really don't see the need for big brands to take the ideas of individuals without asking. If ASOS had simply contacted me to ask about using my design they could have paid me to do so rather than paying a designer to copy it.

Things need to change.

studio tour

My studio is a place that is constantly changing. I am forever moving things around and making new arrangements of objects and paper on the shelves and walls. New items need a space of their own! My little wooden drawers are the newest addition to date, salvaged from a garage, handmade in the 1940s. Next time I have a change around I will take more photos..

roundup!

Here's a few images from the recent Leeds Print Festival that I exhibited at, its a new event in Leeds, held at Leeds Gallery. The day was such a success I'm sure it'll happen again. There was a good variety of work on display across a range of print making disciplines. I loved the old Adana letterpress machine that The Print Project had brought with them to demonstrate. Very nice.

I'm in the middle of a number of projects at the moment, above is Collections zine issue 2 in progress. I've just printed the first batch of this zine, it'll be available very soon. The focus is my collection of kitsch dog ornaments...

On Saturday just passed I taught a drawing and illustration workshop at the Bowery arts centre in Leeds. I have more workshops coming up there in the next few months, check out the Bowery website for details.

Finally, here's a link to a top notch Leeds based design blog who just interviewed me: Jackie Magpie

More soon!