I am passionate about paper.  Ever since my days as an etcher I have had a love of the perfect paper for the job but recently I have found myself rather comfortably beginning to churn stuff out and felt that I needed to step away from the paper and turn to a canvas.  Oh my word, it is so much fun.  For a start it is a lot bigger, secondly it really doesn't like gouache on it so you have to paint quite differently and thirdly it just makes a Friday a bit more interesting.  I tend to work with gouache as a flat colour but in order to place the paint I had to keep layering up and that is something I want to do more of.  I still love my paper but this just reminds me of how easy it is to keep doing stuff that works and how much you learn if you step away from the easy option.

I did this 'Sweet Dreams' in response to Illustration Friday's theme of 'sweet'.  I haven't done an illustration friday for ages but it is always good to turn to when you are having a bit of a blank moment and just need to make something, anything, rather than do nothing and worry that you are doing nothing!

I have just completed a set of birthday cards all ready now for the printers.  I am off to London next week for the biggest trade fair for the greetings card industry Progressive Greetings Live.  My aim is to take a stand there next year so I am off to pick up some tips and I am really quite excited.

I have designed a series of cards and I am now in the process of painting them.  It is so satisfying to see a whole group of images come together.  Really enjoying myself, it is such a lovely feeling when everything flows.

I had a great trip to London visiting friends and getting a really good dose of inspiration from lots of great exhibitions.  The Pick Me Up festival in Somerset House was visually really exciting.  I do love a bit of screen print and there was an awful lot at Pick Me Up.  I managed to finally sit down after two days and spend an hour making a newspaper with The Loop.  This is my front page.  It was so much fun coming up with ideas really really quickly and the joy of making something just for the sake of making it.  I haven't done that for quite a while.

My husband found me the most amazing table for my studio.  I love it!

It is amazing what a good sleep can do.  I wasn't very happy with this when I went to bed but now as I look at it with fresh eyes it isn't quite as bad as I thought.  It is the result of rushing and being distracted so next week when all is calm again, children are back in school, routines kick off, I shall return to this little chap and paint him as he should be.