Retro Future is Past

Last night was the National Museum's Retro Future event and I was there. Drawing. In front of people. And some of those people had cameras. And some of those people and their cameras were there on behalf of the BBC. Although I wasn't interviewed, if you tune into Museums At Night on BBC 2 at 7pm tonight (or catch it on iplayer) you might see me looking flustered in the background. So, my clambering over another hurdle on the track towards becoming a confident self assured professional type person involved drawing on blackboards as revellers sent tweets of objects for me to draw. 

I was up against fellow illustrator Rosie Cunningham as she drew on an iPad. She is very talented and very lovely and rather than the advertised 'illustration battle' it was more a case of us helping each other through it. My brother, sister and best pal Jen were also there making me smile. Yes, I am not ashamed to admit I need a team of supporters to get me through most things. They're used to it, it's okay.

It is all thanks to The Red Door Gallery who stock my work and asked me to take part in the event. Thanks guys! I'm off to prepare for my next step - I'm off to Newcastle to see my lovely friend and amazing illustrator Holly Sterling and impose myself at her place of work Paper Dove for a couple of days to learn all about the world of illustrating for greeting cards. Bring it on!

Museum musings

You know when I said May was going to be busy? Well it just got busier. It's okay, I asked for it and deserve no sympathy. The project most rapidly speeding into view is this months' Late Night at the Museum, and I have pens at the ready and am genuinely excited by the project. I just happen to be totally terrified at the same time. That's possible, right? Meeting the lovely Rosemary Cunningham this week has helped to calm my nerves, so fingers crossed for a successful event. I'm not even going to be unsettled by the fact there will be cameras there. From the BBC. Nope. See how calm I am? I'm relaxing myself drawing shapes. Helpfully these shapes are based on the objects I will be drawing on Friday.

Shapes. And the pens I made the shapes with.

In other news I have a new stockist. The lovely Archerfield Walled Garden shop near North Berwick will have a selection of my prints on sale this week. The North Berwick and Edinburgh prints will soon be kept company by a series of St Andrews and Glasgow illustrations - having lived in both places it is nice to be revisiting my old homes in the name of research. 

And finally: the ECA Degree Show is about to commence! The very talented illustration students this year set up this week and have worked so hard and produced incredible work. I hope they are all very relaxed/drunk/asleep right now. The opening is 24th May and the show runs until 1st June so swing by if you can.