And the Winner is...

Hello!

Hope you all had weeks which were all shades of lovely!

I'm excited...it's time to announce the winner of my giveaway.

So here it is!



Yep, it's you Melanie Chadwick! You are the winner :) Hope you are very happy!! So all you need to do is email me your choice of prize, and we shall go from there!

But hang on a moment, let's pick two more names for some smaller prizes. I'll post you each something little...Judy Scott and Cate Anderson! Email me your addresses, and I'll send you this week :)

A little bit about the draw...there were hundreds of entries (shocking!) and they all went into my fetching straw hat. The winners were picked by my lovely little sister who had her eyes firmly shut and her hand ready for a good rummage. Marty the puppy just tagged along for the photo.

I have been asked to do some more house commissions, so I've decided to offer up ONE a month on Etsy. I've had to restrict myself to one because I don't want people waiting an awfully long time for their art work if I get backed up with orders (such is the nature of custom work!) So this ensures I don't stretch myself too far. So have a look won't you. I've gone for a moderately amusing listing...read it and let me know what you think! And of course if you want to buy, be quick, as I won't relist another until the end of June. Click Here :) If it's sold when you click but you are super keen on having one, let me know and I'll contact you if I have a patch of extra time available for me to draw, or you want to put your name down for next month's listing.

Wishing you all a sunny (and hopefully not blustery!) Bank Holiday!

Have fun! x

My First Commission and a few other bits!

It took a lot of willpower not to post these images before I gave this Illustration to the new owner! But I am a good girl and refrained until it was safely in it's new home. So now it is...here it is!

Do you like it? It was all very enjoyable, and I hope more people will ask me to draw their houses for them! We should celebrate the lovely places we call home. I don't believe they are just bricks and mortar!

But this is the kind of thing I'll be making for the lucky winner of my giveaway....except it'll be your house! I wonder what it will look like...

I'm going to offer this kind of custom art on Etsy, so if you are interested in some yourself or as a gift, please do drop by. I'll be listing later. Or just email me.

As for my week, we have been having Puppy woes with little Marty. He's wearing a giant cone around his head and having great fun bashing into everything (including the backs of our legs!) Also his bellyflopping people has become that little bit more dangerous now, considering how huge the cone is!

I've been busy working on my 'Street Zine' which I am super excited about. Hopefully I'll get far enough to share that with you next week, but it will be a concertina zine with a full street Illustration on it, and I'll be printing around 50 of them, I think!

Also have a few other projects and exhibition invites which are very very very exciting, and I shall divulge more later! Oh and I received some super Mail Art through the post this week, which I'll blog about once my arty replies have been created, packed and sent off.

Happy Sunday!

Kirsty x

p.s Thanks so so so much for all the follows, comments and tweets...I wasn't expecting such a great response to my very first giveaway! I'm so happy to be making a drawing for one of you. And for anyone who hasn't entered yet, but would still like to, just check out how you can on the post below this one :)

Giveaway Time!

Now that I've finished slavishly scanning my enormously long Illustrations I thought perhaps I deserved a bit of a break from parading my work around! hehe :)

I am so encouraged by all of the lovely comments I have received lately through my blog and Twitter (never thought I'd end up becoming a Tweeter!). And the fact that I have even one single follower on the blog is amazing. So as a thank you, I thought I'd do a giveaway!

Let me show you what's on offer....

Prize Option 1
- Set of 5 assorted Greeting Cards all wrapped up snug in cellophane pockets ready for when you decide to use them!
- Framed Screenprint, ready to hang!

OR

Prize Option 2...

Nope you don't get a big piece of paper adorned with a florally question mark. What this represents is your very own CUSTOM ART. Are you as excited about this as I am?! I'm offering the winner an original custom illustration of their home. It can be the front of your house/flat/bungalow/country manor (eeeep!), your bedroom, or just a little special snug in your home you love. Anything! Here's the kind of thing I mean....







Click here and here for more examples of these.

If you win, all you have to do is take few snaps of what it is you'd like me to draw. It's as simple as that! You will receive the original illustration (not just a print of the original!) through the post completely free of charge.

All you have to do is pick your prize. That's if you win...

Make sense so far? Good ok.

And now how to enter...

First of all, I think it's fair for this to only be open to the lovely folk following my blog. But don't panic if you don't follow already! Just follow now, and you will be entered in to the giveaway straight away :) You will also be able to gain extra entries by doing any of the following:

- Tweet the link to this blog/post for one extra entry (be sure to tag me so I see you do it! Also you get an extra entry for each time you tweet the link, but don't overdo it...your followers might not like it!)

