I’ve been absent from ye olde blog lately. It’s been a busy time here in old Mapperley-topsville. Halloween’s been and gone (shocking! – no pun intended). The trick and treaters ate ALL my sweets – totally not cool. I spent most of last week either living at the cinema or buried in my paints. The painting right at the top is finished, phew! and it’s the biggest I’ve done so far so I’m really pleased with how it’s come out. As you can see there’s a handful more I’m currently working on. I’m looking forward to framing the finished pieces and who knows they might make a formal appearance in the lovely shop sometime before Christmas!

Talking of Christmas – The cards are back for sale in the shop and a new one will be joining them before the week is out. Not to forget some lovely new stocking fillers will be tagging along too – I just need a new staple gun to complete that mission.

The Makeover mission’s been a proper challenge recently but I’ll come back to that with pictures and heart wrenching tales of sighs and grumps. Until then, for those of you who have some halloween candy left over – enjoy! For those of you, like me, who don’t – Fancy a cuppa?

ps for the next 24 hours (until 11am Thursday) get yourself 20% off in my shop! use the code BLACKCATS.

pps – A little Halloween illya roar for those of you who missed it:

Here are some (very pink) snap shots of my doodle from this weekend’s “Raise the Roof” festival that was going on at Nottingham Contemporary. Sorry about the poor picture quality – I should be getting some better ones soon but I wanted to share a picture of my life size cat lady. I love doing these wall doodles!

Some new hand painted cotton spool baubles have entered the shop!

My drawings start off really scruffy and by the time I’m armed with a pen they look awful! I’ve mentioned in previous posts about how I try to be a perfectionist when it comes to doodling in sketchbooks and I find it really tricky to let my hair down, so to speak, and just draw. But it’s a really nice feeling when a picture you almost give up on  turns into something your’re really pleased with. I think what I’m trying to say is: Scruffy is good.

And now there is a new print in the shop :)

2 new paintings making their way into the shop! Both these pieces were in the recent show at the Malt Cross and are priced at £55 each. Keep your eyes peeled for more paintings up for grabs very soon!

A new print/character I’m working on at the moment. I like her tights.

A smaller version of a familiar print is now in the shop! Priced at £12, measures 8.3″ x 8.7″ (A4) it’s ready for framing. It will arrived signed on the back and wrapped up safely in a hard back envelope. I’ve missed this print and it was one of my favourites so it’s made me really happy to see it return to the shelves. The Larger version, which many of you have been asking about over the months, will return one day but I can’t say when. As soon as I have enough space and the right machines to make it :)

I’ve also released a limited edition print in blue! This has a print run of only 25 and once they’re gone they’re gone. Available here!

brrrr, it’s not warm enough yet to wear just this!!

I bought this desk YEARS ago from a charity shop for the grand total of £3!! It’s been living in a friends basement and ever since, mainly because I could never find an easy way of getting it home via public transport and I kept forgetting about it. But as you can see I finally brought it home!! It has little legs you can screw on the bottom but for now they’re tucked away inside and I have just the top resting on my work table. It makes the table the perfect height for painting projects so I’ve nicknamed it my ‘paint station’ for now. In the past I’ve been using big books to lean on (as you can see in this older post) as an attempt to limit the back damage I keep accidentally inflicting on myself. Fingers crossed this beauty does the trick!

Below: The spring flowers are filtering their way into a lot of my doodles at the moment (but I think that was a bit obvious in the recent sketch book updates). Anyway, here are some of the beautiful flowers I’ve been enjoying and some examples of how I’ve been putting them in my pictures.

And here is a random illya picture:

I’m trying to keep up with number 6 on my list (my missions for 2011). I’ve spent 2 days doodling in a sketchbook and thought I’d pick out some of my favourites and share them with you. I’m a little bit addicted to that chevron pattern now…