Exhibitions! Exhibitions! Exhibitions!

It's spring and it's exhibition time!

First off, from the 31st of March (next Wednesday) till the 3rd of April, I am part of a rather large group exhibition called "52" - 52 artists' work in one small space (Room 212 on Gloucester Road, Bristol). Curated by CalmAirAllIce, aka the lovely Milla and Claire. Have a look at the list of people they have - its looks like its going to be AMAZING! Also in the show are my gorgeous neighbours and good friends, Peskimo:

Peskimo, together with Chris Dickason are currently exhibiting at the new Start Gallery Space (part of Start The Bus on Baldwin Street, Bristol). The show is called "Tease Made" ... and its all about Tea! And Cakes! Yum!!! We were at the opening and there's some spiffing stuff there ... on till the 11th of April so do go visit ...


And speaking of the Start Gallery Space, once Tease Made is out, it will be filled by some of the 2nd year students from our course ... "We Are Fauna" is on from the 16th to the 27th of April. Nice to see the young'uns getting their act together and putting an exhibition on - we were never quite so switched on ...

But then again, some of us are a bit more together ... four of my 3rd year coursemates are exhibiting currently at the Here Gallery in Stoke's Croft, Bristol with a show called "Across The Way". Owen, Adam, Luke and Jack produce some of the loveliest work coming out of our year. Their show is on till the 3rd of April so please go and visit if you get the chance ...

Speaking of shows ... early warning: Our degree show will be Private Show-ing on the 18th of June in Bristol and 5th of July at the Conningsby in London ... keep your diaries clear! It looks like its going to be a show to remember ...

Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology vol 3 Cover

(click on image to see bigger)

This is what has preoccupied me the last couple of weeks ... Ok so it shouldn't take that long to design a book cover; but I've also had several bouts of helping with the interview process for the next batch of students coming in September; the last of my dance teaching sessions (including a intensive whole weekend workshop, and a private Charleston lesson) till July; lectures and personal tutorials with both Sarah Warburton and Gina Cross; AND it was my birthday last week :)

With all of that and also doing the illustration + design work on this - (which is a bit more involved than doing only the illustration) - the blog has been a bit quiet. But anyways, this is done and handed in. Almost the whole year have done entries for this - and they'll pick the best one to be used on the published anthology later in the summer. I'd quite like to win this, but I'm also just glad to have a good book cover in my portfolio.

Easter break is almost upon us - really looking forward to it ... but not too looking forward to the fact that I have two more book covers and two children's books to get done in three weeks ... meep!

All aboard ...

This last week has been more doing lots of different things, rather than concentrating on one project. Lots of work-in-progress ... here's a sneaky peek at some Bristol favourites :) ...

Polishhhhhhhh...

So this is what I've been working on for the last week or so. My friend and lovely Polish studio-mate, Malgosia (Malgorzata), found a Polish children's book illustration competition. You could do your own story, or go for one of the texts they provided. Considering I only started on this about 2 weeks ago, I went for one of their texts, kindly translated by Malgosia. The title is "12 Months" and each double page spread is a month with an accompanying little poem. Each one is also about a job/vocation ... We had to do the cover and two double page spreads. I chose to do January (the forester) and September (the fisherman). (click on images for larger version)

The colours are more muted from what I usually do, but I'm quite pleased with how they came out. It feels like things are finally falling into place and coming together.

I actualy started doing a dimensional version of 'January' but realised it would take too long to do all three pieces that way and have them done and posted off by the deadline. I'm still quite keen to do January and September like that ... but will take my time over it. So watch this space!