Q+A

Thought I do something special and do a Q&A session with the help of my twitter followers. Only snag that I had to split the video into two because my camcorder died.

 

Yonko’s Messenger

Hi I was planning on doing a blog post about Yonko’s Messenger but totally forgot I made a video blog about it some time ago, so here you go.

Since I done the video blog I have produced this cute owl print in
Black http://etsy.me/1mWkBjf
and Turquoise http://etsy.me/1k0wByT

Enjoy 🙂

Salute the private!

Hello in this post I am going to talk about a print I designed over a year ago which I brought back in Turquoise, I am talking about my handcrafted print, Private Ace.

Like most of my soldier prints they are based on the soldiers in the book pictured above me 

Private Ace is based on a private from the Leicestershire Regiment (1937) pictured above. His uniform & hat really caught my attention, I really loved the design.

So I started to draw my design down making sure to I made the hat & uniform looked good. While I was designing Private Ace I was debating if I was going to do a black print with a white background or do the opposite.

In the end I decided to do the opposite to see how it goes

It turned out great, it really stood out in any room I put it in which I wanted the print to do.

Here is Private Ace (Black) framed + hanging in my bedroom. I do still have the print but I have them all mounted for fairs, I thought I bring it back in Turquoise (first picture in this post) but might still print some more again in Black most likely next week when I am planning to do a lot of printing.

Private Ace (Turquoise) is £19 (+P&P) available to order here: http://etsy.me/121Bi6A 

How I produce a custom lino print

Hello sorry for the lack of posts recently I’ve been really busy with work & various print projects

One of the things I have been busy with recently has been custom prints so in this blog post I want to go through the process of how I produce a custom lino print for the example I am going to talk about my most recent custom print that I, my client (the most important person) and friends/family love.

My client wanted a print of a lime green vintage typewriter, as I don’t own one ( I wish they did, they look really nice) I looked through online and came across this it’s style really caught my attention that I just had to use it.

So I traced the outline of the typewriter to make it the right shape + size to fit on a A4 size paper then I drew the rest in giving the typewriter my take on it (like the letters scribbled out on the paper coming out of the typewriter) and making it easier to carve when I get the idea onto the lino.

 

The next step was to go over the idea in black with a artist sketching pen making sure I get the idea onto lino I wouldn’t miss anything out.

While I was carving the idea onto the lino I got asked by the customer if she could have the typewriter black & background green which I was ok with doing.

 

 

So after I carved the typewriter into the lino I then cut around the lino with a craft knife so I could print the typewriter in black first then use the left over lino to print a green background.

 

 

Since I produced this print a lot of people have been loving the typewriter. After I printed this I did alter the the typewriter lino a tiny bit (I removed the 2nd piece of paper sticking out of the typewriter) so when I get around to printing of this again it will be different to the original that my customer who requested this has got.

How to lino print

This is a video blog I done a few months ago on how I lino print 🙂

Salute

Hello in this blog I am going to go into the story behind one of my recent linocut prints, The Revolutionary Soldier.

If you know me pretty well I am a huge fan of the anime/manga series One Piece and it’s creator  Eiichiro Oda. As a fan I wanted to do a print inspired by his work so I looked through the manga I read and the figures I got and came across my Nami figure (pictured), as I’ve done a few soldier inspired prints before this figure caught my attention.

 

So I draw a few ideas in my notebook (pictured) there was something about the helmet I loved that I had to draw it in. I am a bit picky when I come to faces and ideas as there is many ways of drawing a face so i went with something simple like so. The hair got inspired by the hair the figure had.

Next came the body, when it come to armour I got inspired by a small terracotta warrior statue that I have at my desk, the pattern really caught my attention and how I can do the same on lino.

As you can see in the picture I originally thought of calling this Yonko’s Messenger but in the end decided to call it The Revolutionary Soldier. The name like the idea behind this print was inspired by One Piece 🙂

 

Finally came the background, I didnt want a plain background so thought I be different with this lino &  thought of a zig-zag pattern which helps the soldier stands out.

 

Come fly with..

In this blog post I will be talking about my steam punk inspired linocut print, The Aviator. Sometime during last year I got an idea from a friend to do a steam punk inspired project which I didn’t really know of at the time (all what I knew about steam punk at the time was the Panic! At The Disco music video ‘The Ballad of Mona Lisa’………) so for a few days I done my research on the interweb and got a few books about world war looking through many images of various things, mostly world war 2 aviators caught my attention for this print.

