Frances' Blog

Merry Christmas

2011-12-21T12:58:00.002Z

Merry Christmas ! I promise to post more updates next year - its been a busy year for me and my blog has suffered.

Multiplied at Christies

2011-10-14T10:06:00.006+01:00

I have some of my Gocco prints and Clay Pipe CDs on display at Multiplied at Christies, over this weekend. My friend Christina Lamb of Printed Wonders has brought together four artists who use Print Gocco , also included in the show are Karoline Rerrie and John Dilnot.

Images 35

2011-09-13T09:42:00.004+01:00

A couple of weeks ago I picked up a bronze award for my Bear Hug image at the AOI's Images 35 exhibition. This is the second year in a row I've won an award for my work in Images.

Thalassing

2011-07-28T15:28:00.004+01:00

Thalassing is the second release on my little CD label 'Clay Pipe Music'. I designed, illustrated and Gocco printed the cover.

Thalassing' is a self titled CD by duo Michael Tanner and Kerrie Robinson.
Michael has made music under many guises Plinth, Cloisters and The A.Lords to name but a few as well as recording and playing live with Mark Fry and Sharron Kraus. Last year he released the brilliant 'Music for Smalls Lighthouse' on Second Language. Kerrie plays in Betika.

I made 100 copies of the CD and now have about 5 left. If you want one of the last copies you can buy it from the Clay Pipe Music website.

Cards for Roger La Borde

2011-07-07T15:09:00.009+01:00

Here is something I should have blogged about way back in Febuary when these cards first came out. They were for Roger La Borde who initially saw the bear (which was originally a web ad for my agents Arena) and then commissioned me to do three more 'mother and baby' images to make a set.

The Outsider

2011-04-19T09:31:00.005+01:00

Its been a long time since I posted here - I have no excuses except for being really busy on various illustration projects. Keep your eyes peeled though as I have a couple of updates planned, the first of which is to post my entry for The Folio Society's illustration competition. The brief was to illustrate three pages, and design the cover for Albert Camus' 'The Outsider'.

3x3

2011-01-20T12:22:00.003Z

I was lucky enough to have my story 'Sherwin's Cottage' accepted into the 3x3 Illustration Annual No7, and I just got my hands on a copy. You than read the rest of the story here and buy 3x3 here.

Happy Christmas

2010-12-21T14:08:00.001Z

Happy Christmas everyone! Have a good one.

The Hardy Tree

2010-12-07T10:13:00.006Z

This year after a long break I started making music again - though I'm not a musician by any stretch of the imagination. Sounds are gathered from various places, chopped up looped and rearranged on my computer, tunes picked out with one figure on a tiny keyboard.

I've started a little CD label called Clay Pipe Music, firstly to put out my CD and next year to put out music by other people. I see it being somewhere between a record label and an artist book publisher - everything hand made/printed and designed by me as best I can.

The CD is called The Fields Lie Sleeping Underneath by The Hardy Tree.

You can buy it here: www.claypipemusic.co.uk

Pop Ups

2010-10-12T12:42:00.005+01:00

Just recently published by Walker in the UK, and Candlewick in the USA is 'Pop-Up -Everything you Need to Create Your Own Pop-Up Book', that I illustrated. It basically gives you all you need to make four pop-ups and learn the art of paper engineering as you do it. The book is large with lots of fold outs, so it was difficult to photograph. You can buy both the US and UK versions on Amazon

The Association of Illustrators awards 2010

2010-09-08T14:49:00.006+01:00

Picking up my bronze award in the New Media catagory for the work I did on the BBC Primary History wesbite.

With Steve May another Arena artist who won the Gold.

My page in the Images 34 book.
Many thanks to Caroline at Arena for taking these pictures!

HMS Belfast

2010-07-21T20:16:00.006+01:00

A poster I recently completed for HMS Belfast, have a look at Arena's Blog for a break down on the commissioning process including sketches and examples of work in progress. If anyone spots this on The Tube over the summer can you let me know!

