New Prints

So in May I made several new prints editions! THey are all screen prints and all are based on my drawings :) They are now all available in my Etsy shop (click here)! Some are sea creature inspird, others are just fun.

 

Happy Mother's Day!

I had this idea for a few days and finally got round to do it. You could say it's a bit last minute but only if you are in thhe UK really... As it appears mother's day is celebrated in every country pretty much on a different date. This is a photo so sorry about the quality :-[

Happy New Year!

I hope you all got to party wild like rice ;)

Solo Exhibition at Hula!

So at the moment I have a solo exhibition at Hula Juice bar & gallery! It's running through till 6th of January. Here are some snaps from the set up and opening night!

The vinyl with my name on it... Feels so good ;)

Calm before the storm! After people started coming I had no time to take any pics...

And this is one of my Christmas Cats on the window :) 

And, last but not least - this is a special print that I did for the occasion! Hula cat and dog :)

Kitchen Animals

So for a short while my weekly creatures are going on hold... This is because I am just too busy with real stuff to do this kind of organized fun stuff. But dn't worry, as soon as things calm down I will be back at it :)

I have now been working on a number of new products and these are going to be tea towels (or kitchen towels, whatever you prefer to call them). They are all ordered up and I can't wait to get my hands on them! So for now here are some process pictures. These are the finished pieces:

I recently started to do my sketches on the computer:

I am quite a control freak and this gives me a lot MORE control (and takes leff time) than doing sketches on paper (although roughs and ideas I still do in my sketchbook).

So then I transfer some of the lines with a lightbox onto NICE paper. And then use the printed off sketch side by side with my drawing just for reference. Like this:

And here is the dog in the making :)

And this is my fave pen that sometimes makes a mess of your hand.

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day!!!

Unlike last year, I managed to make the pictures BEFORE the Valentines and post them on the day... Who knows, maybe next year I will even do them in advnce enough to make cards? ;)

Colonel Reginald is looking for love. He had a hard life following the war and among other injuries he suffered a broken heart.

Lady Cat has been looking for someone to share her life with ever since her husband sadly passed away. She needs emotional support and someone to help her bring up fifteen children from her first marriage.

Manga Studio Fun part 1 (cattyness!)

Recently I bought Manga Studio under the influence of, well, some stuff I read online and that it was on sale. But truth to be told the one I got was a pretty good value anyway. And on contrary to what name suggests, you don't have to draw exclusively manga on it... The main selling point for me was the fact that it is much better for creating linework than Photoshop. And to be honest, given the low price point (I paid a total of about £50, of which £20 was the shipping from USA) I though: ah, why not treat myself? :P

I haven't really had much time to play with it until now. Although I am still jsut starting out to try all the options, so far I am pretty happy :)

Here is some catty lifedrawing of Ollie the PuddyFat.

Cat Wedding!

Last June and July were two months when I have had some very special queries. They were all to do with... weddings! I was very happy to partake in preparation for someone's Very Important Day. Every of those queries was a bit different. This is the first one I will post up. I was to create an illustration of Mr and Mrs Cat on their wedding day, later to be used on the wedding favors. It was VERY exciting to draw :)

I now can't wait to see the picture of what the finished favors looked like! And do I have to mention that if you ever wanted to order anything customized you just need to drop me an e-mail?

tigers

So before I got hideuosly busy in the month of June I was working on something that was supposed to be a nice new project for bags and possibly other things. They so far have not left the concept/sketch phase... But here they are, so you can have a wee look at what's to come. (On things I did in June I shall write when the right time comes ;) )

 sketch 1.

 sketch 2 (unfinished as it wasn't right anyway)

sketch 3 the rare hamster tiger

Work in progress

Some future photoetchings me thinks ;)
The top one I am not sure about yet though, I might try to colour it digitally and see what happens.

Photo Etching part two.

As I said before I was going to go back to do more photo etching and the second time round take more pictures. Although now I realise I could have still probably taken more pictures... I think this will be it for now!

First of all the plate needs to be filed and degreased. This is not as exciting so skipping that part :P Once it's ready you take it to the Dark Room, which is filled with yellow light.

Next you stick a layer of your photec - the funny blue film that looks incredibly green here - onto your plate.

Then it goes through the minipress as it has to stick down well!

Then you pop bubbles, make sure it's all good, run it through press again and cut off the excess.

Next you put positive on your plate and expose it. No pictures of exposure unit I'm afraid!

After that it goes in a special bath that develops photec and all the unexposed bits come off. A bit like when you are preparing screen for screenprinting! This is probably the reason why I love this process so much :)

You then proceed and show it to Laura who makes a funny face.

Then it's the Acid Time! I have lots of black surfaces so mine goes in for a few minutes and if it's ok I then proceed to aquatint it. And then it goes back into acid, and when it returns....

...The remaining photec and aquatint have to be removed, so it goes in yet another bath. That's the last one though! Then we're ready to print.

Inked up plate!

And the first proof!

By no means this is finished though. I want the Moon to be a bit lighter than the rest of the image, so I tried to brasso out the face of the moon - results above, you can see my face in the Moon's face! :) I will keep going at it though, hopefully in 2 weeks time you will see the proper finished print though! (prints need to sit in a drying area for like a week...)

This is it for now. So here, have a picture of Katt Monsen:

It's not just humans that appreciate Sir David Attenborough

This is the time for another set of phonecamera snapshots. I do apologize for the artistic values, but then some things I just have to record. Sometimes the cameraphone is the most convenient way... It will be a degree taught at art school one day, I am sure of it.

Anyway. A week ago I went on a short relaxing trip to the COUNTRYSIDE. Visiting the Pojkvän's family is always great, and most times it contains:
1. Eating
2. Cuddling puddyfat that goes by the name of Ollie and every time we visit seems to have expanded further
3. Log fires
4. Drinking lots of coffee and beer
5. Much needed relaxation and chilling
6. Eating, eating, eating...
By no means I am complaining about any of it! I love every second and it's always sad to leave.

This time I have learned something new though. The slightly slobby cat that loves food, naps and strokes (and going out to the garden too - to grab and extracurricular snack in the form of a blue tit, for example) has got another passion.

Sir David Attenborough.

I have no doubts that he is amazing. As far as I am concerned he is definetely one of my heroes. If I was to pick one genre of films to watch for the rest of my life it would be documentaries, and that is mainly due to childhood spent watching cheetahs and lions, and ants, and... Many other creatures, narrated by Sir David. I did not expect felines to share this passion though (that is possiby beccause I read somewhere that cats and dogs don't see 2d images in the same way as humans do, which I am not sure is true or not and frankly I don't think I care). We were informed that Ollie absolutely LOVES David Attenborough, but remained sceptical to this revelation. Until what has been documented below took place. (All pictures in chronological order and were NOT set up - cats aren't the best of actors).

See and believe! ;)
(The suggested soundtrack is the theme tune from Jaws)

Hey, I wanna play with you...