Gone to get water

The girl at Borough Market

A lonely looking women eating her lunch at Borough Market got me wondering why she was wearing such a big slouchy hat, what was she hiding?

So I figuered she was possibly hiding a
whole head of feathers underneath there,
If she was some kind of bird woman though
I thought maybe she would be a bit sad
being cooped up in the city.

I thought she probably lived in the highest place she could afford so that she was as close to the sky as possible, a bit like a reverse Repunzal trapped in her own tower.

Nanny Pam

 Nanny Pam is a 93 year old saucy granny who lives by herself in a terrace house with her cat Ted.

Her tiny eyes are unknown as they are hidden behind her teeny tiny spectacles.

She has wild hair which seems to house an endless amount of things she keeps around her house including her cat!

She is a mini build but is surprisingly speedy on her diddy high heels.

She shuffles along making noises and often humming to herself.

She is a mostly happy person but she also has a hot little temper.

She entertrains the neighbours by pegging out her huge granny pants and by her nosy nature.

Nanny Pam model

The Dark Side

I have a special place in my heart for punk rock and heavy metal and I go every year to festivals and as much as I can to gigs and its a real inspiration for my work when I want to make something thats a little bit more twisted.

Playing card designs.



                                                                                                                                                                       

Fanzine-A tribute to Nanny down the hill

This Fanzine was based on my Nan, Mrs Brenda Rosina Edith Hexter.

(Incase your worried my nan was not a Pirate's baby but apprently they couldn't afford a sun hat)

Fanzine rules-

-No use of computers (only photocopier)

-Spend as little money as possible-beg,borrow and steal to get your materials (well maybe not stealing just aggressive borrowing)

-Everything should be made by hand.

My Final Fanzine!

My Fanzine is like a little treasure trove with hidden bits inside, my nan is a real hoarder and she mainly thinks everyone is trying to "diddle" her so she constantly tells me to hide my precious things in my knicker draw.

The Pin cushion with Camillas face on it is because my Nan is totally Team Princess Di and so hating Camilla Parker Bowles goes with the territory.

As a member of Team Princess Di you must de-face every photo of Camilla and various other unliked royals.

This is why if Camilla has bizzarely lost her front teeth or appears to now be sporting fat black geek glasses then the likelyhood is that my nan is not far behind.

When asked what my Nan would like to say to the Queen did she get the chance this was the answer......

Inside the envlope inside the Fanzine is a mini book of photos and images which I sealed with wax because my nan has made me paranoid, who knows where Camilla might be lurking waiting to find out your most guarded secrets?

 

If you do not drink tea then as far as my nan is concerned you might as well shut the door on you way out.
As a result our family consumes a huge amount of it and I can only assume is what has given me a more than slightly obessive tea drinking addiction, nothing cannot be solved by a brew and so I felt it only natural to add an emergancy packet to my Nan's Fanzine.

Introducing Gin mouse

She can clean, she can cook and she's pretty handy with a sewing needle, the perfect little house-mouse you could say?

     You'd be wrong!

    

She drinks like a trooper, smokes like a chimney and swears like your drunk uncle at Christmas, throw in the fact she's a little raver and thinks the cat is her pet and you have the one and only Gin mouse.

Things I see that I like

Saw a sequal of Frances Hodgson Burnett's "The Secret Garden" where Mistlethorpe Manor has now become an evacuee house in WW2.

Then when I get on the train I see a girl wearing an oversized grey coat, black wooly tights and clutching a box bag on a chain- to my delight she looks like an evacuee!

 I love her so much I sketch her, bit sad when she gets off before me, I would have liked to known where she was being evacuated.

At Discover dogs at Earls Court I see possibly the happiest little dog in the world, I'm not entirely sure he was actually able to stop wagging his tail, I show the picture to my fiancee and he smiles but doesn't take the hint.

The quest to coax him into buying me a puppy continues.

Childrens Illustration

As someone who worked with children and loved books I was always number one volunteer for story time and I noticed how much children respond to books as a way to talk about subjects that they might find hard to understand or that other adults were unwilling to talk about, these are some of the pieces of work I produced in response to some more serious ideas.

                                                                                                                                                               

This project was based on a short story written by Janni Howker called "Badger on the Barge" which looks at how a family copes after loosing a child and the affect it has the sibling left behind.

(Text credited to Janni Howker)

"Living with Dyspraxia"

 The finished pieces of these are too big to scan and don't photograph well so I am working on it!

These are a few parts from them to get an idea of what they look like.

Just incase you were wondering......

Dyspraxia is thought to affect up to ten per cent of the population and up to two per cent severely. Males are four times more likely to be affected than females. Dyspraxia sometimes runs in families. There may be an overlap with related conditions.

If you'd like to know more about Dyspraxia visit http://www.dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/



Unrequited love

A very long journey stuck in the snow with two friends discussing their love dilemas got me to thinking about unlikely partners.

Could a tree love a bird?

        

   The tree might do everything she could for her bird, she could  keep him up high so he's safe from animals, and she might shelter him when he's cold under her leaves and she'd let him come and go as he pleases.....

                                                                                                                                                                                      I suppose he'd get bored in the end of the same old tree and go off to find his worms somewhere else same as all birds.

                         I think my friends might have it easy.

Dream shoes

 

I had a dream that I possessed hundreds of pairs of shoes that where taking over my tiny house! I made some sketches that day of two of the pairs I remember the most and these are the result.