Where am I?

Hello.

You've probably noticed it's become quiet on this blog. It's no longer in use. If you wish to keep up with what I do I'd recommend checking out one of the following:

My website: https://britthub.co.uk/
My twitter: https://twitter.com/BrittCoxon
My Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BrittsLittlePaper/

See you elsewhere on the internet.

Monday 1st September 1941

It's about time I shared this. Part of the Paper Jam Comics Collective Newcastle Stories and that anthology.

This Saturday

At the Whitley Bay Library. Aye.

Burlesque Paper Cuts

Oh yeah. What happened with those? We haven't seen you since Thought Bubble and that was November.

Totally made more.

Totally had fun sketching the lovely ladies too. 

I'm working on new piece all the time so if you want to see my current range you should pop to the Make & Mend market on the 1st Saturday of each month and see me there. 

Or you can come along to the special event happening in Whitley Bay Library on the 24th May. It's going to be awesome. 

So. There you go.

Thought Bubble

This year at Thought Bubble I'm behind the Newcastle Science Comic table along with the awesome Lydia Wysocki and the amazing Paul Thompson. We'll have copies of Asteroid Belter to give away AND a lovely selection of work from our contributors.

I'm looking forward to meeting said contributors in the flesh. Yay.

I realise that I haven't mentioned here that I am an editor on the Newcastle Science Comic and online editor for the web based stuffs. There, now mentioned.

See you on Saturday and Sunday in Leeds folks.

The Angel of the North

Been drawing the angel like.

Samurai Crab

A 24 minute comic I did at Paper Jam the other week.

Brown Notebook Highlights

I recently found a brown notebook, here are some highlights. These drawings are probably from 2010 to 2011, I should remember to date the covers or something.

The Baltic Artist's Book Fair - in words and pictures

Friday and Saturday was the Baltic Artist's Book Fair. It was pretty good like. An artist's book fair is quite different from my regular craft market experience, the biggest difference being that we were in an art gallery.

Lydia Wysocki was my table mate for the fair, bringing her rather brilliant selection of books and prints (no really, they're brilliant). Highlights in our conversation included discovering Lydia's danger words - words that will result in a very disapproving look. I would advise against using these words frivolously, she intends to make a set of flashcards to help with this. For my own safety (and amusement) I won't list them here.

To our right was Sha Nazir of Black Hearted Press, together with Paul, Cuttlefish and Nigel of the Paper Jam Comics Collective we formed a solid comics contingent. Proving that comics come in all shapes, sizes and genres and appeal to everybody if they're willing to give it a go.

I had a relatively small amount (none) of my comics on display, having decided to concentrate on the paper-cut artbook with the burlesque ladies. The feedback on the prototypes was amazing, I spent the first day assembling layers in different orders and playing with the depth and visibility of sheets. I even learned a very rough and ready version of Japanese binding to hold these prototypes together. After some playing, thought and chats with various book artists I've decided that the designs that exist currently benefit from being layered, possibly as a deep framed artwork rather than a book. That doesn't mean I'm abandoning the book though, the designs will be edited, played with and included in the final book. The framed wall art type designs will exist as companion pieces to the main project.

I had a really good time. Being in such a space for two days with no natural light penetrating was quite weird though and left me pretty shattered, similar to most trips to IKEA. The only solution was to take Monday off, allowing the feeling of two Sundays.

Would I do it again? Without a second thought. A wonderful two days, with brilliant company. I met so many brilliant artists it's unfair to start listing them, for fear of missing someone out.

BALTIC Artist's Book Fair 14th & 15th June 2013

I'll be at this book fair. I've been working on a bit of a (not so) secret project for the book fair. I'm going to reveal some images of my prototype. Please ignore the binding, at this stage it's not meant to look pretty.

The final book will have a few scenes like this, all based on burlesque acts that I have seen perform, or want to see perform very soon. Giving a bit of life and reality to the silhouettes. I have learned from this prototype that I need thicker borders to achieve the solid results I want. That's what prototypes are for.

I'll also have a handful of mini comics with me. This will all be for sale. The paper-cut burlesque artbook will be a limited edition.

See you all there folks.

Coming Up

Where to find me.

Spitfires

I've been drawing Spitfires today. I quite enjoyed.

If I can replicate the problem...

I have a robot. It helps me to cut my cards. Most of the time. Today my Silhouette SD decided that it wouldn't cut through any card. 

The machine.

So I went through the motions to change the blade, then I realised this one's only a month old, they usually last me at least 6. I've done nothing different with this one. So I gave the inside as good a clean as I could (not easy) and had a look at the cutting mat. The mat has been well used but looks nowhere near as bad as my old ones did before they got replaced and again has only been in use about a month. Reluctantly I opened a new mat and tried cutting again, the same thing happened. Lacking a completely fresh blade I went through every single one of my slightly worn blades and got the same problem with all of them. I know for a fact at least one of them is only in my used pile because of a twisting fault, nothing to do with cutting depth. 

As a last resort I got out my oldest blade, it's the one that came with the Silhouette and has caps instead of the new ratchet system. If nothing else this blade is at least a different format - by this point I was convinced I'd somehow ruined the machine itself and that it wasn't holding the blade tight. I ran a test cut through. It cut perfectly. The crispest cuts I've had in a long time. 

The two blade types, photo from Under a Cherry Tree. 

