Darkroom adventures

Over the Easter weekend Dad and I developed the first film in his brand new darkroom!

It was a 120mm film that I had put through my lovely DianaF on a beautiful sunny day walking day the Pheonix Trail in Thame. I hadn't used a film camera in about 10 years so it took a bit of getting used to but that was really only the beginning of this darkroom adventure.

After getting the film out of the camera, the first job was to get it onto the spiral which needs to be done in the pitch black. We had a changing bag to do this in rather than turning off the lights. Not sure if this make it easier or not!


Film all inside the spiral nice and safe - I'll gloss over what a faff getting it in there is!


We went for nice and contrasty!


This is the developer. Some precise measuring is required, but I did it so it was there or there abouts!
It was mixed with a very specific amount of water, but I did it so....well you can guess.
While we waited for this to do it's magic on the film in the spiral we sorted out the next step...

Which is the stop bath. This is mixed up with water and once the developer had it's required time this got chucked into the spiral, shaken about and rinsed out.


This would be the time to add your fixer, but in our excitement we forgot so plunged straight into cleaning the spiral tank out with water and making sure all the chemical goop was off the film


And there they are. Only little tiny negative images, but one of the most magical things!

Unraveling the film to reveal all the images is amazing, there is a little bit of light leakage here, either from the camera or the spiral tank, but that what makes this interesting!

So we ended up with a contact sheet, it's got a few holes where I'd not really got to grips with the camera but the images themselves are lovely, full of analogue crackle and texture. Only small stumbling block is that the enlarger will only do 35mm film. Anyone know someone who can print these for me?! Here are some scans of the individuals pictures from the contact sheet.

Neat piece of paper engineering

A few days ago this little package arrived in the post. Inside was a pay-as-you-go sim card, but it was the packaging that caught my eye. The sim was wrapped in a letter that doubles as the envelope through a series of clever folds that are secured by a sticker. A simple idea, but this was well executed and intricate enough to be interesting without feeling over-complicated or over-engineered.

GiffGaff, who sent it to me, write about how they have done it to avoid wastage, in terms of both materials and money. But does it? Well it saves on paper as you don't need a envelope as well but whether it's works out as being cheaper is debatable. There are folds over folds here that would make any printer take a deep breath and they still had to stuff the sim inside so there's very little saving there either. But none of that is really the point. It may not be saving money or saving the planet but it sure looks fun and I have had it sat on my kitchen side for the best part of a week now and I'm willing to bet that had been in a normal envelope I would have thrown it away without a second look. Of course I'm programmed to look out for things like this so I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

Little Red Riding Hood needs your votes

I've submitted my first design to the world of threadless for it to be voted on and open to public criticism. Scary stuff. If you have two seconds please click the links below and vote for me - high scores welcome :)


Score this design: "Litte Red Riding Hood and More," to help it get printed on Threadless!

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What's next? You decide.

With Rumplestiltskin hot off the press and about to go online I'm looking for my next fairy tale to illustrate. I've been doing a some preparatory drawings for a few of my favourites but I just can't pick which one to work up first. Can you help? Simply click through to my blogger page (unless you are here already) and then leave a comment, tweet me or if we are friends on facebook you can also fill in the questionnaire there.


1 Three Little Pigs
I've been struggling with how to show the progression of the story in one image but think I've cracked it now with this little group of waistcoated pigs, each featuring patterns based on his preferred building material.



2 Dick Wittington
This is another story that I thought I knew until I looked it up and realised I'd forgotten nearly all of it. Obviously I couldn't draw it without showing the man himself and his red white hankie and the bells that foretold his future.



3 The Princess and the Pea
Possibly one of the strangest fairy tales and for that I love it - why hide a pea? Why are only princesses able to feel it? Who has this much bedding to spare? A huge, wonky tower of matresses tells the story in this one with the creepy castle and stormy night providing the pattern



4 Puss in Boots
I love this dandy little chap, he is like a cat version of Russel Brand. Wikipedia tells us the morals of the story are "importance of possessing industrie and savoir faire and the virtues of dress, countenance, and youth to win the heart of a princess." How can you not like that!

Look forward to finding out which is your favourite!

A world of Craft Fairs

Kim and I have been busy during the last few weeks. Our Thame craft fair went brilliantly and with loads of local support we sold a record number of prints and cards. We are now in full swing preparing for our next shows in May. Full details and dates to come, watch this space!

Craft Fair

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Last weekend Kim and I did our first craft fair. Here are some pictures!

A week of firsts

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After getting my feet when we got back from New Zealand things really started
to kick off this week and I've been notching up the firsts!

First freelancing contract.
For a small agency just down the road from me who do some great work and I've been having a ball there working on some big names and meeting fantastic people. Obviously being a freelancer is different to be a full-time permanent designer for an agency and I haven't been doing it long enough to have really experienced the upsides and the downsides. So far I am enjoying the purity of simply concentrating on what's in front of you and solving that problem without the pressure of 1000 other projects that need doing or 1000 emails that need answering. I'm sure at some point I'll want a bit more but I'm hoping I can balance that with the stuff I'm doing for myself and work it all out that way. I'll keep you posted.


First quote & invoice
This might not sound like a huge thing but I was asked to quote on a little design job for a friend and figured that it was a good chance to get all my systems in order. I've had very little to do with this side of business so it's a bit of a steep learning curve and every step seemed to come with a whole host of questions. Can I use the same number for job, quote and invoice? How much information do I need to include on my quote? Can I just use a spreadsheet or do I need something more? In the end I've gone with as simple a system as possible and am giving Solo a whirl to help me get things in order. Being a designer I'm not happy with automatically generated quote and invoice templates so I've designed those as well. I've probably missed something crucial out of this system but I guess it's just a case of using it and seeing how it goes.


First trilogy of illustrations
After the success of Little Red Riding Hood I've added Hansel and Gretel and The Billy Goats Gruff to make a perfect set of three. I'm dead pleased with them and I've had some fantastic feedback. My plans for these are to get them online and sell them, so I'm working out my pricing for them at the moment (another first) I'm also doing a craft fair in a few weeks and will be taking these along, but the possibilities are endless really maybe they could be a book or a giant poster or greetings cards or postcards, the list


In other news
These might not strictly be firsts but they are fun things that I've been up to. The map above is from some wedding stationery that I am doing for a friend of mine who is getting married in July. There is a huge vintage element to the day and it's been so much fun to reflect that in the designs, I especially enjoyed creating the hand drawn map.
I'm currently planning my next few illustrations, Three Little Pigs is the next fairy tale and I'm considering something based around my home town of Thame - it has such beautiful old buildings and I think illustrating that in a modern style could make something quite interesting. Watch this space!

Can't wait for next week to see what fun stuff happens then. On the cards so far are some more freelancing, possible book illustrations and a tax workshop. Phew!

I'm going to use this blog as a way of keeping track of what I'm up to and how it all goes and to have something to hold myself accountable to. If you are interested in seeing how my journey goes then please click the title of the post above and fire up the RSS feed and feel free to add to the comments. Be great to hear other people's opinions and experiences.