The Royal Bank of Sustainability

Re-envisioning the Royal Bank of Scotland ...

For an Amelia's Magazine brief...

Buildings

Oh! Been very quiet here, hasn't it? Sorry - much busy with many projects/deadlines and getting over over a nasty cold. Here are some drawings of buildings to keep you (temporarily) entertained :)


A cookie to anyone who guesses what ties these buildings together ... ;) All will be revealed next week (when I hand in the final images).

The Happy Mag ...

So what were all those kids and bicycles about?


My submission for the Anorak Mag cover design competition...

Its OK, but I feel quietly dissatisfied with the outcome ...

Things I've learnt:
1. I LOVE making - and the 2D-3D crossover
2. BUT it takes a LONG TIME ...
3. And can be a whole lot of frustrating (lucky for me to have the best husband in the world and his collection of camera and lighting equipment)
4. Will go back to plain 'ol 2D and bring the scissors and glue out only for special occasions ...

Set up - oh yes, those laboratory clamps come in handy ...

A boy and his bike ...

Thanks for all the comments on the last post - the most important thing I learnt was: forget translucent vs opaque; the real issue was that the bike wasn't 'simple' enough. Needed less detail ... now our young man can have a bicycle much more suited to him; that he can cycle to the park and lie in the grass and enjoy the sunshine with ...

Translucent? Or opaque?

That is the current question ...

Babes and bikes ...

Today, I have been mostly drawing children lying in fields...

and bicycles ...

Illustration can be a very slow process sometimes ... sigh ...

Picnic time...?

It's nice to go for a picnic .... but you gotta watch out for those soda bottles with lives of their own!!!

This is actually work-in-progress for another project; but I quite like where it is right now ... so I thought I'd make a version that stops here :)

Bagheera Kiplingi

Inspired by our newly discoverd herbivorous arachnid friend :) Trying to do it in autumnal inspired colours ...

Liverpoodlian?

Working on some briefs based on some UK cities ... this is my attempt at Liverpool (I thought I'd do a city I've actually been to ...). Here are a couple of 'work-in-progress' versions ...

Something about it is still not quite right.... maybe I should just let it be and move on to some other stuff for a bit to clear my head of it ...

Enameling ...

My its been quiet here ... hasn't it?

This last week has just been rather hectic and I've only just found some time to sit down and tell you about wat I've been up to - most importantly - an enamelling workshop!

On the bottom left you can see my test piece of copper (yes, I had laid the liquid enamel on a little too thick!), and then the other two pieces was me playing with some microorganism inspired images ... It was great fun and the tutor was fab - and I'm very inspired to use enameling this year ... just have to work out in what context to use it, and for what projects. It is actually quite a difficult process to learn to control - but when you can, the results are stunning. I'd actually wanted to learn enameling on glass so I could do some work on old labware ... maybe can still do that at some point.

Apart from that, I've also been to London to see Origin part 1; and potter round the Tate Modern (well, mostly its bookshop ... mmmm.. yummy); a couple of other galleries; and spend lots of money at some specialist art shops on some expensive specialist art materials!

Man do I feel poor ... um, and oh yes, a couple of things bought off Amazon have also arrived ... yay! AND we had our first "Ain't Misbehaving", AND we had friends in town visiting, AND I've also been busy with lots of briefs ... AND we've been patiently waiting for Sunshine's sister's baby to arrive ... What a busy week!

Women Scientists ...

Hooray for women scientists! ... Dr Elizabeth Blackburn, 2009 Nobel Prize for Medicine for work on telomeres.

I was actually also doing a drawing of her fellow Nobel Prize winner Dr Carol Greider (yay! more women scientists!) too, but it just wasn't a 'flattering' image ...

For Clara Bow ...

Some work-in-progress ...


Still playing with the colours; and its still quite flat and so I'm experimenting with some textures etc .... hmmmm ....

Wedding Wednesday - hiatus

"The Wedding Posse"

There is not much left of the wedding posts - just a couple of little things to tie up that I'd like to talk about. But for the meantime, Wedding Wednesday is going to be on hiatus as Term has started - and as this is the beginning of the end, (final year! EeEEEEeeepppPPp!), I'm going to be prioritisisng my illustration degree.

Sunshine is busy trying to get the 'official' photos edited and cleaned up, so will post here when those are up on flickr ... but while I have the chance, would just like to say a HUGE thank you to the bridal party + other halves + one hanger on; otherwise known as the "Wedding Posse"; for all their help and support on and around the day ... we love you!

Hoops for sale ...

Having a bit of a clearout here at planetmithi headquarters, and have put the original Meta- embroidery hoops on sale at etsy... grab the originals while you can!!!

Family Day

It is family day here at planetmithi ... Sunshine and I would like to say:

First of all HAPPY BIRTHDAY lil sis Tiara ... who turns 24 today ... lookie at what a cutie she was! (with me aged about 12 I think) ... Woo .... loveses you!!!


Then, HAPPY 40th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY to my folks ... look at them being all cool in the 70s ... oh yeah ... my parents ... looking fiiiiiiine ...... ;)


And also, HAPPY 40th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY to Sunshine's folks on Monday ... can you believe it? The two sets of parents got married within two days of each other on two different ends of the world 40 years ago!

