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:

We have a table! We wanted a double drop leaf table so we could use it as a breakfast bar most days but have the extra optional table space if anyone visits. Right now though we only have one chair so we have to take it in turns.

Our sofa is drowning under cushions and I refuse to get rid of any of them – no matter how much of a faff it can be sometimes to sit down.

And illya is loving her hideously pink and fluffy cushion cover. I cheap alternative to the expensive sheep skin rugs that were at the old house. I think she assumed they were siblings because they got cleaned and nibbled from time to time. I was going to get her one so she had a little bit of comfort during the move but when I saw the price tag I did a little shudder. Fortunately I found this tough pink monstrosity and it’s living up perfectly to it’s cat mat job.

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 :)

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

Horray! Next week I’ll be painting on the walls of Nottingham Castle as part of the touring V & A Street Art exhibition. A couple of us local Nottingham folk (Jon Burgerman, GING, DLK, smallkid – to name a few) have been asked to join in and bring some extra colour to the building while the show is being hosted here in the Castle. EXCITING TIMES!!!

For more info and updates here’s their facebook page!

Runs From July 2nd – September 25th!

I’m having a weird day today. Is anyone else feeling that? Maybe there’s a storm-a-comin’. I think it’s been a weird start to the month in truth which is probably why I’ve been so quiet on here, sorry about that! I did find out that 3 days of pure procrastination means you end up with a comfy crochet shawl – so it can’t be all bad. I’ll get some pictures of it to show you. I’m a mixture of ‘pleased as punch’ and ‘guilt ridden’ because I probably shouldn’t have spent 3 days playing about with wool…

Anyway! Even though today’s been an odd one I did mange to squeeze out a new design for a new card that is slowly making its way into the shop! Can’t say no to a cat lady!

Boy oh Boy it’s getting busy busy from where I’m sat so to calm things down a little I thought I’d share a test-doodle I’ve just finished. Inspired by the Moscow State Circus who were in town last week, it’s hopefully going to go towards a project I’m part of this summer – really exciting! I’m so pleased with how the test has come out I might even make it into a print! What do you think?

UPDATED – it’s now a print available in the shop!

2 new prints and a new tote bag! And now they’re in the shop! Print’s measure 8″x 6″ and priced at £10 each. The Tote bags cost £8 each. Woop woop!

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:

Short hair stripy cat – £20 (Measures 7.1″ x 9.1″) Acrylic on Card

Scruffy stripey cat – £20 (Measures 7.1″ x 9.1″) Acrylic on Card

Email me if you’re interested in purchasing any of them! (Hello [at] amyblackwell.co.uk )

Postage and packaging: UK = £2, International = £4.

(Payments through Paypal only)