Girls are Weird

I first discovered this book three years ago on a visit to the Tate Modern in London.  With it's scratchy biro-esque drawings and juxtaposed imagery, along with the cute and quirky story, it has become one of my favourite books I own.

Written half in Spanish(?) and half in English it follows the tea-time conversation of a self indulgent girl and her teddybear.

'You girls are very weird,' the teddybear starts to explain. 'The way you dress, for example, do you honestly think the strange clothes that fill your closet are normal?'

'Those striped stockings...  Those bows...  Those hats...  Those shiny shoes...  Those spot skirts...'

'And there's more.  How many people do you know who live inside a boot with a fat, one eyed cat?'

'...Who's home is decorated like a fairytale castle...'

And so the bear continues, very pleased with himself.  He mentions the poisonous toadstools in her garden, the way she likes to set her dolls house on fire, her penchant for picnics in the Pain Forest and so on and so on.

Eventually the girl replies 'I can assure you that the one who would lose out if I changed my ways would be you; do you really think that one of those girls you call 'normal' would have such a crabby, grumpy teddybear for tea?'

I think that this is such a charming little book and I just wanted to share it.  But I've never seen it anywhere else other than in the Tate in London.  However you can purchase it here if you so wish!

It's good to be Queen

Crowns.  

I love them. 

More than a lot of things. 

The bigger and velvetier and glitterier the better!  

I also love drawing them.

If I was Queen...

I'd wear the silver and red crown to breakfast,

(which would be scrambled egg and smoked salmon on toast)

I'd wear the green crown whilst in my palace gardens,

I'd wear the gold and red crown whilst walking the corgis,

I'd wear the purple crown for state occasions,

and the pink one in bed. 

Which crown would you pick to wear?

Dear Mr Baker man,

There is only one thing that I want you to bake,

and that is a pink and black house made of cake,

with icing and frosting and round silver balls,

and edible wallpaper hung on the walls.

(another page of my book)

Which house would you live in?

Frogs and Flamingos

Another part of a page from my book.  The last page actually.  Can you spot the cakes with the hands and bunny ears poking out of them?

I was going to put a recipe at the end of my book too but I ran out of time.  I started to do it last week but then realised that I wouldn't be able to knock it out in half an hour like I was planning without it looking rubbish so I have scrapped the idea for now. There's this great site called http://www.recipelook.co.uk/  where you can send in your illustrated recipes so I might do one fot that at some point instead.

Anyhow whilst I was doing that I got some ideas for the endpapers for my book.  I thought that as there's a heavy baking theme I could use the tiny pictures I did for my recipe that never happened and multiply them to look like this:

I quite like it but then I'm also torn between using black and white stripes for a more gothic feel. There's a stripe theme running through the book too, along with a frog and flamingo theme. Maybe I could do frogs and flamingos instead! On stripes.  Or stripes of frogs and flamingos.... the possibilities are endless!

Happy Tuesday! x

very attractive hairdos

Rainbow Kitchen

This is one of the double page spreads (click to enlarge) for my book that I wrote and am in the process of illustrating.  All the research and drawing of cakes I did last term has most certainly come in useful for this. Though after this project I don't want to look at or draw another cake for at least a year! I've already given up eating them. You can have too much of a good thing!

can you spot: the castle cake, the the flamingo cupcakes, the squares of chocolate, the gingerbread man cutter?

 It's so weird to be coming to the end of being at uni.  Three years has gone so fast!  It feels funny to think that there's nothing to go back to after summer.  I still don't really know what I'm going to do next year.  I want to run away and live on the beach and live off the money from my paintings. Haha.