Scribbles

Win a Hand Painted Glass Competition

2012-03-04T04:57:00.002-08:00

The internet is an incredible place and I am astounded to see that one of my youtube videos is approaching 100,000 views. As a celebration of this crazy figure I am going to paint a hand painted glass as a competition prize.

Rules:
Email your name and address to loupoulsom@googlemail.com and the winner will be able to choose from one of the glasses shown below:

Competition End Date:
The winner will be drawn at random on the 31st March 2012.

Terms & Conditions

1. Finished glass will not look exactly the same as the examples below as every glass that I paint is original and unique.

2. This competition is International and I am happy to receive entries from the UK and abroad.

3. If a portrait glass is required I will paint a single character only and I am happy to work from photographs. Photographs will remain private and will not be displayed on my website.

4. Glass shapes may vary from those shown in the examples below.

5. Personalised glasses with ages or names and dates on will be amended as required.

6. Glass will be painted within 30 days. This allows me to ensure the prize is completed alongside my existing commissions.

7. Entries received after the competition closing date cannot be entered into the competition.

8. Copyright retained by Louise Poulsom - a picture of the finished glass will be added to my gallery.

Good luck to all entrants and thank you so much for your interest in my glassware!

The winner will be able to choose from one of the following designs:

Updating the website

2012-01-29T05:44:00.000-08:00

Busy but fun week. I have completed the illustration for the recipe website and I am working on the text placement. My friend who referred me to the site in the first place has been helping me to work out timings etc - our 'chuck it all in and cook' approach probably wouldn't go down too well!

A few glassware commissions were finished this week and I completed a glass from one of my new glassware ranges I am trialling - using the new Fruitdrop design. The new glass is a Ravenhead glass 'Chateau' and it is a round bodied Burgundy glass. I loved the rounded shape of the glass. We also bought further glasses in our premium range yesterday because I enjoy the dimpling on the interior of the glass and the distortions to light and colour that it throws off. I am trying to decide how to apply the paint to show off the dimpling to greater effect on the next pair that I paint. I have another pair of the smoky base glassware too. I have been painting glasses since 2000 and I love the fact that there are increasingly more colourful glasses to buy in the shops. It's lovely to see colour and imagination on the shelves in the shops. We were admiring the colourful John Lewis Playnation range yesterday.

I have added another page to my website to show off different views of my available glasses. It would be great if there were some way to click onto an image and to have the option to see different views of glasses from that one click as there are on Folksy but it isn't an option yet. I'll contact Artweb to put in the suggestion.

A little fun with the illustration

2012-01-20T15:55:00.000-08:00

I have been sketching this evening for a site which a friend recommended to me. There is a site called http://www.theydrawandcook.com/ and artists are invited to illustrate their own recipes. It is a relaxing project and one that I'm enjoying. It seemed like a bit of fun and our children were hugely excited by the idea as they love cooking and seeing lots of beautifully illustrated recipes made them switch into immediate cheerleader mode, 'go on Mum', 'can we do one Mum?', 'can we draw on yours?' and 'Can we make one of those recipes tomorrow?' and 'Can I too?' etc etc.

I have only recently gained a recipe from my sister which Mum had always cooked for us as children so the referral to the site seemed like beautifully fateful timing. I am going to continue sketching now and hopefully will be able to share some results soon.

Drawing with children

2012-01-19T14:40:00.000-08:00

I wanted to enter a few words today about the joy of drawing with children. Being a children's illustrator I spend a great deal of time plotting pictures and hoping children will enjoy them but it's a whole different thing when you are surrounded by children and completely immersed in their world.

I spend a great deal of time at toddler groups these days and like a child myself I am happiest sat at a table immersed in craft activities or sat with a box full of pens and crumpled pieces of paper. I love to watch children as they wield pens, frown in concentration and move their tool around the paper making lines, circles and the occasional shapes. The first efforts are rewarded when their random mark-making results in shapes which they can identify. Sometimes the random shapes are completely unintentional, sometimes they have something in mind and no matter how unfathomable the picture they hold their paper up with delight and explain an incredibly intricate storyline to their image. With my children I try as often as I can to get them to explain their pictures and add their narrative to the paper so that we can look back on those pictures and appreciate the thought that went into them. As children draw I love to discuss their thoughts with them. I find that children are very determined about the outcome of their drawings and it's great fun to watch them develop their ideas and to hear their thoughts.

This picture was drawn by our three-year-old at group yesterday. He wanted to draw a boat. I asked if the boat would have a sail, he drew a large rectangle and shook his head,

"No, it will have a flag." He then drew another rectangle on top, "It will have a chimney too."

