Tyto signage and window artwork

Here are photos of the signage and window artwork I recently completed for the new premises of Falmouth based shop Tyto boutique. Work was hand drawn straight onto the window using Posca chalk pens  and for the wooden signage panel I painted with black acrylic paint. It was certainly a fun and creative job to do even if a little scary at times when I was up on the ladder platform- I had to remember not to step back!  Be sure to visit the shop if you're in the area- it's number 30 on the High Street in Falmouth.

Share |

2012 in Review

Wow, here we are at the start of another year! It doesn't seem that long ago that I was thinking of all the things I wanted to achieve for 2012 and now here I am taking stock of the last year and thinking there are a lot of things to be thankful for - especially in terms of new opportunities to illustrate, design and  sell my Mellybee wares.

This time last year I set myself the challenge of raising my profile, having a portfolio I could send out and having a website that I was actually happy to show rather than one that I muttered under my breath. Surprisingly I managed to accomplish the latter 2 in less than 3 months so instead of twiddling my thumbs I spent the remainder of the year taking all the opportunities that came along - like building my online shop and selling at Renegade Craft Fair in London and from there it snowballed.

Here are just some of the highlights in pictures- for lengthy details see underneath - it not only serves as a reminder of what has happened (I have a knack of forgetting such info) but also gives me the encouragement to keep going as you never know what will happen if you keep an open mind and give it your best shot!

So to all my lovely readers here's to a healthy, exciting, productive 2013!

From L to R:

• January: Portfolio sent out to studios, designers, people who I thought would be interesting to get to know.
• February : Website made using Wordpress - minimal design, minimal fuss - let the work speak for itself. Work also started on webshop using mySupadupa ecomerce template. Work also started on creating a nautical range for Mellybee and the jubilee.
• March: Accepted design brief for surfing company inkydeep- a totebag design! Joined fledgling online shop Two Red Trees, also based in Cornwall. Gain a new stockist: The Studio Shop in Orkney
• April: Hamster character work created for client through Southwest Broadband- my helpful website host provider. Design created for local shop Tyto - screenprinted in runs of 50 onto totebags.
• May: Poster work created for an events company based in Essex- Sunset sessions. 
• June: Jubilee Fever- my special Diamond Jubilee Corgi teatowels get featured in Archant's Jubilee Bookazine and sales in my webshop increase dramatically for Jubilee products- in particular from Japan! Gain new stockists: Maid in Cornwall & Sarah's Shop
• July: Approached by Oxford based lingerie shop to draw a glossary of lingerie items for their website www.puremarie.co.uk. In total draw 23 bras, pants and vests. Gain new stockist: Seawitch Stores, Mousehole. 
• August: Find out that I've been accepted to sell at Renegade Craft Fair along with my booth mate Hello Dodo- very happy but also means I have a lot of screen printing to do! Design Mousehole illustration to be printed on a variety of products for Seawitch stores.
• September: Receive an order to make 50 bespoke wedding portrait teatowels through online stockist: Fromthewilde - this puts me to the test. Make my way to my first craft fair in London via  train- 8 hour journey with the largest red suitcase and backpack- meet lots of awesomely brilliant crafty people including team Folksy and the Renegade team from the states. 
• October: Lingerie drawings created for Wed magazine's editorial feature on wedding lingerie. Find out that I've won the Superportfolio competition set up by Wiiv-win £300 and get more exposure for my work- website promotes makers through image led features. Design & draw Tyto Boutique's Autumn/Winter shop windows.
•  November:  Find out my products are being featuring in magazines - Cornwall life, MyCornwall and Cornwall Today. Accepted into Blogandbuysale's curated christmas Wishlist - Love, Joy, Peace Badgesets are shortlisted in both Mollie Makes and Confessions of a Design Geek picks!
• December: Increase in sales in all online shops particularly Folksy. Most popular seller- Gingerbread badgesets!  Interviewed for Mollie makes newest online magazine Gathered. Gain new stockist: Blueswift Gallery, Ramsgate. 

Share |

Tyto Tote Bags- behind the scenes!

I thought I'd share a behind the scene snapshot of the process that goes into creating, in this case, a totebag for Tyto! 

Tyto Boutique is a lovely independent shop based in Falmouth and is one of my regular stockists. Recently the owner, Gemma asked whether I would like to design and print a new totebag for their shop- of course I jumped at the opportunity. Read on to see how I created the product!

1. It all begins with a piece of paper and a pencil.  I like to use thick bockingford paper and a soft pencil- something about the thickness of the paper inspires me to create. I  research my image before drawing and for this project I looked at a lot of owls- especially their wings, feathers, face shapes  and eyes.

2. Once I have a rough sketch I'm happy with I start the inking in- I make sure all my lines are definite and complete so there is isn't too much correction work to do in photoshop when I scan it in. I really enjoy this process and love watching how the black lines start to bring the subject to life!

3.  Inking complete, the image is scanned and imported to photoshop where I just clean up any smudges or marks. I then save the file as a jpeg and bring it into Illustrator. It's here that I trace it using  Livetrace and turn the image into a scalable vector. I can now resize the image to make sure it will fit the product perfectly. Once it's ready I save the file, this time as a PDF and its ready to print onto acetate.

4.  Printed onto acetate it's time to go to the shed for next part of production- the screen-printing. I have quite a basic set up - and using a halogen lightbulb I burn the image onto a prepped screen. (This was prepared a couple of days before with special photo-emulsion paint).

5. After around 8 minutes the image has been burnt onto the screen and I give it a thorough wash out to remove the softened emulsion that was hidden behind the black outline. As you can see below the image has now been stenciled onto the screen and is ready to be printed...

6. I tape up the sides of the screen to make sure no ink seeps through and also check that my drying areas are cleared and ready to receive the printed bags- once I start the printing process there's no time to hang around-  the inks are fast drying so can block the screen. The inks I use are water-based and are a lot less harmful to the environment than plastisol inks. The ink wraps around the individual threads of the fabric rather than sit on top which means they give good coverage and once heat pressed cannot easily be removed. 

7. The final part of the process is to heat press the image and this is done with a very hot iron.

8. And finally 'Voila'- there you have it a Tyto Totebag ready for sale!

If you fancy buying one yourself just hop over to Tyto's Facebook page and message Gemma- she'll be more than happy to post one to you!  Alternatively if you're in Falmouth just pop on down to the shop at Discovery Quay.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed finding out a bit more about the process of creating a bag!


Share |