Woo! Have a great day all!
Much love, from Us

Wedding Wednesday - part 7

Today's topic ... entertainment! (other wedding related posts here)

Sunshine and I lead fairly active lives - infact we met swing dancing, via a mutual swing dancing/juggling friend who Sunshine had met through juggling. And as such, we had to do very little in the way of organising "entertaiment" for our guests - as they were all so entertaining themselves!

Our friends performed for us (clockwise from top left: Pich did his stick routine, Ed did a hillarious pizza twirling routine to "That's Amore", and Cookie sang for us.

There was a lot of juggling/manipulation gear about - and a lot of hoolahoops! As seen here enjoyed by both young and old ;) (please do click on the images to see them larger - especially little Manon who was just a gem of a guest!)

As we had met dancing - we had our first dance to a swing version of "Sunny" by Ernestine Anderson. (Sunshine - Sunny ... you get it, yes?)

DJ-ed by some of the best swing DJs in the country (who also happen to be our friends ... how lucky are we??!!??) ... thank you Daniel, Tom, David, Mel and Mark ...

Much dancing ensued till late under the marquee ...

Whilst in the garden, much multicoloured spinning could be seen.

The dancers were all trying to hoop and juggle, and the jugglers all wanted to dance. The non-dancer/jugglers also all joined in the festivities ... it was GRAND! So many of the parents generation kept coming to us an commenting what talented friends we have ... and indeed we do ;)

In other news, the wedding has been blogged about again - I have updated my Thank You post with the link ;)

Adana update

So, there's far more to hand-presses than you would think. I have been doing a lot of reading and yesterday even managed to see one of the print tutors and borrow a quoin key so that I could unlock the type and clean out the chase that came with my Adana. Last week I also managed to drop by the Impact 2009 product fair (I wasn't a delegate - just gate crashed!); and speak to the people who make these Safe Wash inks - and they gave me a couple of free samples :)

So today when my rollers finally arrivd in the post, Sunshine and I had a go at printing ...

We haven't really got the correct 'tympan' on the platen yet - I've ordered some in; but in the meantime was just using some paper and board of random thickness ... We tried the Christmassy type that came with the print... But didn't manage to get a very good impression ... (even after fiddling with the impression screws).


Then we tried some spice jar labels (something I had picked up at a charity shop a long time ago ...). OK but not great. I think we also don't quite have the right sort of paper - tried several varieties and the results are quite variable.

Then we tried a wood block that I'd got the same time I'd got those spice jar labels.

This was probably the nicest - but still with issues.

By this point we were both very hungry for dinner, so cleaned everything up (these Safe Wash inks are a joy to work with - oil based but cleans up with washing up liquid!); and we shall leave more experimenting (other papers? flexoplates? other inks? wooden type?) for another day ...

Website! Shop! 300th post! AND giveaway!

Whattalotta things going on! I'd like to introduce you to what I've been working on the last few weeks - my new portfolio site! Those of you who have been coming here will have noticed the two changes of banner images recently - one was a trial, and the other (on now) was to make it more in-line with the website, which is at : http://cargocollective.com/planetmithi

It's still in the process of being refined - lets call it a beta-release ... - and I'm hoping as I produce more work over the year; I can take off some of the old stuff, and put on more new stuff - but at least I've got something up now... Also, planetmithi.com is still redirecting to this blog - but in the future, when I'm happier with the state of the portfolio, planetmithi.com will direct straight through to the portfolio site ...

The other thing I've been up to is I've also finally set up a SHOP! After two years of having an account there, I give you http://planetmithi.etsy.com

Not much on there at the moment - but you can purchase mini prints of my little Charleston Bees Knees girls and also Mr Fox ;)

This is also, my 300th post! And in conjunction, I've got a little giveaway for my lovely readers... Remember our wedding invite and how much fun our guests had with them? Well, I have about 8 tweeters still available to the first 10 people who leave me a comment here (please make sure you put in your e-mail address so that I can get hold of you to ask for your address ...). Come on folks! Stop, lurking and say hello!

The first term on my final (yikes!) year as an illustration student officially starts tomorrow - although not a lot happens in the first couple of weeks ... Stay tuned for some exciting new adventures in the next year :)

Giveaway edit: Yay ... all gone!
1. Kerstin
2. SaraPham
3. Lucy H
4. Andrea
5. TheFrase
6. FabricNation
7. Claire
8. Emma

Will be in touch ASAP!

Thank you ...

The wedding posts have been really well received over the blogosphere - and I thought I'd say a little Thank You to all the lovely posters - and Welcome to everyone who is new to planetmithi! ... Click on the banner images to go straight to the article :)

Flaptastic!

I met up with the lovely Vicky of Clara Bows last night - first came across her at a craft fair selling the most gorgeous 20s style cloche hats I had ever seen! I'm doing a little fun project for her (see pics above) - and in return I am getting one of those stunning hats! Yay flaptastic me!

ps: have a look at Vicky's fab 20s style recent wedding, photographed by Bristol's own Rosie Parsons here and here.