"Will there be a person on the boat?" I asked.

"No, there will be windows," he then drew lots of circles, "and a pirate."

"Will the pirate be on the deck of the boat or looking out of a window?" I asked.

"No, it will be a pirate penguin and he's here," my son replied pointing to the base of the ship where he drew a circle with a dot for an eye and a leg with a flat base.

"Will there be other pirates on the ship?" I asked.

"No there will be a captain," he replied. He carefully selected a piece of blue tissue. The table was at that time covered in a thousand pieces of coloured tissue which were being used for another activity and I admired his restraint in only adding a singular piece, carefully applied with the gluestick. I remained silent as he picked up the pen and drew a small circle on the piece of tissue. "This is Captain Snail," he said proudly as he pointed to the square of tissue, "I'm not finished," he warned as he used the pen to colour in several of the windows and added a line to the flag. He then allowed me to write the words beneath.

It's quite humbling being part of a child's world as they develop their artwork. I'll sit with them and ask for ideas and let them instruct me. I am told to draw monsters with spots which have eyes on eating fish and flying in spaceships. They tell me to draw cats wearing frilly pants riding racing cars. In their world I feel a real freedom, there is no payment to worry about with their briefs, there is a limit to my materials and lack of images to research, I'm thrown back into a childhood freedom of trying to impress with a half dry felt-tip pen and a partly scribbled on piece of paper but the real joy of creating an image to a genuinely appreciative and impressively critical audience. Usually my picture will end up being stealthily removed, amended, coloured in or cut up. Sometimes, very occasionally, when I collect up the children's work from the tables at the end of the toddler group sessions I will find my picture with all the scribbled additions and sneak it home as my own best bit of work for the day and will put it on the mantlepiece set slightly behind the far more impressive daily work brought back home by our clever children.

Biro Art

2012-01-18T05:20:00.000-08:00

Today I would like to write a quick entry to celebrate the humble biro.

Our children are all at primary school and at the weekend we have to sit down for a homework session. This weekend I was hunting in our pen tin for suitable pens and pencils for the children and when I fished out a biro I remembered that they are specifically told not to use biros. It is something which really confuses me. I love biros and I've always enjoyed using them to sketch. The simple Bic biro has always been my favourite, I love the fact that you can vary the width of the line with pressure, they cross-hatch beautifully and they can create a very similar line to an ink dip-pen. When I was at college I used to carry around small spiral bound plain paper notepads for reportage artwork. At the first sight of something or someone interesting I would fish out my Bic and sketch away. I would dearly love to know why they are seen as inappropriate for children's developing writing skills.

There are many great examples of biro art on the internet and I really enjoy Phillip Blackman's work. His humour in his work is captivating and I really love his cross-hatching. I am tempted to go on a campaign to promote the use of biros in school to make teachers recognise the benefit of the variety of lines they produce!

This is a link to Phillip Blackman's website:
http://www.biro-art.com/

And one of my examples of biro art:
http://www.louisepoulsom.co.uk/bw-illustrations/167924_if-i-see-you-here-again.html

So hopefully I will inspire anyone looking in to have a go! Fish out those biros and fall in love with them. Oh and if anyone can answer the question as to why biros are so bad for children I would really love to hear the answer.

2012-01-17T17:55:00.001-08:00

Today I ventured into unknown waters and joined Pinterest after a referral from my sister. A nudge from a fellow crafter on UK Handmade who kindly told me that she had 'pinned' some of my images made me feel duty bound to join in.I find the site quite bewildering but the lure is the fact that I can network with other crafters. I will give it a go and see what happens. I pasted a very large pinterest logo on my homepage as directed but I haven't had the opportunity to paste too many 'pin' images yet. I think that the general idea is that you add images which inspire/interest you and people may pin your images in return.

I had a crafters challenge last week when I found out that my usual wine glass supplier is no longer making further stock in that style. I pride myself on always painting good quality, attractive glassware and needed to find replacement styles quickly. This week I had fun buying some sample styles to paint. I bought three different styles to sample, one similar to my old design, a classic large red wine glass, a second style with a more rounded bowl and a third 'tulip' glass style. These glasses will all appear shortly. It is only when they are painted that I'll really decide which to go with in the future. During the week I updated my third youtube video to add a few more examples of recent glassware.

One of my videos has now reached 42,000 views which is incredible. It's amazing to have that opportunity to showcase artwork. I also joined a website called UK Handmade. I haven't had much chance to explore the site yet but I've added a few pictures and a link to my video:
http://ukhandmade.ning.com/profile/LouisePoulsom