Girls are Weird

I first discovered this book three years ago on a visit to the Tate Modern in London.  With it's scratchy biro-esque drawings and juxtaposed imagery, along with the cute and quirky story, it has become one of my favourite books I own.

Written half in Spanish(?) and half in English it follows the tea-time conversation of a self indulgent girl and her teddybear.

'You girls are very weird,' the teddybear starts to explain. 'The way you dress, for example, do you honestly think the strange clothes that fill your closet are normal?'

'Those striped stockings...  Those bows...  Those hats...  Those shiny shoes...  Those spot skirts...'

'And there's more.  How many people do you know who live inside a boot with a fat, one eyed cat?'

'...Who's home is decorated like a fairytale castle...'

And so the bear continues, very pleased with himself.  He mentions the poisonous toadstools in her garden, the way she likes to set her dolls house on fire, her penchant for picnics in the Pain Forest and so on and so on.

Eventually the girl replies 'I can assure you that the one who would lose out if I changed my ways would be you; do you really think that one of those girls you call 'normal' would have such a crabby, grumpy teddybear for tea?'

I think that this is such a charming little book and I just wanted to share it.  But I've never seen it anywhere else other than in the Tate in London.  However you can purchase it here if you so wish!

It's good to be Queen

Crowns.  

I love them. 

More than a lot of things. 

The bigger and velvetier and glitterier the better!  

I also love drawing them.

If I was Queen...

I'd wear the silver and red crown to breakfast,

(which would be scrambled egg and smoked salmon on toast)

I'd wear the green crown whilst in my palace gardens,

I'd wear the gold and red crown whilst walking the corgis,

I'd wear the purple crown for state occasions,

and the pink one in bed. 

Which crown would you pick to wear?

Dear Mr Baker man,

There is only one thing that I want you to bake,

and that is a pink and black house made of cake,

with icing and frosting and round silver balls,

and edible wallpaper hung on the walls.

(another page of my book)

Which house would you live in?

Frogs and Flamingos

Another part of a page from my book.  The last page actually.  Can you spot the cakes with the hands and bunny ears poking out of them?

I was going to put a recipe at the end of my book too but I ran out of time.  I started to do it last week but then realised that I wouldn't be able to knock it out in half an hour like I was planning without it looking rubbish so I have scrapped the idea for now. There's this great site called http://www.recipelook.co.uk/  where you can send in your illustrated recipes so I might do one fot that at some point instead.

Anyhow whilst I was doing that I got some ideas for the endpapers for my book.  I thought that as there's a heavy baking theme I could use the tiny pictures I did for my recipe that never happened and multiply them to look like this:

I quite like it but then I'm also torn between using black and white stripes for a more gothic feel. There's a stripe theme running through the book too, along with a frog and flamingo theme. Maybe I could do frogs and flamingos instead! On stripes.  Or stripes of frogs and flamingos.... the possibilities are endless!

Happy Tuesday! x

very attractive hairdos

Rainbow Kitchen

This is one of the double page spreads (click to enlarge) for my book that I wrote and am in the process of illustrating.  All the research and drawing of cakes I did last term has most certainly come in useful for this. Though after this project I don't want to look at or draw another cake for at least a year! I've already given up eating them. You can have too much of a good thing!

can you spot: the castle cake, the the flamingo cupcakes, the squares of chocolate, the gingerbread man cutter?

 It's so weird to be coming to the end of being at uni.  Three years has gone so fast!  It feels funny to think that there's nothing to go back to after summer.  I still don't really know what I'm going to do next year.  I want to run away and live on the beach and live off the money from my paintings. Haha.

Violet Skeleton

She always wanted to be someone like that. The girl who wore stillettos to bed and who's eyelashes were as long as spider legs.

She bought some lilac hairdye and a box of bleach and some black shiny lace up boots.

 

Hello Violet Skeleton.

Belated Happy Easter

This was supposed to be my Happy Easter post but it's a bit belated as you can see!  Anyway I hope everyone had a wonderful day and ate too many chocolate eggs! Wouldn't it be amazing if chicks came in all the pastel shades of the rainbow?  I'd have a baby pink one or a pale lilac one.  And they would lay rainbow eggs too.

Alice in Wonderland

I still haven't been to see Alice in Wonderland.  I will get round to it at some point but I was actually more excited about Camille Rose Garcia's illustrated version of the book coming out a couple of weeks ago.  It arrived the other day and did not disappoint! This book is well worth having a look at.  The technicolor mixed together with the gothic style of drawings gives a completely different visual take on any other illustrated copy of the story I have seen before!

While we are on the subject of Alice in Wonderland I thought I would post up some Alice in Wonderland inspired photos that I did a couple of years ago:
(I'm sure they look very amateurish now but it was such a fun shoot to do!)

I am juggling third year work with everything else at the moment and working on my childrens book which is why I haven't posted anything new lately.  Also it was my birthday, and obviously I had to take time out for that! Covered the floor in sequins and made cupcakes with edible glitter.  We went dancing.