 

In the end I found a great image of a male world war 2 pilot (at the time I’m writing this post I can’t seem to find the image I used anywhere)  I got the idea for the headwear & scarf sorted it was the face which was the problem for me.

So I went through various ideas like this one (who really looks like Charles Ashford from Resident Evil: Apocalypse dont you think?) with or without the mustaches & glasses to see what works.

I then came across this idea, can’t remember where the idea for the eyes came from (I think it was some manga I was reading) and they really caught my attention. In doing so I made the face gender neutral I personally thought it was man still but a few people said it reminded them of Amelia Earhart which was a good compliment.

 

Available to order at my shop in Black, Purple + Blue

Black http://etsy.me/121AluO

Purple  http://etsy.me/1oOpKLh

Blue http://etsy.me/1g0bRpD

Smile for the camera

Hello in this blog post I am going to be talking about one of my favourite and original prints “Camera No.2”.

You must be wondering what happened to Camera No.1? Camera No.1 was one of my original lino prints I made in april last year which was based on a Sony digital camera which I fell out of love with after awhile, it was a good idea but didn’t get peoples attention that Camera No.2 has done now.

Anyway, back to Camera No.2 around 2 years ago I used to volunteer at my local charity shop for a bit to get some job experience to get a job one day I saw this camera while looking through a box of film cameras that we were going to put out so took a picture of it to add to my photography blog on tumblr that i was obsessed with at the time. So when it came around to the ideas stage of making my prints last year I came across this picture & decided to use it. There are so many Polaroid camera prints out there that I really wanted to do something different & didnt seen anyone do this brand of camera.

 

So the next stage was carving Camera No.2 onto lino, during the carving stage I was debating with myself to dig out all the lino around the camera so it has a white background or keep it as it is, as you can see in the end I decided otherwise and I am thankful I did.

Camera No.2 (Black) is my favourite out of the all colours I’ve used for this vibrant and is one of my best selling prints.

Black is available here at my shop: http://etsy.me/11I7Qzi

Red: http://etsy.me/10K6bXT

Blue: http://etsy.me/11I8nl5

Purple: http://etsy.me/1oOplZi

My First Fair

On Bank Holiday Monday (5th May) I had my first fair at the Edgar Centre at Upton in Northampton, before I go into the fair I will tell you the story behind it first.

Bonfirecherry has been around over a year now, I have mainly been focusing on sales through my online Etsy shop which most of my sales have came from, I have tried hosting my prints at art cafes & vintages shops but didnt seem to work out. It was only a few months ago my friend @bloominfab (whose work is amazing btw) suggested doing a fair which I never thought about doing til she suggested it, I thought about it for awhile then suggested to bite the bullet & book a stall.

I booked the stall but I had a question for myself if I was going to go be at the May Day Fete as BonfireCherry or me. Because Bonfirecherry is a creation I made up in college four years ago, a online shop & not a official business I was suggested by a family friend to go as myself as I dont own the name yet, even though it hasn’t been used by anyone else which I confessed hit me a bit because I worked so hard under the name Bonfirecherry that it be weird to go as something else but this person was right.

So in the end I decided to go as myself, a blessing in disguise is when I designed the BonfireCherry logo 4 years ago at college I also designed my own personal logo which you can see all over the table on the top picture.

Anyway back to the fair, to prepare for it I first went through all the prints I made so far to decide what I was going to take & how many but as this was my first I just went with around 30 in the end. The next stage was mounting and for this because I needed a lot, I ordered them in bulk to save money & hassle off the internet which gave me time to get my hands on some card to help mount all the prints.

 

 

 

It took me a few days to do all my mounting which was pretty fun doing after finding the right glue to put them all together. The last thing I needed for the prints was bags so looked around online like ebay etc looking for the right bags I had in my mind but couldn’t seem to find them which annoyed me. Just as I was about to give up, my nan had some bags that she often uses to sell jewellery (i love my grandparents) which she suggested I should try out, they were A3 size bags but I just had to cut them down, tape at the back and they were perfect 🙂

The fair went great I had a fun day in fact, after weeks of blood, sweat & printing ink I believe the day worked out for me. I had one sale during the day a few people took some of my business cards then another sale online, Something else I gained on that day was making new friends who are just as creative as me who understand my language unlike other people who think I’m crazy lol 🙂