Goodnight Desperate Dan

Was sad that the Dandy printed its last copy this month 75 years after it started. I was always more of a Beano child but its a sad end of an era.

You can read more about the end of the Dandy here.

Laybabylay

The lovely people at Laybabylay have included one of my prints in their selection of gifts for a wee bairns room. http://laybabylay.com/wee-little-bairn-revisited

Fruitmarket Christmas Bookmarket

I shall be there on Thursday 6 December.

Moomin v Mormon

Sadly, while the Mormons were cool with our print, the Moomins were not so cheerful and they have asked us to stop making them. Not the way round I would have expected that to go.

My interview with Axis where I talked about the Moomin v Mormon situation has amazingly been picked as one of their 21 highlights for their Twenty First birthday. Congratulations and thank you to all at team Axis.

http://www.axisweb21.org/

Ninja's love a puzzle

Home & Interiors Scotland December 2012

The three kings russian dolls I designed as exclusive products for Folksy are the editors pick of the month in the Winter issue of Home & Interiors Scotland magazine. Can you see them?

I also just got a few more of these wee guys in.

Spacejump

Felix Baumgartner's spacejump as it happened.

Debate

Strange day in the Westend of Glasgow today which ended with a long discussion about religion and evolution spurned on by someone taking offence at the book from our Himptology exhibition. Turned out the guy doesn't believe in Evolution and wanted to discuss. I was quite brain fried after having manned a stall at the art market for 6 hours and despite knowing better launched into it. Eventually I realised that it was probably rather futile on both our behalves but he has taken my card to get in touch so a long debate may now be begun!! Anyone wishing to join in is welcome.

Holy book of HIMP

EDIT: Just tweeted the above to Science and Comedy man Robin Ince who provided some useful links and suggestions for passing to my debater if he does get in touch. Robin's best piece of advise though was probably the most true "these arguments are a waste of time" which I know from making our Godwin's Law projection piece and yet I fear both sides always get drawn in.

In saying that I'm still going to get myself a copy of Peter Atkin's "Creation Revisited" and also Steve Jones "Almost like a Whale". Isn't Twitter great, knowledgeable people to point you in the right directions for further reading.

Zoo stamps

Spotted that Edinburgh Zoo are running a competition to design special stamps to commemorate their 150th birthday but I'm double the allowed age limit.

Winter is coming

Looking out the window and the swirling wind and rain its very clear that the Autumn is clipping by very quickly.

You're a star

Bit of a red, blue and turquoise theme going on around here at the moment! New wee Christmas decorations now in the UK and North America shops.

Happy Halloween

Ann and I always try and decorate the stairwell of our building for Halloween and this year we decided to have a go at some origami bats, pumpkins and skulls. I think our neighbours got a bit of a shock when they got up the next morning to discover an army of paper monsters hanging from invisible thread all the way down the stairs. See the below photos.

I thought people might like to attempt making their own so have tried to draw up the instructions below. If anything is confusing then let me know in the comments below and I'll try to explain.

As well as the origami monsters we also filled a bright orange pumpkin lantern bucket with sweets and left at the bottom step along with a little note inviting our neighbours to help themselves. I also created a set of other  colourful card with vampires, witches, mummy's and other creatures for hanging on the doors.

Happy Birthday Wishes

Few new wee pig card designs coming soon.

Looper

Anyone else see Looper? I thought it was a really interesting film but it was partly spoiled for me by the weird makeup effect to make JGL look more like Bruce Willis. It was pretty effective but knowing what JGL looks like I spent most of my time trying to spot which bits were real and which were fake and wondering if his eyebrows would get a separate credit at the end.

Sun and Moon

You only live twice

Thunderball

Odd Job

From Russia With Love

Dr No

50 years of Bond

Daniel Craig

Quick 23min sketch for Little White Lies movie Sketchathon.

Dockwood by Jon McNaught

The talented Jon McNaught has a new book out soon called Dockwood. Its apparently about autumn, a nursing home and a paper round. Having once upon a time had a paper round which included an old folks home I look forward to reading it. 