Cycling in London Competition

2010-07-15T09:51:00.003+01:00

This was my entry into 'The Cycling in London Competition' run by Transport for London and The Association of Illustrations, mine was one of the 50 chosen from over 1000 entries to be displayed at the London Transport Museum, pictures from the opening night are over at my agents Arenas blog.

More Monotone

2010-06-02T13:56:00.008+01:00

Below are some more experiments with limited colour ways and type.

Finley

2010-04-27T09:29:00.006+01:00

Images from an idea for a children's picture book that I will probably take in a different direction now, but I thought it would be worth posting them here.

Gobal Contexts

2010-02-08T09:28:00.006Z

Sorry about the poor scans, my work has recently been featured in book called 'Global Contexts' by Mark Wigan, I've been following Marks work since the 80s when I remember his paintings on the walls of Kensington Market, and the Scala Cinema, so I was really happy to have my work in this book along with some other really great illustrators. It is published by AVA and should be in book shops now.

2009-12-22T12:50:00.002Z

Happy Christmas! This is my Gocco hand printed Christmas card.

Observer Graphic Short Story Prize 2009

2009-10-29T13:32:00.007Z

My entry to the Observer/Cape Graphic Short Story Prize 2009.

Barnsdale Gardens Children's Poster

2009-09-30T09:10:00.003+01:00

This is a kids poster I illustrated earlier in the summer for Barnsdale Gardens.

BBC Primary History Website.

2009-07-14T09:09:00.004+01:00

Last year I helped in the redesigned of the BBC Primary History website, yesterday after a long wait the website went live. Above are just a few of my illustrations that are used on the site.

You can see the website here: www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory

Also if you look at the time line here you can see my illustrations in beautiful 3d effect, programed by Wolf at Luecker Interactive.

Blue Hare

2009-06-10T21:41:00.003+01:00

Another experiment with a more limited pallet, this time yellow and blue. The green is where the two colours overlap. I think is some ways for this to really work the image needs to be simpler, perhaps this is what I will try next.

one colour experiment

2009-06-08T16:53:00.004+01:00

This is an experiment in a restricted colour pallet, and Victorian typography. I've been looking at a lot of old music sheet covers on line and this was inspired by them. I'm hoping to find the time to do a few more pieces in a similar vein.

Health Service Journal

2009-05-28T20:00:00.003+01:00

Recent editorial job for Health Service Journal.

Brand New Website Site

2009-05-05T11:20:00.005+01:00

I've redesigned my portfollio website at www.smallmoonvalley.com I've added new work, and a nice new title page. Hopefully everything should display at a larger size now, as I think the images on the older site were a little small.

Ship In A Box

2009-03-09T09:20:00.004Z

This was an idea I'd had for a while, I just needed an excuse to do it. (My mothers birthday present). I'd like to go on and make some more now, the most difficult part was cutting out the shapes which are printouts, glued on to mounting board, and then mat varnished. The mounting board is incredibly difficult to cut round even with a very sharp scalpel blade. I'm thinking I could use some sort of foam based product, that would be easier under the knife. Any suggestions greatly received.
The image was inspired by the folk song The Greenland Whale Fishery.

2009-01-27T12:14:00.002Z

This is a self initiated piece, you probably need to click on it to view it larger as it doesn't really work too well scaled down.

Mackworth

2009-01-06T16:28:00.002Z

Another snippet from my on going comic project, I was lucky enough to have some time before Christmas to work on it. This section is about my ancestors who lived in Mackworth a small village just outside Derby.

Gocco Christmas Card

2008-12-09T19:29:00.003Z

This was my second attempt with my Gocco printer, and I found it much more problematic than my first try. I had trouble with one of the bulb's not going off and only half the screen exposing, then the battery's ran out, then my initial design was a little large which meant that the left hand side of the card didn't print very well. So I took a deep breath, tweaked the design and started again. I also discovered that the Gocco doesn't really like large areas of flat colour, especially when mixed with area's of small detail. I guess all these idiosyncrasies, and the restrictions they place on your design should add to the charm of the finished image? I was very tempted though just to turn on my computer and print it out from Photoshop, but I persevered!

