barefoot and books

Obviously overtaken by a moment of utter madness, I have signed myself up for a charity walk. There was a lovely, gentle 8 mile walk (kids and dogs welcome), but am I doing that? Nope, I am doing a marathon 26 miles!!! Not really sure what I was thinking! 

Anyway that means training, so this spring-like weekend, in between the roughs for the Morse book, I have been dragging myself out of bed at ridiculous o'clock to speed walk (ish) 5 miles a day - which is not as easy for me as it sounds, on both counts! I've also ditched my supermarket socks and clumpy hillwalking shoes for some high-tech barefoot shoes and aerodynamic socks. Well something like that, I'm not exactly sure, just rest assured there is oodles of research, development and technology behind what's on my feet. As far as I'm concerned, the fact I have no blisters is good enough for me and a definite result.

Between my walking with technology around the local countryside estate (the logo on the signage of which features, bafflingly and a tad disconcertingly, a wild boar), the Morse layouts and roughs continue to progress.

good things come

Little things make me happy: this weekend's delicious Spanish red, the label of which is featured in the contemporary wine label design book I recently acquired as research for the beer label project. 

As a design theme it works brilliantly: according to the blurb, Matsu is a Japanese word that translated into English means "to wait". But Dunnottar Wines, my local wine emporium, doesn't stock the older dudes - I guess as you would expect, they're featured on the finer Matsu vintages. (Not, incidentally, a metaphor that necessarily holds true outside of the wine world...).

As an aside, I downloaded the snapseed app to edit the image on the iPad... and I like it! It's more intuitive than PS express and has a bunch more filters and textures. Best of all, it's free. And, as the blurb on the website where I found it said: "Snapseed: only you can decide whether to make your photos approximately 72 per cent more ominous"!!! Recommending...

all thumbs

Working on the layout for 'Morse', small rough thumbnails to begin with... It's tricky, as I have a layout in Gaelic (which I don't read!) and an English translation which isn't formatted at all! As a result, I have to toggle between the two in order to know what's happening on each page... arghhh! It's hard to move text around to accommodate the illustrations, when I have no idea what it says! Will get there eventually!

black magic

Ostensibly research for the Morse book, but actually just helluva cool. The one 'buy new' copy on amazon was £170 (!), this [used] one was a grand total of...1p!!!! Worth every, well the only, penny! Errol Le Cain's illustrations are amazing.

are you looking at me?

I have another meeting with Gracie this weekend, to go over the Morse character and to work out the layout of the book. Gracie has given me photographs to work with (Morse was an actual, real cat!) and this is one of my first, very rough, sketches. Just trying to work out how he will look. I'm quite taken with the 'surly child' expression!

off the shelf

I think I've already said, but I'm super excited to be designing the beer labels for new, upcoming Stonehaven tipple, the Green Lady. I'm a regular visitor to the fabulous Dunnottar Wines, who will be brewing the brew, and not just because no.1 son is the manager! This time though, it was for genuine beer label research (although I did pick up a hitherto untried 2011 Malbec while I was there...).

So, I'm currently swotting up on all things label design (bliss!), and also managed to use the drawing of ghostly, elfin type creatures as an excuse to purchase a mini copy of Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book, which I have coveted for years (nay, decades!). It doesn't get much better!

sea salt

A tentative dipping of the toes back in the (blogging) water... Mucho happening here but, as a lot of it in 2014 is illustration related, I thought I'd check back in. I've just finished the illustrations for the spring issue of Juno, and met with Gracie Summers (author of the Morse book I'm illustrating for Acair) last Saturday. The layout is well underway - roughs to follow...

Ooh, and I also have a beer label to design, which I'm very excited about! (And I say that as someone who collects illustrated wine labels, believe me, I'm super excited!!!).

Oh, and happy new year! I've missed this!