I got on with my work and completed the cards I was working on (hurrah, there's a market tomorrow). Unfortunately the cap blade isn't as flexible as the ratchet blade and I'm not able to cut some of my thicker card with it. Reluctantly I got the blade I started the day with back out of its box and did a test cut, to see if I could spot any issues as it was cutting. Lo and behold it cut perfectly, crisp corners, tidy edges, the kind you hope every cut will be like. I don't get it.

Switching to the cap blade involves changing some settings in the Silhouette Studio software. The only thing I can think is that by switching those settings back and forth I somehow reset the pressure information, it's possible that it wasn't being transmitted to the machine properly before. After all, nothing else changed. 

On the blade cleaning front I was happy to see this post on Two Peas in a Bucket which suggests that problem is solved. Now if only I could replicate what went wrong with the machine today, I could prove or disprove that the switch fixed it. Maybe it was a fluke?

Have you had similar issues with your silhouette? How did you solve them?

Is it time for me to take the plunge and upgrade to one of these beasts? Or one of these laser based options?

Penguin

A quick drawing. It's going to be a card design.

January's Almost Over

Every year I think about doing a review of the last year for one of my blog posts in January and I tend to put it off, each year it happens later and later into January. So this year I'm not going to do it, it's clearly not working.

Instead I'm going to share some interesting things. Here are some photos from a very long time ago, photos of things which are vaguely interesting or that went wrong in an interesting way.

Things Happening

There are things happening!

First up on Saturday the 8th December we have the triumphant return of the Canny Comic Con.

What is the Canny Comic Con? It's a small festival of comics and illustration right here in Newcastle. Taking place in the Newcastle City Library, all day Saturday and free to all. There'll be activities, talks, panels and more comics than you can shake a long armed stapler at. What's not to like?

And if one day of awesome isn't enough, well we've got two!

The Make & Mend Christmas Market is kicking off this Sunday at 11.30am. I'm very excited about this one, it's the first time Make & Mend has returned to the Star and Shadow Cinema since I took on organising it. There are some truly amazing stallholders coming along to the last Make & Mend before Christmas.

Wonderful woolly Winter warmers for snug outings in the snow. Soft toys and handmade children's accessories for your younger ones.

Beautiful jewellery and accessories for all tastes including steampunk, vintage and felted creations.

Handmade textiles, wonderfully scented tea-cup candles, prints and illustrations to decorate the home. Plus Christmas cards and decorations to help get you into the festive spirit.

Comics for all and amazing luxury neck wear for the stylish tie wearer in your life.

A Visit to Dublin

Dublin, an interestingly familiar city. Paul commented that during his last trip, roughly 10 years ago, it felt a lot like Newcastle. The two cities have a lot in common, architecture, nightlife, that old industry feel. Over the last 10 years a lot has changed in Dublin. It also reminded me of Newcastle but for very different reasons.

Taking in the View

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon when we arrived. We stayed in the Christ Church area, seconds away from what turned out to be the first of many markets we'd see that day.

Jamie Lewis's felt animals
photo from Temple Bar Cultural Trust Website.

The Designer Mart takes place on Cow's Lane every Saturday and has a some fantastic stalls. It wasn't long before we found a book market, and food market too, both weekly and both very good.

The Temple Bar Food Market

We planned to head back past the food market later in the day, I was sad to find out it was only on until 4.30pm. They could do a fantastic evening trade I'm sure.

There was another market just around the corner in a place called Exchange Dublin, the appropriately named Exchange Market.

Image from Exchange Market Facebook page.

Exchange Dublin is a volunteer run space for groups to get together, exchange ideas and put on events. It has a lot in common with the Star and Shadow Cinema, I can see scope for some form of international collaboration of volunteer run spaces there.

Around another corner a strange thing came into view.

The wool is taking over.

Crochet Coral Reef

The Irish Reef, part of the International Hyperbolic Crocheted Coral Reef, a project that combines maths, marine biology and crochet. I have a soft spot for anything that combines science and craft, it's a winning formula. I never did learn how to knit, or crochet. Maybe I should learn, any volunteers?

On Sunday we wondered a little further, stopping for breakfast at Queen of Tarts, it must have been good, I went back there again on Monday for lunch. Delicious. On the way over to the National Gallery we spotted an interesting shop front. It was mostly interesting due to the 3D printer in the window.

Image from Science Gallery website. 

Make Shop is a workshop space for the making of things. All things. From electric buzzers to cross stitch, robots to salt dough creations. Make Shop is linked to Trinity College's Science Gallery, it's a pop-up space with all sorts of fun tools and toys, part workshop part shop of cool things. We had a great chat with the folks there about their 3D printer, the workshops they do and the ups and downs of being in a pop-up space.

Some other highlights of the trip:

Jack of All Trades - an exhibition of illustrations by Jack B Yeats, including his work for Punch Magazine, what fascinates me is how relevant his political cartoons still are.

Drawn to the Page - another exhibition, in the Long Room. I came across this as a result of going to see the Book of Kells which I understand is a thing you should do while in Dublin. The art in this exhibition was amazing, it's on until April 2013, if you get a chance you should go.

The Loft Market - a lovely boutique shop hidden at the very top of a shopping centre. This shop is full of independent designers, artists, jewellery makers and vintage collectors. The collective have been going strong for 7 years and are just bursting with talent.

So that was Dublin. I think I'll go again. What should I look out for next time? What bits of Dublin do you like the best?

An interesting fact, Dublin is twinned with Barcelona, another of my favourite cities.