SallyWag

Archive for the ‘design & illustration for CHILDREN’ Category

I’m starting a blog series on the books I own about print design, graphics and illustration – stuff like that. Here’s the first:

A few sample pages from The Thousand Nights and One Night illustrated with papercut silhouettes by Meg and Mog author Jan Pienkowski.

Pienkowski is originally from Poland, home of the Wycinanki tradition of paper-cutting:

Many of the images have been backdropped with vivid photographic elements and pattern, which strongly captures the sense of the exotic associated with tales of the old East.

The technique and style of the papercuts harks back to the pioneering (and completely inspiring!) work of Lotte Reiniger, specifically The Adventures of Prince Achmed, the oldest surviving animated film:

Magical stuff.

New printables, and soon to be, prints. Drawn in pen as separate ‘bits’, scanned into the computer, outlined in Photoshop, then filled with colour (like a cartoon) in Illustrator – in case you were wondering! Anyway, how this Summer should have been.

Just had a framed and mounted sample made of my current A5 size prints as I ‘m planning to offer both print options – framed and mounted or just the print on its own. The latter are currently only available as archival quality prints on watercolour textured paper from From the Wilde and – lo and behold! – they’re included in the site’s Summer Sale!  Peacocks, owls, fawns, fish, Hansel & Gretel, Red Riding Hood – its all there. For everything else that’s currently available in my Folksy and Etsy shops, including the matt silk versions of my prints (just to confuse matters) I’m giving £1 per sale to the DEC Pakistan Flood Appeal until the end of August.

Am back on with my e-com website. It needs lots of work on the photos, product listings and small print but I’ve spent most of my time creating pretty decorative elements that aren’t exactly essential! Cool owl tho, huh? Bulging purple eyelids – what a look!

If you’d like to know when the site’s live, you can join my e-mailing list HERE.

Have just updated a couple of things on my Etsy and Folksy shops, including a new Red Riding Hood listing – with blonde hair!, and some photos of my new Spanish donkey Summer print.  Looking at them next to each other, I think I must be principally obsessed with the trees. That’s where the work seems to go into.

these four: clockwise from top left: Beautiful Skin; Laura Kate Draws; Xenia Taler; Wonderful Rubbish

Clockwise L to R: Sally Boyle at From the Wilde; Giniber; Urban Outfitters at Society 6; Sanna Annukka at Radiance

Clockwise L to R: Gothic Crow; Frerk Muller at Shelf; Sally Boyle at From the Wilde; Happy Doodle Land

Magda Piwowar at Beetroot; Toika at Iittala; Donna Wilson at Soma Gallery

Clockwise L to R: Isak; Felt Me Up Designs; Faye Power at From the Wilde; Skinny Laminx

As I’ve been uploading this epic post (of some of my favourite bird designs online) I’ve been listening to the near constant football rattle of a couple of magpies outside. Touch ironic: they’re the only bird i DON’T like. they can’t sing, they can barely fly and they seem to spend most of their time harassing smaller birds and eating their young. talentless bully-boys…

Well, the header’s said it all really: there’s a one day 11% discount sale on Art and Accessories today on Dawanda, tenuously in celebration of the World Cup. Ha!  Relevence? Anyway, nothing to complain about. I’ve included my prints, in celebration of those who are NOT interested in the World Cup so far but will probably start getting into it by the semi-finals. Happens every time.

My first international illustration job – PRINT-ED! woo. I like my little owl. Am picking fault with my design already though: “could have done that differently”; “missed a bit there” etc. Nothing wrong with the production, however, (keep stroking the lovely matt silkiness of the covers) which, of course, was nothing to do with me :)

A couple of days of sun and I’m transported back to my last holiday 3 years ago: the quiet, mountainous, beautiful northeast of Mallorca, where sheer craggy drops meet gently stepped citrus groves, the sun beats down and the eagles circle. Hence this new summer print. Available on Folksy (£), Etsy ($) and Dawanda (€). £4.

I’m currently selling the last of my limited edition tiger and jungle set at cost price (+ a small amount to the tiger preservation charity www.tigersforever.org in order to make way (pay!) for some new designs and stock. The last 3 sets are listed on Etsy ($58.50), Dawanda (€43) and Folksy (£38) and include instructions and care advice. I think they’re possibly the cheapest, easiest (and most original!) way to cheer up a kid’s bedroom, but what would I know – I’m 34!

In celebration of the great beast itself, a few other furball designs I found on the tinterweb… Here’s hoping there’ll still be some left in the wild before the next Year of the Tiger sweeps round. Click on the images to find who’s designed and selling what:-