Bakewell

2008-09-17T14:54:00.001+01:00

I believe I posted the top half of this image way back when I started this blog. I have been so busy with commissions over the last year that haven't done much more to this project, but this last week I went back and looked at it. I had doubts about how I could make it interesting, it always felt a little self indulgent. I enjoyed imagining the faces and clothes of my ancestors, I had dates of birth, marriages, deaths and the occasional will, so drawing them was a way to make them more real to me - I just wasn't sure if any of this would be interesting to any one else. I think these uncertainty's took the wind of out my sails. I'd like to go back to it, but I think in order to have the confidence to take it forward it needs a completely new approach.

Times Educational Supplement.

2008-08-29T08:50:00.002+01:00

Three images for the Times Educational Supplement. The illustrations were for a winning short story, about a young autistic boy who gets his own back on some school bullies.

Bare Bums

2008-07-14T20:28:00.001+01:00

I've been working on some kids projects most of which are still to see the light of day, hence the reason why its all been very quiet both on here and my website. Above are two books for Random House, I did both the covers and inside black and white illustrations for these, there are two more in the series still to come. I've also been working on a big web project for the BBC which I believe doesnt go 'live' until October. I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to do any print making, so I have no new prints to show unfortuately.

Viking Linocut

2008-04-20T20:51:00.000+01:00

The quality isn't great as it was too big to fit under my scanner, so I took a photo of it. This lino cut was inspired by the beautiful music of Nils Okland who plays an instrument called a hardanger fiddle.

How To Draw A Dinosaur

2008-02-17T11:49:00.001Z

From the comic section of last Fridays Guardian.

Print Gocco

2008-02-12T13:13:00.000Z

This is my first proper attempt at using the Gocco printer I bought last year. I had to use three different screens to get the colour separations I required. As I bought the cheaper PG5 machine I struggled a little with registration, as it doesn't have a proper system to line up the paper like the more expensive PG11. However I found this didn't bother me, and like the fact that the prints aren't perfect (the one above probably lined up the best out of all of them). I want to do a series of prints - most likely in hand made book form - inspired by old photos found in charity shops and flee markets - anonymous people. The first one I have done though is from an old Daugerotype that belongs to my Aunt, we can't be sure exactly who she is, most likely Sarah Collumbell my great great great Grandmother. The first Daugerotype studio opened in Derby in July 1843.

Boats

2008-01-17T15:29:00.000Z

Happy New year! An update at last. I've been working on some kids books and therefore haven't had a lot I could post recently. I thought I'd group these three images together as they are all based around the same boat shape. The first one was an editorial job for Credit Magazine and the other two are lino cuts from an Owl and Pussy Cat illustration I did a couple of years ago. I'm going to be doing some more print making this year, and I've had time over Christmas to work on a new image which I hope to print in at least four colours.

The Guardian

2007-11-15T19:49:00.000Z

A rather poor scan of an illustration I did for The Guardian a couple of weeks back.

Printing

2007-11-15T19:28:00.000Z

I started a printing evening course with aim of getting to grips with screen printing. However when I started the course I found they only had a very basic set up, and the printing available would be more along the lines of lino, wood cut, dry point etc. I've really enjoyed getting back to basics, feeling that I can just experiment and not worry about the out come. The print above was done with different coloured blocks of lino. I've also bought myself a Gocco
printer but haven't had a chance to try it out yet.

Accidental Heroes

2007-09-08T12:58:00.000+01:00

An illustration for Credit magazine. It had to be done super quick and they wanted a crowd scene.. so I tried to capture the atmosphere of a crowd rather than draw one.