The Cupcake Palace

Here's my character again, inside her Cupcake Palace.  This is one of the pages from my book and there's writing to go on it too.  

I got totally inspired over the summer by Scott Hoves Cake Land.  I especially like these shoes:

 

I think my character would have probably have worn shoes like these in her younger days.

Princess Terribelle and the Wellington Boot

I got this in the post yesterday, found it on amazon for 1p or something.  I used to read it a lot when I was little but don't know where my copy of the book went.

It made me so happy to read it again!  (It used to be one of my favourite books.)

The story is about Princess Terribelle who was mostly very good but sometimes she was bad.  She lives in a Palace and sleeps every night on fourteen mattresses and five pillows.  One day she gets taken for tea with the Duchess and her daughter Arabel. 

Arabel has lots of dolls and Princess Terribelle becomes obsessed with this tiny pair wellington boots that she finds among the doll clothes.  She loves them so much that she slips one of them into her pocket and takes it home.

But Princess Terribelle feels a little bit guilty and she also discovers that it's not so much fun playing with just one boot.

 

  

Anyway then one day Arabel come round for tea and Princess Terribelle hides the little wellington boot, hoping that Arabel has forgotten about it.  At the end of the evening Arabel slips a package to Terribelle and inside it is the other boot.  Then they become best of friends and all is happy and wonderful and Terribelle never bosses Arabel about again. The end.

I think I used to love it so much because I was also obsessed with tiny things.  I think I liked the way Princess Terribelle imagined that the boots were fairy boots. I remember writing tiny letters and putting them in the garden for the fairies when I was small. And totally believing a fairy would find them!

Right now my life is tartan royalty, glitterlashes, drinking raspberry tea, wearing tiaras round the house, drawing chandeliers and red nail varnish.

I'm working on the pages of my kids book at the moment and it's HARD. Hard to wake up with motivation for it every day, especially as we had a crit the other day and the tutors just pulled it all apart.  But just gotta keep going! I might post some images from it soon though. I'd post one now but it's all pink and would clash with this red-orientated post.  

Til next time! x

Dripping Glitter

 

This is my favourite illustration I did of this character (looks a lot better if you click on it).  She has black line around her this time,  I was experimenting with black line/no black line as usual.  

I would so dearly love to be able to make my hair do that but I don't have enough of it yet.  I think I would need to be at least waist length to make that work.   I have always wanted hair down to my feet actually.  I'm growing it at the moment.  Heres hoping!

Now she's angry.  ^  She can be quite fierce when she's cross. In fact she can get quite... murderous.  I wouldn't want to cross her in this mood!

This by the way is what I am coveting at the moment.  This sparkling, rainbow dripping with gems necklace.  I detour by the shop it's in every day so that I can look at it in the window.  It makes my mouth water.

It's designed by Butler and Wilson who make the best jewellery ever!  I have a tiara by them and its my favourite thing to wear!  Are you a fan of this?  My housemate would say "it looks like Barbie's been sick on it," because that is what she said about my tiara. But I think the glitterier the better!

Character Design

This character lives in a house of cake with pale pink walls and silver balls round the windows.  She bakes lots of cakes for her bakery but likes to abstain from eating too many cupcakes herself, which is why she is so skinny.  She just likes the look of the things. Especially the mountains of pastel coloured icing.

This couple- Duke Cornelius Crumpet and Duchess Cornelius Crumpet like to attend the tea parties in the cake house though the Duke is a grump who does not like socializing.  He just goes for the food.

These two are party animals.  They attend at least five social events per week.  They live in a black castle of which half is closed up and in ruins. They have three pet bats called Cuthbertina, Benjamina and Thomasina who live in the dark red curtains of their massive four poster bed.  They also have a black cat called Ginkgo Jellyboots who has a white star on his nose and who is afraid of mice.

Pookie the Rabbit with Wings

 

'Pookie' by Ivy Wallace was one of my favourite favourite ever books when I was little. I just thought that a rabbit with wings was such a great idea!  Or such a nice idea at least.  Probably not very practical!  I love the way Pookie is drawn though, so that the bottom half of his body is kind of ball-like.  I think he is one of the best stylized rabbits in kids books ever!

 Pookie lives in Bluebell wood where there are lots of fairies and elves and other animals and one day (before his wings grow big and are just tiny flimsy things) he sets out to seek his fortune.  Eventually he meets a girl who takes him in and looks after him and his wings blossom and he is happy.  And then he continues to go on adventures!

This picture ^ is from 'Pookie Puts the World Right,' where he tells Winter to go away because he is mean and destructive.  Then he has to go on a mission to find Winter and apologize because he realises that nature can't function properly without one of the seasons.

Among his adventures Pookie takes a trip to the seaside in one book...

Goes to Wonderland...

And gets captured by the circus. (I think this one was my very favourite)

Does anyone else remember these books? I found them totally entrancing!