Drop in and Draw session at BBC tent at Edinburgh Fringe!

Last weekend I was partaking in a Fringe event! It was a drop in and draw session aimed at families. Hosted in the BBC tent as a part of the Storytelling week. Needless to say, it was...

me

We had a few activities people (kids)could pick from. I sadly didn't think and did not take lots of pictures, but...

Aimee

 Apart from the whiteboard speechbubble we had the Giant Wall Comic which I think I have done an ok job recording.

 Took lots of pictures and then "glued" them all together... The quality is not ideal (phone and bad lighting), but it is legible! (when you view the full size that is).

click on this text to view the full size...

So I did the starting panel for this activity. The idea was that the story could go anywhere from there... People were to come along and add one panel, wherever they wanted. They could either start a new storyline or continue already existing ones. Some stories are crossing over... Just follow the arrows :)

I kind of wish I had more pictures! Other activities included
- "fix my comic" (where you could either fill in the speech bubbles, or add images to a comics with text but no pictures)
- "The worlds worst..." where you could draw the world's worst... zoo keeper, ballet dancer, warlock etc,
- Random Character - pick random name, profession and description (this is how Gertrude the Zombie Superhero was once born...)
- draw yourself as a Superhero. This is another one of mine, so you can print it out and give it a bash yourself! :) (complete with an Edinburgh skyline. One kid drew Godzilla in this one - I think Edinburgh needs a kaiju :P)

Just to make it clear, me and Aimee were not the only ones there (actually we only came in on Sunday....). This was organized by Eddie other helpers included Steve, Gill, Chris and Will (who did the worlds worst).

Two pictures of yesterday

Recently I ordered some screens for printing. They arrived this week and upon opening the parcel this is what my eyes saw:

(very cute, eh :))

And then yesterday I went for a wonder around the town (weather was lovely and warm) and it turns out it was warm enough for even crocodiles to come out. Yep! :)

I hope your weekend was as good as mine! :)

Mini Comic Fair at Edinburgh Book Festival

Edinburgh Book Festival (probably my favorite of all festival activities here in the burgh) was hosting lots of graphic novel related events. There was even a Mini Comic Fair which I went to last Saturday with Aimee. I LOVE comic books, I read probably the same amount of books as I read cartoons as a kid (both is a lot). Recently I have been going through this "blast from the past" fascination with all things sequential. As much as I love illustration and product design this is a nice change. And also reading it and not drawing is quite relaxing ;)

We went first to have a browse and then decide whether we wanted to go back and buy things. And yes, we did! I was armed with a £30 budget (and ended up overspending) and one of my favourite purchases was this:

(Presented to us by lovely young Daisy in the background).
The guy behind them was a great chat and offered to sign the books for us.

And he even drew pictures! How exciting. My name always gets misspelled, and so does Aimee's, so we both were being morons making a big deal of it. And despite all this fuss, he did mess it up on the second book...

To make up for it he made a mistake on Aimee's too. It was pretty funny ;)

The books themselves are essays on film related things (one of them is food in films). They are pretty good, but I will perhaps say more about them next time, when I read them all :)

And here's another shot of Daisy, the dog who'd like to eat all the other dogs.

Marshmallow Lady's Festive Exhibition

Hello!
So last Wednesday (I am unfirtunately pretty sow with relaying these things, but November has been pretty busy!) I attended the exhibition opening for a GROUP EXHIBITION in which I am PARTAKING ;)
It's pretty exciting :) Here are a couple of pictures from the event:

And this is me with some of my bags (trees!) and jars of marshmallows.... mmmm!

 

 There were marshmallows, muled wine, lovelyness, and obviously I managed to mess something up too (i.e. arrange to meet someone at the same date and time - I still can't apologize enough :O).

The ehibition is running through to the end of December so get down to Marshmallow Lady's to have a look! :) (and of course taste the marshmallows).

You never know when an adventure awaits you

I couldn't resist posting a cryptic cool title. Yesterday was a really cold and very very foggy day - almost like from Sweeney Todd. I went to see an exhibition by ECA students that have never exhibited before. Claire found out about it and I thought it could be fun to get out, although this type of exhibitions is normally in a weird place and contains rather modern type of art, which is not always to my liking. But days out with Claire are always fun and she is the best exhibition viewing companion I think I've ever had. The venue was the Old Ambulance Depot in Leith. I have never heard of the place. The Depot was in a gate, on one of the not-very main streets, and after a wee stroll around the area we finally found it. As I said, the day was cold, gloomy and this was some gray backyard, and we saw this:

 

 And to make things even better (not for the vehicle owner), on closer inspection I found this:

It was the most curious and surreal thing I saw all month I think. More surreal than any of the young ECA students work that then we proceeded to see. And I still wonder, what on earth was going through the parking attendants head when he was writing out the ticket?

I should probably also mention that I have a weak spot for three wheeled vehicles ever since I saw the Reliant Robin episode of Top Gear.