- Comment on this post for one extra entry

- 'Like' me on facebook for one extra entry (Click Here)

But remember, for any of these to be valid you must follow the blog first.

The giveaway is open to everyone worldwide including friends and family. But of course the winner will be selected fairly and at random out of a hat (old stylee). The Draw will take place on the 29th of May and the Winner will be announced the very same day.

And it all starts NOW!

Good Luck!

Kirsty x

Colegate, St Gregory's Church and Alysham Road

Another weekend, and thankfully another beautiful stretch of time to fill up with whatever I please (namely another post!)

A few lovely things have come about this week. I've (very) excitingly had offers of some mail art trades (not sure if that's the official term but pah never mind if it isn't!) So very much looking forward to getting some lovely objects in the post and even more excited for the challenge of coming up with something as equally lovely to send back. Here's hoping anyways! I'll keep you posted on that front and show you what I get and what I give.

Also I was very flattered and honoured to be featured on a beautiful blog Mathilde ♥ Manech. This was a first for me, to be spoken about on a blog. It's always so insightful to hear what others have to say about my drawings, and it got me thinking about all the ways in which this kind of feedback takes form. I have to admit that my secret favourite is to watch people's reactions to what I have on display from afar. I love floating around at an exhibition and sneaking glances over at where my drawings are to see people pondering and pointing at parts of the Illustrations. I love the anonymity of it all. I'm not on display...my work is and it's there to speak for me. Sitting at a stall and being aware of curious fingers rifling through my prints is lovely too. And sometimes I'm close enough to hear a nice comment. You can imagine how excited I get when I sell! I hope I am always this excited. I think its a good thing.

Finally, I have also been asked to draw a house as a keepsake, which I am more than thrilled about! I'll be making a start on that within the next few weeks and will show you when it's complete and in it's new home (so as to not spoil the surprise for the recipient!)

On to the drawings! I've covered all the long Illustrations now, and these are the smaller of the bunch (although still quite big)...(Oh and there are some words with the images for you to read or not read...whichever you wish!)

St Gregory's Church (Pottergate) Norwich - James Bishop and Susannah Filgate married here in 1816. My Great-Great-Great-Great Grandparents.
I drew this on location and couldn't believe how many people came over and spoke to me. This always happens whenever I draw on location. I must have a friendly face or perhaps people are wondering what on earth I'm doing doodling onto a fax roll. Either way I do love a spot of friendly chat with passers by!

The coloured version of this Illustration (shown above) was produced digitally, using the principle of applique. I just used scanned textiles rather then the traditional method of stitching pieces on.

This is one of the few remaining medieval buildings on Colegate (Norwich). So it would have been a daily sight for my ancestors who lived and worked on Colegate. In the early part of the 1700's.

On my explorations around Colegate I found some back Alleys littered with beautiful old buildings. Unfortunately I didn't have an exact address for where my family lived so I had to improvise a little. This Old Hall had a wall draped in Ivy and stunning stained glass windows. I did this drawing on location, and you can even see my foot poking in at the bottom of the Illustration. It took me a day and was one of my earlier drawings. I loved the end result and what I knew I could get out of not shying away from detail and spending long amounts of time on the drawings. So it certainly encouraged me to take on the longer street drawings.
















Another Old Building sandwiched between a Georgian House and a new build, On Colegate. The doomers added to the higher storeys are typical of the late 1600's and would have provided extra work space and light for the people who would have gone about their weaving and spinning in their homes. (As everyone did at that time). This was a textile piece and featured the pattern from an archived piece of pink and white glazed worsted damask. The maker is unknown but it's from Norwich and has been dated at around the 1750s. I found it as part of my research at the Norwich Costume and Textile Museum.

An Old Georgian House on Alysham Road. My Grandparents lived in a room here when they were first married in the 1930's. This old VW has been there ever since I can remember and I would alway skip past this little scene on trips to see my Grandparent's who still lived close by.

And so, I sit here with my sketchbook of drawings and research sat on my lap, and although I have always leafed through them every now and again I am still slightly shocked at just how much I have. Perhaps one day I'll get around to cataloguing it all online for people who are interested in the Norwich and it's history, and who knows perhaps even some very distant relatives!

It's funny how a family can live and grow over the generations floating about in the same areas. My three years at the Norwich School of Art were centered around St George's Street in Norwich which you may or may not know, is just off Colegate. So a part of me has been there for hundreds of years. I would urge anyone with even a vague interest in family history to have a little delve into their past. You never know what you might find!

See you next time :)