Yellowstone National Park

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A few weeks ago I spent a wonderful few days in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. I had thought it would be mainly geysers and fumeroles, like the famous Old Faithful...and the wildly colourful prismatic hot spring,but there were also wild and barren landscapes... and gentle green lakes with ducks and canoeists.But it was the wild open landscapes of places like the Lamar Valley, with wide skies and meandering rivers,where the buffalo really do roam, that filled my heart.

River Cottage much more veg

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Hugh-Fearnley-Whittingstall's new River Cottage cookbook has just been published, illustrated by yours truly. I debuted a brand new illustration style, to keep the flavour of the illustrations I've done before for River Cottage, but adding a new dimension.I created a painted collage style, a bit reminiscent of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but with thicker paper, so there's a very definate shadow on the pages, to give the impression of depth.I worked with the art directer Lawrence Morton to come up with the theme for this book's illustrations, which is 'the preparation' for cooking. So I focused on the tools and equipment in the kitchen...and also the preparation of the ingredients themselves. For example, how to cut them...and how to select them...This wonderful book is available from Amazon US here and Amazon UK here. It would make an excellent Christmas gift!

friends that never met

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Michael McConnell, at Fayes Bench Gallery in San Francisco, created an art project 'Friends That Never Met' where instagram friends would pair up and create a piece of collaborative art embracing their online friendship; a chance to work on something tangible in the real world together. So I had a good think and asked Melodie Stacey, an artist I follow on instagram and whose work I love, but who I've never met in person, if she'd like to work with me on some artwork. She said yes!

We each started a piece with a character, and posted them to the other to finish. Here is 'How do you do?' featuring my Mr Lizard. I noticed that Melodie often paints in blue, so I decided to do blue too. It's a mokuhanga print with watercolour, while Melodie painted in gouache. The artworks are all small-ish, and look wonderful on the wall in the gallery.

Melodie sent me several blue ladies to work with, so I chose one and decided to add an elaborate hat and avian friend. Here is 'Feather Lady'.I studied Edwardian headwear to get inspiration and added my hat as a collage in blues onto Melodie's painting.Social media is a great platform for artists to interact and inspire each other from all over the globe, and I really enjoyed taking this concept and adding a physical element to it. Melodie is in the UK, I was working in Japan, and the show is in California. I love it!

The show is up for the whole month, with an artists reception this thursday evening, on September 21st. Please do pop in if you're around! All the artwork is for sale.

 

mokuhanga prints in my shop

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I've just put some of my new mokuhanga prints in my online shop. I printed these while I was in Japan and have just completed signing and preparing them. There are two versions of this little imaginary trumpet flower, one in blues and one in red and green...And there are blue and pink peonies too.Hope you'll pop by my shop and consider a purchase for yourself or as a gift!

Lassen National Park

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This weekend I visited Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northern California. It had forests, volcanic rocks, and beautiful lush meadows with wildflowers... There were tiny streams and creeks of clear icy water...and incredible mountain-top lakes, surrounded by snow.We watched the Perseid meteor shower and saw many falling stars.It was like a dream...

Vermont map

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I recently illustrated a small map of Vermont for Middlebury Magazine. It's a lovely little article about the author's annual journey to Bread Loaf. I think it's always interesting to see how an illustration starts, so these are the initial sketches I made when I was thinking about how to approach the project. The first sketch, which I ended up working with, shows the map from an aerial bird-eye view, and the entire route. The second sketch shows the road to Bread Loaf in a more 3 dimensional way, although some of the road is hidden behind hills...I take the page layout into consideration when I work, so it makes me happy to see everything come together nicely on the printed page.

birthday

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As usual, I like to make my birthday last longer than a day, so I had three! On my actual birthday I went out for dinner to the Cliff House in San Francisco, and enjoyed a relaxed dinner with sunset views over the Pacific.I was given a little cooking course as a gift, and spent the next morning with chef Jean Yves in his kitchen learning how to make pate a choux and eclairs. So delicieux!Then my birthday picnic in the park. I love spending time with friends, eating sandwiches and cake, in the sunshine on a lovely day...Summer birthdays are the best!

mokuhanga print

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I completed one large-ish print while I was on the mokuhanga residency in Japan: one that features plants in a garden. I was inspired by the abundant greenery all around the house, and in the surrounding gardens.I did some initial pencil sketches and arranged them in a wide landscape.Then did a painted version to work out solid areas of colour.I then started carving a long block of shina wood. And then carved, and carved some more...When the block was fully carved, I set up, ready to print.It's the largest mokuhanga print I've ever made, and was extremely challenging. But I learnt alot, and really pushed myself. I had only meant to do a pink and green version, but felt that blues might work too. I'm now fond of them both!I intend to take the print further, and create an artists book out of it. It'll be shown in Hawaii in a few month's time, and I'll blog again when it's all done...

