Best thing about being back at my parent's place for Christmas is finding random old stuff like this. I must have been about 14 when I drew this comic. It was meant to be about two kids who live in an underground civilisation of inter-connected tunnels and fight with shovels against vicious tunnel bears that eat people. Because that was the sort of thing I thought about during French class for some reason. I was totally normal like that. Done with fineliner and touched up with MSpaint (we had no photoshop in the dark ages).

Finished colouring in my angels collage so I attempted to mashup the two halves. Eh, not my best stuff because I should have turned the sketchbook round when I took the second photo so that the lighting would match up but I guess its been a little bit fun playing around with it on photoshop, so I count that as the most fun I have ever had on photoshop. I hate working on photoshop :o(

Material-experimentin' time! I am pretty unashamedly chuffed with this first maquette, it's just like how I imagined it would be. Needs time to dry and then get fried to death in my grandad's old kiln. All the parts where I have cut through would be where the comic panels will be. I'm so excited ^_^

These are my test tiles waiting to be fired either tomorrow or the day after. Unfortunately at the moment I can only get my hands on pre-mixed glazes and grandad also left me a load that all unfortunately contain lead (meaning they would be totally redundant on bowls for example) Decided to test a few anyways and then the two on the far right are some spectrum glazes my dad bought me for christmas, and I've recorded them all in a handy little database on my laptop so I can keep all my test information in one place.

A bit concerned about trying to create a firing schedule for a kiln that has no temperature cutoff aside from the plug but I suppose all I can really do is try to mimic one to the best of my ability and just resign myself to the fact that no two firings will be exactly the same.

here's an update of my angels collage

it's hideously early o'clock, here's an update of my angels collage. Have worked on it approximately 4 hours now.

Started an angel collage, using print-outs, fine-liner, pencil and chalk pastels I decided on massively oversized wings that look like they're bursting out of the page like they're ready to fly.

Still needs a bit of work in the middle, blending the print-out with my freehand parts and finishing off with more mid-tones but I think it's a good sign of things to come.

madonna and child, (left half of the melun diptych)

Jean Fouquet c.1450

looking at a lot of different gothic art at the moment for ideas about how to draw angels. the colours in this are striking and separate the foreground and the background beautifully. The proportions are all a bit strange and a bit scary but I love it none the less.

virgin and child with eleven angels

master of the wilton diptych (doc. c. 1390-1395)

Embalming of the body of christ and the three marys at the empty tomb

workshop of the ingeborg psalter (active c. 1213)

This is my favourite one so far, I love blue! The white spaces are going to be comic panels

In the Beginning

I think I prefer the colours on this one, but I think that the paint created a nicer texture than the oil pastels.

I think this layout will be the one I finally work with. I did the drawing in my book and photocopied it so I can experiment with colours and techniques.

This image is one of the copies is where I was playing around with paints and sewing, but the page isn't completed yet. I need to think more about what kind of colours I'm using so I need to look back at my research and begin a fuckload of material experiments.

Something that started as a random cool idea I had seems to be turning into quite an epic quest of an art project. Nobody said pushing your boundaries is easy, but they did say it was worthwhile, and I hope they're fucking right.

Conjunction 12

I am really really excited about this.

More info in this pdf

Drew this quick doodle in Liverpool while job-shopping. It's not perfect but I think I'm getting closer to what kind of layout I want to draw for my comic, and once I have that pieced together, I can start to plan text placement, do more material experiments and character designs. Have started some brief experiments using oil pastels and acrylic paint, can't wait to move onto incorporating textiles into my designs.

Bowl Update

Haven't updated what I've been doing with my bowls for a while so here goes:

• all of the glazes my grandfather left me are lead-based and can't be used in contact with food or children's toys according to new legislation, so I need to invest in new glazes once my money comes in. because nobody will want a bowl that you can't put food in
• am still planning to run a few tests on them anyway to get me used to using my grandfather's crazy kiln
• have designed a digital database on MSaccess where I can keep all records of any test tiles I ever decide to make in one place that is easily searchable
• Have bought myself a new underglaze pencil which should be handy when it comes to further test-tiling and decorating if I get myself a clear glaze to seal it in

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to share yet, but to those interested at all, watch this space.

Quick doodle of a local church. A lot of my recent drawings are very heavily line-based, but that's because my main reason behind drawing them is to record types of geometric shapes to give me a further idea of how I want my comic layout to look like.

so far:

• have looked at basic scientific theories of how the universe began
• have visited Keele Observatory for further research
• have copied the first chapter of Genesis (king James version) word for word to give me a better idea of biblical language
• have begun to sketch churches and church windows for grid layout

I need to:

• do more research into classical looking angels and statues because I want the main narrator to be an angel
• do first-hand research into material experimentation, combining textiles and paints
• use church sketches to create grid layouts
• write a script based on the research I have done so far
• create rough draft of what I want the comic to look like on paper combining grid, character, text

this one's an older doodle I did in the summer.

initial sketch for a comic I'm planning. Mostly done reseach for how it's going to be written and my sketchbook are just filled with bible quotations and stuff by stephen hawkins but I'm finally starting to get onto the artwork

I wrecked the hand a bit cause it was always moving, but not a bad live sketch

"There's a city beneath our streets"

Managed to get a chance to fire some old maquettes I did in uni based on sewers and underground tunnels that get forgotten about.  I guess it's not really worth much now, but it's nice to think that there isn't another one of these anywhere in the world, but seeing the potential in them that I never realised is quite sad in a way.

