Just a quickie as things have been rather hectic, hence the absence –
the page with my illustrated book is up on the V&A website!
More soon, promise.
News ‘n chat
Inspired By
I won the Museum of Childhood Prize for Mrs Bryant’s Pleasure in the Inspired By… 2010 competition! Most exciting is my book being displayed at the Bethnal Green Museum along with the dolls’ house, and is part of the Inspired By… Trail in the galleries. Am very pleased, all the effort was most definitely worth it. There was some fantastic stuff in the main show at the V&A so stop in and see it if you’re going there…
A great afternoon, some really nice people there, so thanks V&A 🙂
Noo stoodio
Went to see my almost new studio today at Guild House in Bermondsey, it had just been cleared and painted so I could properly see the space. Very excited! Little plan is in the making. The light is really good, I was so pleased to find it, especially as it is self-contained, can get me bike inside too, and it has a couple of what look like serving hatches in the walls. Don’t think there will be any Fanny Craddock coloured Smash getting passed through, but who knows?!
There will be a photographic studio and a cabinet maker next to me, D will be in his element. Just got to work out what to get in there now, and when…
Latest creation mmmmm
London International Animation Festival
Last night I went to the Renoir for a chunk of LIAF – never been before but courtesy of the Curzon Film Quiz and some beer-driven drawing with my friend a Mini Pass was mine…!
I haven’t seen any animation shorts like this for a long while but it was fantastic – in my voted top-3 were The Man in the Blue Gordini, a 70s orange world where no one wears any trousers, A Family Portrait, and a beautiful and lyrical Latvian film called Wings and Oars. I loved the limited colour palette of these, it was a really inspiring night.
Gonna get some more in this Friday. Off to do some drawing.
Barbe Bleue
Last week I saw the new film by Catherine Breillat, Barbe Bleue, based on the Perrault fairy tale. There was a lot of mention in the reviews about it being ‘Angela Carter-esque’ which really appealed, as I love her short story The Bloody Chamber (thanks Anne :)) and the fairy tale reworkings. There was certainly the menace and stillness, some truly beautiful vignettes and a lot of humour especially from the two little sisters reading and commenting on the story in an attic.
Perhaps because I had the AC story so firmly visualised I felt a bit cheated at certain points of drama. But this was compensated by an ambiguous and unexpected shock. And the painterly image of the young heroine tenderly stroking the severed head – no spoilers here, you can see that on the Guardian website – really stuck with me, at least for the bus-ride home:
Next week…
Inception at the IMAX!
My Granny Lorna
I shamefully forgot to mention another occasion – my Granny Lorna Sing recently turned 90 which was a very special occasion. Although our family is small we are slightly spread (making us sound like a low-fat butter subsitute) so we commemorated by international Vistaprint:
So Happy Birthday to you Lo-Lo.
The First
Guess I have to start somewhere rather than waxing lyrical…
Best news of the week is that I now appear on Amazon!
Beyond that a few exciting things have been happening – I am hopefully going to be displayed in the V&A ‘Inspired By’ show in the Autumn, so all good exposure. Most importantly though it generated my first picture book, Mrs Bryant’s Pleasure, inspired by a fabulous dolls’ house in the Museum of Childhood:
I learnt a lot from making it and followed the 32-page format, including endpapers and handmade cloth binding. Thanks to my mum for a great bookbinding tutorial, somehow I managed to pull it off!