birdface.net » General Ramblings…

Bristol Affordable Arts Fair 2012

birdface — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:04:28 +0000

Just to let y’all know that I will have a large selection of work up for grabs all this weekend at the Bristol Affordable Arts Fair.
The show starts with the private view this Thursday evening and then continues until 5pm on Sunday 20th.
All the info you may need on the show can be found here.

Grand Designs Live 2012

birdface — Thu, 03 May 2012 08:02:30 +0000

Just a quicky to say that I will have work on a stand for Cube Gallery at the 2012 Grand Designs Live show starting in London this weekend. The show is being held at Excel and will run from the 5th – 13th May.

More info can be found here.
Looks like it’s going to be a good show…

Affordable Arts Fair – NYC 2012

birdface — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:11:55 +0000

Look lively y’all – I’ve got work up for sale all this weekend at the New York Affordable Arts Fair, Spring Edition.

The show will be held at 7 West 34th (near 5th Ave.) and starts on the 18th for the press preview and the private view. It will then be open to the general public from Thursday afternoon until Sunday evening (with free admission to the show available from 5-9 on the 19th!).

Have a looky here for all the info.

Brillo!

Little and Littler – personalised kids t-shirts

birdface — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 20:59:24 +0000

Hurray, hurray!!

I have a new nephew, little Dylan – he’s a proper cutie-pants
I made these matching t-shirts for him and my other nephew Tom, the Big Brother, using special t-shirt transfer paper. Always such a brills way to come up with original presents!

Glasgow Art Show 2012

birdface — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 10:25:21 +0000

Och! I have some work up for sale in a show this weekend called the Glasgow Art Show. This is a brand new international art fair which is being held in The Grand Ballroom, Thistle Glasgow located on Renfrew Street in the centre of Glasgow.

The show opens for a private view tonight from 18.30 – 21.30, and then will be open to the public as follows:

Friday 23rd March 2012: 11.00 – 18.00 – £6 Concessions £4
Saturday 24th March 2012: 11.00 – 18.00 – £6 Concessions £4
Sunday 25th March 2012: 11.00 – 17.00 – £6 Concessions £4

More info on the event can be found here.

As seen in Homes and Antiques magazine… (again!)

birdface — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 10:09:41 +0000

Randomly, I would appear to be on a roll with Homes and Antiques magazine as they have featured my work in their magazine AGAIN this month – huzzah!
I had one of my images in the March issue on one of the shopping pages, but this month I have a piece of work and a bit of a mention in one of the featured homes – I am so pleased!

The lovely home belongs to Ellie and Dan Hudson who live in Clifton, Bristol. Nice

Hand cut rubber stamps

birdface — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 22:53:51 +0000

It’s always such a great feeling when you FINALLY get round to doing something that you’ve been thinking about for ages…

Here are some stamps I carved out of some old erasers for making patterns.

MA Progress: heat transfer printing onto fabric

birdface — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:52:48 +0000

We did this workshop about heat transfer printing onto fabric a couple of weeks ago. This is a process that I previously knew nothing about really.

We started by making our images onto cheap newsprint type paper using disperse dyes. Once the dyes had dried, we literally just layered up the paper next to the fabric on a heat press, sandwiched the whole thing together at a really high temperature for a couple of minutes and hey presto, the ink was transferred permanently into the fabric!
It was completely bonkers and I have never seen anything like that before. Such a simple process and so quick to get results!

Here are some pics of my results. Firstly the paper with the dye on before doing the transfer – I made the pattern by applying the dye to the paper using a paintbrush and using masking tape with different layers of washes:

and here’s the fabric after it had been with it in the press:

- nice!

Other experiments:

It was a really fun process to work with and it is cool because you could totally just do it at home by yourself with an iron – you don’t really need any special equipment or anything.
Drawbacks would be that the colours are completely unpredictable (I was playing it safe with sticking to a bluey-grey!) and that the process only works when you use it on 100% synthetic fibres like nylons and polyesters. The fabric samples we had to test on were pretty rank and I don’t really know enough about fabrics to know what a nice polyester would look like. I couldn’t think of any applications for this method that I thought I would actually like – but I am pretty sure that I would feel differently if I knew a bit more about fabric…

MA Progress: Laser Cutting

birdface — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:20:14 +0000

So I have done some bits and bobs with laser cutting in the past – mostly for wedding invitations – but I have been able to have a proper play around with the lasers since I have been back at college. I’ve got a much better understanding of how the whole process works now and it’s fascinating.

Here is a Christmas card that I made whilst doing some experimentation:

I only had time to cut 2 in the end, which was a shame. One for keeps and the other went to a favourite client.
I’m hoping to get a bit more time in the laser suite soon to try out cutting into some other materials and working on a larger scale. The potential seems mind-boggling!

Create A Farm

birdface — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:27:36 +0000

Here are some images of a Create A Farm set I designed for Meadow Kids. The box turns into a barn and there are wooden pieces inside to make a farm scene. The tractor has detachable wheels so it can be fitted together and the whole set comes with paints and sticker sheets to help decorate all the pieces.

Cute! (even if I do say so myself )