There was a really comfy chair on the second floor of the home on which I would take a five minute warm up and read the comic strips on the back of the papers before setting out for the last house which had a large and rather angry dog. I wonder if Jon's book will touch upon such wonders.

www.jonmcnaught.co.uk

Three Wise men

Completed set of figures

I was approached, by Folksy at the end of the summer to design a bespoke item, as an exclusive Christmas product.

My desk during the initial design stage

I love decorating the house for Christmas and try to make sure all our objects have good stories behind them. For the last few years, we have collected unusual items to hang from our tree from every destination we've been too, from red felt maple leaves in Tokyo to small decorated elephants from Jaipur or an odd wooden spoon from Stockholm. Most are handmade and unique and as a result we look forward to unwrapping and discovering them again each year as we put up the tree.

Initial sketch proposal for approval by Folksy

I wanted my Folksy object to capture a little of that feeling. I wanted it to be something that people could treasure and enjoy every year. The Russian dolls series of work that I've made seemed to fit the bill perfectly so I set about designing something bold, bright and warm that would go well with the dark green of a Christmas tree. Eventually I settled on a set of three wisemen, with the smallest doll also containing a single wooden star threaded to hang from the tree.

Making the dolls is quite a long process. First I need to get some blank hand-turned doll sets from a little man in Ireland, then several coats of white paint are needed to give a good base to work from. I then rough sketch out the designs with pencil. I try out colour combinations on the computer to give me a good starting point but in reality it takes many, many test colours with repeated sanding in between to get the colours so I'm happy. Once all that is done, the dolls get a further light sand to take off any rough bits of paint and then the final line detail is added in pencil before several coats of satin varnish to seal the pencil and to give a bit of protection to the paint.

You can see more images of the final results on the Folksy website here.

Dolls at various stages during initial design

There were 14 different designers asked to take part in the Christmas Collection and here are links to products that they designed:

• Three wise men by Hole in my Pocket
• Christmas Pudding Soap by Scent Cosmetics
• Stationery geek Poster by Crazy Bear Studio
• 'Icicle' glass fairy lights by Red Brick Glass
• Three Kings Paper Craft Set by Happy Thought Paper Crafts
• Two Tone Crochet Boot Cuffs in Mint Green & Cream by Lumi
• Christmas Notebooks by Felt Mountain Studios
• Wooden Reindeer by Erin Rose
• Emperor Penguin Jug by Julia Davy Ceramics
• Cyclamen Pink Hot Water Bottle by jules hogan knitted textiles
• Toy Angel Decoration by Jane Foster Designs
• Woodland Mug - Christmas by Jilly bird
• Tweed teacosy by A Very British Affair
• Christmas Bunting by Bread and Jam

Axis @ The Manchester contemporary

A selection of my work will be at the Axis stand of The Manchester Contemporary art fair on 28-30 September 2012 with a private view taking place on Thursday 27 September 2012.

For the fourth year, a carefully selected range of UK and international galleries will come together to display the work of some exciting emerging contemporary artists.

Combined with the art, which is all available for sale, will be a full programme of events including artist talks and guided tours of the stands.

Opening Times

Friday 28 September 2012	11am - 7pm
Saturday 29 September 2012	11am - 6pm
Sunday 30 September 2012	11am - 5pm

My dad is bigger than your dad

Happy Father's day to Ukraine (last week) and Luxembourg (next week).

7 Stanes

Ae: The Talking Head Stane

Really like the sculptures by Gordon Young. They were a made for the 7stanes which are seven mountain biking centres developed by the Forestry Commission spanning the south of Scotland, from the Scottish Borders to Dumfries and Galloway.  At each centre a stone sculpture was installed which made reference to a local story.

This is similar to a project I completed as part of my Architecture PostGrad Thesis, entitled "The Art of the Storyteller" where I travelled Scotland gathering stories from the people I met. I then designed 10 folly buildings/ installation that told some of those stories through their forms. Its something I've been thinking of returning to one day, as I gathered way more tales than I was able to use.

 Mabie: The Ghost Stane

Kirroughtree: The Gem Stane

Hippy Bathday

One of many new cards just uploaded to my Etsy and Folksy shops.

Little Campfire

Spotted via sharesomecandy.com

Really like this little camp-fire lamp by 5.5 designers, seems in keeping with my Lucky Pine Sawmill series. Would be great in a Lumberjack themed restaurant on the tables.