Picture Book Idea

2007-08-28T10:37:00.000+01:00

This is for a picture book idea I am working on, I won't say too much because I'm still trying to straighten it all out in my head and get it down on paper. It is do with the past being ever- present, but seen through the eyes of a young boy. Imagining the day to day things that have happened in the familiar places he inhabits.

The Guardian

2007-07-04T13:14:00.000+01:00

From last Saturdays Guardian

Morris

2007-05-22T19:50:00.000+01:00

Above is the latest cover for my mailout book, I try and do a different cover for each batch I send out. (So art directors can collect them all! ) This was inspired by Morris Dancing often the subject of much ridicule, but I think in the right context there is a strange other worldliness to the ancient dances and costumes. I wanted to try and get that feeling across in this illustration. The hobbie horse/unicorn in the picture was inspired by Westminster Morris' dancer. The picture below was taken of him the weekend before last at the Day Of Dance in Trafalgar Square. CLICK HERE to see the horse on some film I took of morris men at the same event this year and in 2005.

Frankenstein for The Independent

2007-05-15T11:21:00.000+01:00

After a few months of being very busy things have got a little quieter, so I have some time to do things like update my blog. The above image is one I did for Susie Feay's column in The Independent a couple of weeks ago, it was printed in black and white so I thought I'd post it in colour here. I've been doing a lot of kids work and I'm hoping I'll have some time to do some personal stuff now, experiment a bit.

Childrens Graves

2007-03-13T18:22:00.000Z

A small panel from an on going personal project/comic about the search for my roots. Caroline Sherwin was my Grandfathers cousin. On news year eve 1929 she wrote down the family history on one sheet of paper, this was my starting point, so she crops up a lot (or will). Some of what she wrote down was correct and some of it wasn't. This particular bit is about the grave of the little children, which I found at Christmas when visiting my boyfriends sister in Derby. I want it to be as much about the present as the past. It is taking a long time to do, I think I need to be a little bit less precious about every image and concentrate more on the story as a whole.

A Space To Talk

2007-02-26T11:09:00.000Z

This was for an article in Computer Active magazine about keeping children and teenagers safe on social networking sites like Myspace.

The Wurstminster Dog Show

2007-02-07T11:11:00.000Z

This was my entry to the Wurstminster Dog Show run by the Wurst Gallery in Portland, Oregon. Artists were invited to reserve a dog breed on a first come, first served basis. I was a bit slow on the uptake and ended up with the Welsh Terrier. I don't know a lot about dogs, and even less about the Welsh Terrier, so I had to do a bit of research to find out about his characteristics.

Reinventing The Wheel

2007-01-31T21:09:00.000Z

I haven't posted on here for ages mainly because I don't have a whole lot to show. I've been working on two large projects, which has meant that most of my days are full and I haven't had much time for personal work, or the type of stuff I like to stick up on here. Above is an editorial job I did recently based around the idea of reinventing the wheel.

The Independent

2006-11-06T16:11:00.000Z

This was for the Jenny Colgan column in last Mondays Independent. The piece was about living in Holland. After if was printed Jenny emailed me and asked to buy a copy of it, which was really nice. I'm busy with two children's projects for Cambridge University Press at the moment, my website is badly in need of an update, but it may be a while before I find time to do it. In the mean time as usual I'll post anything of interest up here.

Boxers

2006-10-14T18:33:00.000+01:00

Some boxers for Cover Magazine, I already have some boxers on my main portfolio site so I thought I'd post these here.

Wicker Man

2006-09-11T18:10:00.000+01:00

I'm a really big fan of both the (original) film and the soundtrack of the Wicker Man, so it was really great when Plan B magazine asked me to do an illustration for them on this subject. The sound track is one of the reasons why I'm so much into old english folk music at the moment.. beautiful, ancient, scary. It was good to draw all the people as well, looking forward to seeing it in print.