At least they look super close to the original designs (top right corner there). I can't remember what the yellow is but it's a shame the brown stuff didn't flux properly, but that could just be down to my crazy kiln and its loath for functioning normally. It's not really very professional of me to say that I mixed some unquantified measurement of borax frit and a random something from one of the big boxes in the glaze room.

Note to self: create a digital library of test tiles for easier future reference.

Reasons why my firing did not go as planned

1. I assumed that the temperature increase on the dial was linear and forgot that heat increase from a low temperature will use a lot less power than heat increase from a higher temperature, as shown in the hastily drawn diagram above.
2. I forgot to test to see if the temperature readout was actually recording the right temperature. In theory, it could have been wrong.
3. The cutoff/soak switch does not work at all what-so-ever and the kiln reached 1365°C before I realised. The only way to restrict temperature is to adjust power input using the dial.
4. 6% on the dial does not equal 6% of the power needed to reach 1030°C (I was hoping for about 65°C) it actually came closer to 348°C so it needs a MUCH LOWER power input to warm the kiln up and get rid of moisture.
5. I should also never put it on 100% ever again, it increased the temperature from roughly 580°C to 1365°C in the space of 20 minutes.

Fortunately the slip I used was made of stronger stuff than I realised and didn't melt all over the kiln despite being low-firing. I suspect that the clay might be too fused to glaze, but I'm going to try it anyway because it can't hurt. No houses or garages were burnt in the making of this bowl. Going to attempt test tiles next.

Giggabitchin Traindriver Hat

This is a hat I got from Swanage that I've been customising by hand-stitching around the brim and sewing buttons and feathers to. I think it looks rather rad.

Happy Birthday Wendy!

Made another personalised card using collage, stitching, buttons, beads and lace trimming. Found a cute over-sized envelope in Tescos. I wouldn't mind doing birthday card commissions for a couple of quid each.

First Firing

My grandfather's kiln is now up and loaded and ready for the first test firing tomorrow. It was built in 1987 by Potterycrafts, and I have no idea if it still works properly. I'm excited because it could be the start of something amazing. I'm scared that I'm going to burn the garage down.

It only fires to one temperature (about 1020°C) and the temperature is controlled by a dial that reads 0-100 (percentage of power input).

First firing schedule is going to be: 

• around a minimum of 6 hours at 6%

• 2 hours increasing to 24%

• 2 hours increasing to 54%

• as long as it takes to reach peak temperature (100% cut-off)

Should hopefully be your bog-standard bisque firing with any luck. See how it goes.

Fairport's Cropredy Convention 2012

Scary farm we stayed at, and yes, that barn was full of bats

The Chadwell Digestive Biscuits Do You Good

Spotted this lil fella in the basement of Lulworth Castle. For some reason I think his face is hilarious, can't really see why you would use that character to advertise biscuits, but I'm charmed by the illustration non-the-less.

Finished Bird Canvas

That's it folks, first ever canvas completed, and I'm pretty happy with the results. It's simple, bright, experimental use of materials, combined with a more traditional-looking drawing styles, designed to cheer up my grandmother's (sorta dingy-looking) bungalow.

fake feathers, buttons and ribbons stitched onto canvas (18" by 14") with acrylics, oil pastels, fineliner and pencil

other stuff I raided from the library

I want to make a mixed-media textile comic and these are my starting points so far: textures I like, gothic revival Architecture, stained glass windows and illuminations and quilting. I also have a couple of weird looking comics that I took out since it also occurred to me that I'm not massively knowledgeable on those either. I guess it doesn't look like much but these are my starting points so far.

From The Art of Annemieke Mein

just a couple of sketchbook studies from The Art of Annemieke Mein: Wildlife Artist in Textiles

Had a trip down to library to look for some clues as to where my next project might be headed.

For the love of kittens and all things adorable, somebody get me a ukulele! <3

Oh no, a hot flush! WHAM!

Kate Talbot ...the fricking awesome things you can find on google if you look hard enough <3 was thinking of writing my own textile-based comic for my next canvas so I wanted to see what was already out there. Not a lot thankfully, not that I pretend google search is be end-all of research at all. Honest.

Ms Talbot kinda reminds me of Roy Lichtenstein if he was funny and totally rad at textiles ^_^ she gets a bunch of old comic frames, re-appropriates them and then sells prints and posters.