Coasting

My Christmas season has been fabulous so far, I have watched a LOT of children's films. 

And saw lovely friends and family and ate tasty food of course. 

As is traditional I decided to make a portion of my gifts this year and I decided to make a selection of coasters. 

After umming and ahhing over various tutorials on Pinterest, I bought a job lot of wooden and felt circles from ebay and then began covering them in collage designs. 

Some were in sets like these almost obligatory map and bird designs

and roses

and others were one offs. 

In all a good crafting activity for giftage, although beware of taking up a lot of surfaces in the home when many are drying at once.

If you are thinking of making some coasters and you want them to be functional as well, make sure you consider the waterproofness of the materials you use - I used found printed papers and book cutouts for a lot of the designs (woo serendipity etc.) but where I did use pictures I'd printed from my own designs I made sure to print them on a photocopier with heat sealed ink, and not on my inkjet printer. I also sprayed the finished coasters with two coatings of varnish, but early results indicate the brand I used might not be particularly heat resistant, so do more research than I did. 

Merry betweenchristmasandnewyears

best of 2012 obviously

This time last year I wrote a fairly comprehensive post on my thoughts about  Making Things for Other People

This year my feelings are much the same, though I'm busy for different reasons, Christmas is still awesome and I still love making things for people. This year I made some unique kindle cases following this tutorial  and including some of my own painting and bookbinding nowse. I also decorated a number of notebooks on the theme of birds beginning with the same letter as the gift receivers name, here are 4 of my faves;

who knows, maybe some day I'll do a whole alphabet's worth, it's not like that's been done before. 

2012 has been a good year for me

I completed my NQT year (blood, sweat, tears etc.) and got a better part time teaching job than I had dared to hope for at the end of it. I went to Amsterdam, Disneyland Paris and the south of France, not to mention Margate, learnt to carve soapstone and to create giant sculptures out of just newspaper and glue.

I saw some Olympics, some awesome plays, exhibitions, musicians, football and even some good tv. I painted a mural and a huge amount of live portraits. I co-founded an illustration collective and started my own pet portrait business. 

I drew all of my friends beginning with F and G and a bunch of celebrities who are still under-wraps. I drew and wrote about fashion and other things, designed logos, cushion covers, cards and comics. I drew dancing deities, teapots, weddings, tigers, orchestras, huskies in party hats and two sexy cowboys riding a giant walrus. 

I do have an official new year's resolution, about which more later, but looking through my albums and folders to make this post, I have noticed though a worrying list of people I love that I don't seem to have seen much, if at all this year, which is sad. What's really needed for a new year's resolution is I think a list of people I need to see before this time next year. 

On Christmas, Activism, but chiefly Making Things For People.

A facebook project portrait of Erica Sharp

Ho Ho Ho (or, backwards, Oh Oh Oh)

For it's Christmas time, when we travel far and near;

May God bless you and send you a happy New Year

Well, not any more. But the sentiment stands.

I had a most joyous season of good will. I travelled far and near and I gave and received and ate and ate and ate.

Something which I may have mentioned previously, is how busy in the manner of a bee I am in my life currently. I have a full time teaching job, an epic commute, portraits to paint, resources to make, plus illustrating for things like the Think Act Vote book which is being crowd funded here go buy them a drink or worth a general check out for their sterling work, plus the occasional magazine illo. Anyway I barely have time to watch X factor, so it's lucky that's finished.

I had thought therefore, that come the festive season I would want to give hassle free gifts, pay with the more money that I have to save the more time in the holidays I needed for sleeping and watching Gilmore Girls. But no. Before the term even ended I began to fantasize about hand making gifts.

I played with ideas of garlands and biscuits, altered vintage photographs, in the end I plumped for uniquely tailored chocolate hearts for the majority, choosing confectionery and mixing different brands of chocolate for each of my immediate and in-law-to-be family members. I also made some mini lightswitch artworks, bird shaped tree decorations and my traditional set of handmade cards for my mother's extended lot.

I forgot to do the obvious and photograph any of this, so here is an annotated diagram of how to make your own, me-style chocolate heart. I may have got carried away with the diagram. There wasn't really a bunsen burner.

Is it racist that love hearts still say BLUE EYES?

I didn't really forget by the way. It crossed my mind to record these endeavours and do like a twee crafty blog of it all. But that felt wrong. Because these things, and here we are coming to my actual point, were not for self promotion. They were for my loved ones, and also, for me. In a private and pure way, to keep me sane.

I think this is a big part of why I am an illustrator more than I'm a fine artist, and why I love doing portrait commissions, why I spend longer than I have to making resources for my Art classes,

(like this example of a one point perspective shop interior I did at half term)

why I am doing my facebook project too in a way. Making things for other people is one of my all time favourite things to do. (obvious jokes about chocolate and sex).

It's better than Art for Art's sake, Art for Sale, Art for The Betterment of The People, Art Garfunkel, Art for kids, Art for fun and profit, and Art for impressing the Opposite Sex.

Making things for other people is basically like having a dinner party, but with less last minute hoovering and soup angst.

Making things for other people is Ace.

And that's why I know that whatever happens in my life, if I have a dozen kids, or get a job so lucrative I am not compelled to draw for moneys ever again (neither of which are likely, but you never know), I will still Make things for People.

I suggest you do too.