Strong Man

2006-08-16T18:31:00.000+01:00

Like most illustrators I send out postcards to prospective clients, but to try stand out in the slush pile I also make up little four page booklets. Every six months or so I change the cover. This is my most recent effort. I decided to go for something simple as previous covers have been quite busy. I've stuck with the green background though, as I recently bought a load of light cyan ink cartridges that this colour just chomps through on the printer.

Fairground

2006-08-14T20:57:00.000+01:00

Every year Carters Steam Fair comes to Clisshold Park, and every year we go and take photo's of the rides, play on the slot machines, and go on the dodgems. I have quite a collection of photos now and wanted to do some images inspired by them. Initially this had a lot of type in it, but after a lot of playing about I settled for a more simple image.

Beer Mats

2006-08-01T17:24:00.000+01:00

Tea and Coffee beer mats for self promotion.

The Rev John Bakewell

2006-06-28T21:39:00.000+01:00

Not a lot to say about this, other than it's another panel from my 'work in progress' comic about my family history.

3D

2006-06-12T22:16:00.000+01:00

The weather has been unbearabley hot, we are on the top floor in an attic flat and the heat just rises. It has been quiet on the work front, and I needed to do something to fight the heat induced apathy that was threatening to set in. I decided to take an illustration I did last week for a postcard mail out into 3ds max. I haven't used the program since I quit the games industry a year and a half ago, I also haven't done a lot of rendering in it (games stuff is all real time) but I think I managed to get the wonky out of focus effect that I was after.

Sherwin Comic

2006-06-06T13:11:00.000+01:00

Some panels from the comic I'm working on. It has been an interesting process for me, I've had to draw a lot quicker than I usually do, and try and not be so precious about every image. It's likely that I will go back and change some of the colours on this though. I've been trying to focus on the story as a whole rather than the details in the pictures. My other concern is holding the readers attention, as my family history may seem fascinating to me, but the average reader isn't going to be nearly so intrigued if they are not related to the people involved. I need to work hard to make it something other than just an illustrated family tree.

I do have some more of this but I'm not quite sure how I want to present it, I'm thinking of giving it its own web page and updating it fortnightly. I'm not working on it chronologically so I'd need to get the beginning done first if I'm going to do this.

More Prince Benji

2006-05-18T09:25:00.000+01:00

The illustration above is a double page spread from the picture book idea I have been working on. Prince Benji a large spoilt Persian cat falls off his balcony in the suburbs, and ends up getting lost in the city. As you can see in this picture he gets caught, and taken to the cat pound. It is a simple story with very little text, I wanted the pictures to tell the story as much as the words. In fact on some pages (the picture above for instance) there are no words, but details and signs/sign posts with in the picture give clues to what is happening.

I've had a rest from the illustration and spent last week in Derbyshire doing family history research. In the local records office I found a will from my earlist known ancestor John Sherwin who died in 1777. Unfortunately his date of birth is not on the parish records so it seems unlikely that I will get much further back than this. I need now to go back and modify much of the comic book I have been working on.

Son Of Rambo

2006-04-19T10:48:00.000+01:00

This is my final illustration for the Son Of Rambo project. For some reason my name isn't up on the title page, but you can see my image if you flick through from the start. I was trying for a more interesting composition with the boy close up and the viewer looking down slightly from above. The film is set in the 1980s and I hope I managed to get the feel across of one of those long hot school holidays - where you stay inside watching TV rather than going out in the sun. I'm old enough not to look back nostalgically on the 1980s really - it was a dreadful time to be honest.

My work is now up on my agents Arena's website here.

Caroline Sherwin

2006-04-10T09:45:00.000+01:00

More personal work for the comic about the search for my family tree. This is my grandfathers aunt, Caroline Sherwin. On the first of January 1928, (in Eastbourne) she wrote down a brief family history -it took up one sheet of paper- and I used it as my starting point. According to Caroline the silver cup on the table was given in exchange for a horse and wagon to my 6th great grand father by The Young Pretenders army (Bonnie Prince Charlie) when they reached Derby in 1745. The army stayed a couple of days in Derby then retreated to Manchester. My relative followed them, and while they were resting in Manchester market place took back his horse and a cart.

