Personal Work, Sticker Clubs, and Hired Projects
Hello everyone, hope the past month (whoops) has been good to you!
I've not written in a while as things have been a little bit mental. I've taken on an additional day at my day job, along with new responsibilities, we've had birthdays, illnesses, and a Brighton trip to visit friends, but amongst all of that, I've actually managed to stay on top of being creative and making time for creative work! (Huzzah!!)
Last time I wrote I spoke about some of the "Don't Let The Cats Out Or The Cops In" pet portraits I had done as a gift to my partner, and talked about how I wanted to rework them as I didn't like the one I'd painted. When I revisited my sketchbook I realised that I actually really liked some of the original practice paintings I had done, and didn't actually want to change them, so I painted some old school style roses in my sketchbook, did some gentle paint touch ups on the cat portraits, then scanned everything in and pulled it all together in Procreate, and my partner was buzzing with the result. It will hang pride and place in our hallway, next to the front door obviously. I uploaded it to my Instagram and it got a few responses saying how much people loved it, so I've offered to do some custom prints for those who want it, below is a custom print of a friends cat, Gus. Much like I did with my own two, I started doing some rough portraits of Gus in my sketchbook, and then once I had a painting of him I was happy with, I scanned it in and pulled it all together. I'm planning to upload these onto my Etsy page, so if folks want one they can always get one there.
I've also been working hard to keep up on top of my sticker club orders, which are proving super popular amongst the club members, I'm hopeful that this will grow more with time, as I really enjoy doing it and so many people seem to enjoy receiving them to. The March theme was spring, so I did some work surrounding all the hallmarks of the beginning of spring, for example, little baby lambs (possibly violent ones), pastel colours, and mothers day. I drew all of these loosely into my sketchbook, which I haven't included photos of here, but I could if you think they would be worth seeing, and then I scan them into procreate and start playing around with colours, shadows and shapes. I've also been working on my April sticker club drop, the theme for this one being easter, so I had daffodils, bunnies (some nicer than others) and I included a little April fool in there, she is especially cute and probably my favourite of the whole pack. These have been sent out, but in my rush to get them out I forgot to photograph the packs, so I'll upload sticker pics once I've printed off a few more.
In other very exciting news I've been hired to do some work alongside ReportOut/Out North East on a few projects that they're working. The first of which is curating a set of suitcases that are inspired by the history behind Durham Pride and Queer historical events around the UK, This will consist of illustrating key points in LGBTQIA+ history and turning them into mini zines, illustrated newspaper articles, and finding objects that can be placed inside them that demonstrate local queer history. I don't have any drawings to show you there yet, but I will soon as it's a super fast paced project and will be finished by late May.
In addition to this the CEO and I have been in talks around doing a graphic novel telling the story of a queer man of Saudi Arabia, we're hoping to get some arts funding for this, and possibly some crowd funding too. I was asked to illustrate a few pages, mostly some buildings and landscapes, but the CEO also talked me a story about how the protagonist used to give oral sex to a security guard that worked in his compound where he was living, so I put together a super rough of this just to give an idea of how some of the pages might look. We're hoping to have the first page and the cover next, but this will be a long project over the next few years, so as I move forward with it and we generate some funding and excitement around it, I can share and post more which will be super exciting!
That's all for now, but as I keep moving forward I'm excited to share even more with you, with personal projects and professional work rolling in over the next few months.
Take care, all the best,
Meg
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