How are you my friends? The sun shines over the past weekend and I don’t want it to stop shining. This week was very eventful, celebrating my birthday on Tuesday 17th. Which included impromptu karaoke party, bowling and seeing “The Book of Mormon” (Which is so funny despite the profanity, but what do you expect from creators of South Park, mmm?) Piece de resistance was my husband who baked my chocolate birthday cake with my favourite Fairy tale and Disney film, “The Little Mermaid” figurines. How cute is that? Enough about my birthday… Many of my friends were holding stalls at the Illustrator’s Fair at the House of Illustration near the new build Central Saint Martins. Luckily the weather held up and it was a gorgeous day to visit the fair.
My good friend, Paul Shinn made me my birthday card which totally looks like me! In my favourite dress. His work looks amazing; I like his typography and the characters peeking behind him. His comics was very popular as there were a couple of kids around his stall.
The atmosphere was chilled out and buzzing at the Fair. There were lots of interactivity between artists, illustrators and the passersby. Everyone was so friendly to talk to and so passionate about illustration and printmaking. Despite it being smaller in comparison to Spring’s Pick Me Up Graphic Arts Festival, loads of families passing throughout the day.
I instantly feel in love with Immi when I saw her face on the front cover. It was a delightful additional to my children’s book collection. Karin was lovely and kind enough to chat to me and signed my copy.
Harriet Russell
There were recognisable illustrator’s names one such as Harriet Russell whose books of Envelope and unique typography I so admire. And Cat O’Neil, whom I am following on Twitter and had the pleasure to meet her and see her prints in the flesh. She is in the middle of creating her debut graphic novel about her heritage in Hong Kong, her identity and mixed cultures. Which I can honestly relate to.
I got introduced to Juliana Wang’s after we bonded over our love of colour and how we apply it to our works. I love the dark vibrant tones she uses and not afraid to use brown which is a colour I hardly use. Her colour palettes are the right balance between scolding hot and cool tones. Finally, I met Lorna Scobie after many Twitter interactions. I just adore the Tiger Avatar she has at the moment on her Twitter page. We ended up talking about Masterchef for a while.
Overall, it was a chilled out day and I met some really lovely and inspiring people. I went home very happy and with lots of goodies.