All this is written down in quite a lot of detail, and I wonder how she knew it all, for instance the cart he brought back from Manchester belonged to a Mr. Bailey of Breadsall Derbyshire. I have no idea how to prove any of this, though according to the IGI there was a Mr. Bailey in Breadsall at this time.

Not everything she wrote down was correct; she has a couple of fathers and sons mixed up, and a wedding date that is definitely not right.

Caroline Sherwin died way before I was born and there are no photos of her either, so this picture is completely imagined. Caroline and her two sisters never married, and according to my mother lived in Eastbourne becasue they looked after a wealthy American woman.

Benji's House

2006-04-06T21:46:00.000+01:00

This is where Prince Benji lives, a sort of castle-style suburban house over looking the city. You might recognize the hill from the animation on my website. I didn't quite get the city how I wanted it. I was trying to get a sort of water colour shimmer to it. I've been looking at a lot of Peter Firmin's work.

Prince Benji

2006-03-29T21:07:00.000+01:00

This is "Prince Benji". A few weeks ago when I didn't have much work on I started thinking up ideas for a kids book. John and I were walking along the disused railway track that runs between Finsbury Park and Highgate when we saw a 'lost cat' poster. The cat was an inside cat who had fallen off a balcony while his owner was at work. I thought this might be quite a good idea for a story. The poster said that if you found the cat but didn't want to give him back, please only feed him chicken or turkey cat food - definitely no red meat or liver.

We have a very spoilt Persian cat who has never been outside, so the drawing was based a little on her (although the cat in the story is male). The idea is that "Prince Benji" falls off a balcony and then has lots of adventures in the big wide world until he is eventually found by his (little girl) owner. What kind of adventures he has, and how it all fits together, has proved to be quite hard and something I'm still working on.

Football Casual 1985

2006-03-20T20:32:00.000Z

A month or so ago I was contacted by a London film company who are try to get funding for a film they are making. The film is about two boys growing up in the 1980's, who become obsessed with making thier own movies. For a small fee they have asked a selection of illustrators to illustrate along the themes of the film; the 1980s, Rambo, childhood, video games, etc . These illustrations will go up on thier website and help them promote the film.

Things started out on the wrong foot for me as their next email ended up in my spam directory on the BT sever and never got to my inbox. ( I have now switched spam gaurd off) By the time I found it there was one day left until the deadline, and I decided to quickly modify an older illustration to fit the 80s theme.

The film is all about an 80s childhood, but in truth I didn't have an 80s childhood but an 80s adolesence. In my rush I presumed that it was a relatively open brief. So drew the guy above. Anyone who was a teenager around 1985 will remember Casuals; wedge haircuts, Fila tracksuits, Kickers, and jumbo Lois cords. A relatively forgotten British youth cult.

A couple of days later I got an email back from the film guys saying that my illustration didn't fit the brief, and asking me if I'd like to redo it. I'm really hoping that I can find time this week, I've been busy with editorial jobs.

Roughs

2006-03-09T22:28:00.000Z

This morning and yesterday I worked on a couple of roughs for editorial jobs. It is the part of an illustration I like doing the least. I'm not a competent sketcher. I labor over things. When I'm working on personal projects, I just imagine, then draw.... sometimes I do some very rough squiggles on paper but usually I find I can just sketch it all out in my head then start on the finished artwork. Not the way we were taught at college I know.

Family History

2006-03-08T10:19:00.000Z

The images above are the start of a personal project. A comic book about the search for my family history. The row of shops in the first picture are the actual row where my Great Grandfathers chemist shop was. When I went up to Derby I took photos of them as they are now, and then drew this from that. (the chemist shop is now a kebab shop). Its basically an imagined drawing of my Grandfather leaving Derby for London with a portfolio under his arm.