tokyo

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This week I spent a few days in Tokyo, visiting friends, art stores and exhibitions. First stop the Ota Museum in Harajuku, to a ukiyoe exhibition of Edo from the water, and then the Nezu Museum, to a ceramics one. Both were wonderful, and highly recommended!Then on to Pigment, a store with paints and paraphanelia, and more brushes than I've ever seen in my life. So. Many. Brushes. And all of them gorgeous.I love the city, well, cities generally, but in particular Tokyo, and I find the everyday urban views beautiful. Even just the railways at dusk, walking home after an exhausting day.Can't wait to visit again soon!

Kawaguchiko

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This weekend I did a little sightseeing around where I'm staying, in Kawaguchiko, Japan. There are a series of caves you can visit at the foot of Mt Fuji, formed from lava from the last eruption. The Narusawa Ice Cave is one of them, and is a National Monument. And also a little bit scary to get through due to the extremely low ceilings. The entrance is fascinating, as you go down under the floor of the forest, and suddenly it's literally ice cold, like you've walked into a fridge. The haze you can see in the photo is the air condensating between hot + humid and freezing! A walk in the sea of trees, along lava strewn paths, was also truly beautiful: it had my favourite combo of moss and ferns.I visited a site called Saiko Iyashi no sato NENBA, a recreation of a thatched village that was destroyed by a typhoon in the 60s. Each lovely building had examples of local crafts.And of course, a visit to the opposite side of Lake Kawaguchiko, to get a magnificent view of the sacred mountain, looking just like a Hokusai print.

mokuhanga peony

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This week I carved a small block from cherrywood (my first) to do some paper-testing. I printed two versions of my peony design onto many different types of washi paper to decide what sort I would use for my big project. I'm hoping to do some bokashi printing, and wanted a paper that would show the gentle gradations well, as well as printing black sumi ink sharply.

mi-lab

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I'm in Kawaguchiko, Japan, for the next few weeks, on a mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock) printmaking artists residency with mi-lab. It's in a beautiful location in a small town on the edge of the lake at the foot of Mt Fuji. I'm working on a series of prints, but in the meantime, here are some little sketches of the famous mountain.The views all around are beautiful, surrounded by mountains, wildflower meadows, and small farm plots, but it's Mt Fuji that dominates the landscape, whenever it appears from behind the clouds...

London wedding

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My brother-in-law got married this weekend in London, and it was a beautiful day.I sketched as much as I could, and loved seeing how my designs were used on the day. For Luke & Amy's wedding stationery, I started with an illustration of the happy couple on a London bus, with pink flowers in the background, which was used for the Save the Dates. I started them off in casual clothes, and added a simple hand-drawn pink border around the card.I developed this motif and drew a more detailed background for the formal invitation, including important places from their life together and secret elements from the wedding reception, like the ice-cream cart, the bowling pin and neon arrow, to hint at what would be in store on the day. I also put them in more traditional wedding attire.For the welcome reception, before the wedding, I created a simpler version of the illustration, with a celebratory bottle of champagne...

....and then for all of the other stationery, another version with just a few of the details from the full invitation illustration.It was used on the menu

for the wedding lunch, which was delicious, and the table where I sat was full of interesting and beautiful people to draw.There was dancing and cocktails...and an awesome sweet bar: check out the sweet bags! I hadn't seen this, but the bride was given a special dressing gown with the illustration embroidered onto the back. Isn't it amazing!I also made a square-bordered version of the illustration (with an added heart detail) to have printed onto a pillow for the bride and groom as a gift.I have more drawings of the day, but this is my favourite of the bride, my new sister-in-law. Welcome to the family!

London week three

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This week, I visited more museums, and happily spent time sketching. These were both taken in the V & A my most very favourite museum in the world.And then at the weekend, a visit to the Cotswolds. We stayed in an adorable house in the tiny village of Lower Slaughter, and spent time chatting and walking in the countryside. We stayed right by this lovely watermill, and I took an early morning walk one day...We went to the farmers market in Chipping Norton......where I managed to do a few watercolours, in spite of the drizzle.This is a little sketch of the house where we stayed. I loved sitting in the tiny garden courtyard...And then it was back to the city for my last week, and no visit to London would be complete without a cake and cup of tea at Maison Bertaux.