A random conversation about old one pound notes in the studio the other day led to the Edward Lear nonsense rhyme  going through my head. So I decided to illustrate the poem, and share the finished graphics with you.. You can buy them from the shop

You know the Poem? It’s wonderful..

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
‘O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!

Here’s an illustration I did with the graphics. This is going to be available as a print soon for my open studios exhibition which is coming up in May in Stroud, Gloucestershire. It’s getting busy in the studio, more time creating art and less time spent on GoldenBingo.co.uk! Anyway.. ff you are based anywhere near Stroud, it would be great to meet you. I’ll write a proper post about it all soon.

Happy new year everyone. Don’t know about you, but I’m winding up the creative juices for the new year. This means less sitting about eating wine and chocolate sadly, but I’m looking forward to getting back into some creativity. So, a trip to trendy Brighton town over the holiday inspired this tongue-in-cheek oh-s0o-ironic set of hipster designs. Really should have included some old school computers and star wars action figures.. but hey, i’m not perfect. And as it’s my first free set of the year, it’s in high resolution, and includes a vector file as well. Special treat. The designs are for your personal projects only – but if you DO want to use them in some kind of commercial venture, please go and buy a license from my shop here

So without further ado.. hit the download button

I’m holding a surprise sale in my shop today – everything is just £1.00 (excludes commercial use fee). This is a great time to stock up on digital craft supplies for your Christmas creations! Head over for a browse in the shop

October is breast cancer awareness month. 20 breast cancer awareness clipart illustrations in the shop now. Useful for fundraisers, posters, leaflets and community groups. Or just buy them to support the charity, even if you have no use for them.

ALL PROCEEDS FROM THE SALE OF THESE GRAPHICS WILL BE DONATED TO CANCER RESEARCH UK

CURRENT TOTAL: £0.00

FILE FORMATS YOU WILL RECEIVE
Vector EPS
Transparent PNG files
High quality JPEG files

LICENSE INFORMATION

For personal use. You may resell this set, so long as the proceeds go to the above charity.

TAGS: female, women, woman, feminine, cancer, support, fundraising, hope, cure, pink, ribbon, badge, lady, girl, october, 2012

Hey all, hope your weekend is going nicely. So, this is a quick post to say, I just hit 1500 likes on my facebook page! Yay! This makes me really happy, so i’ve just created a coupon code especially for my Facebook fans to use in my graphics shop. If you’d like to use the code, just head over to my page, ‘like’ it, then go to the shop and use the code 1500FB. If you’ve never bought anything from the shop before, now’s the ideal time – some things are as low as 50p with the coupon code.

Thanks so much to all my current and loyal  fans, I really enjoy chatting with all of you

If you’re planning to use photographs within your graphic design project, particularly ones of people, then you may want to learn a few looks-enhancing Photoshop techniques. After all, even the most beautiful models are only human, but Photoshop software offers an easy way to get that flawless finish that you see in magazines and catalogues. Or maybe you just want to tweak your facebook profile pic or a picture for a dating website Here are a couple of techniques which you may want to consider using.

One way to enhance beauty is to increase the colour intensity of your photo. You will need to use a high resolution image in order for this technique to work best. However, it only takes a couple of minutes, so you can complete this edit whilst browsing the ‘net, playing online foxy bingo (my new secret addiction, now not so secret :/), or working on any other design projects. First, start by making a duplicate layer of your image and then click Ctrl+M and increase the brightness of your new layer. Next, blur the image slightly by selecting the ‘filter’ function, then blur, and then choosing a blurring option, such as Gaussian Blur. Then, select filter again, and put a ‘Soft Light’ effect on your image. Finally, bring back the definition to your image by merging the edited layer with the original image.

You can also greatly improve the skin quality of your models by using a basic Photoshop technique. Using the Healing Brush Tool, hold the Alt key and click on a good, smooth area of skin, in order to create your sample. The let go of the Alt key, and continue to use this tool to touch up other areas of skin, removing any spots, scars or other blemishes. Use the Lasso Tool to select key areas, such as the eye. Then edit the Opacity of this area, changing settings to around 30% to make the area appear much brighter.

Seeing as its pouring down here today, I thought it might be nice to hold a surprise sale. Sunday afternoons can be great for getting creative. Of course if youre basking in glorious sunshine, please do make the most of it, and think of us in the gloom and grey here in the UK!

Visit http://www.melsbrushes.co.uk/shop/index.php to browse, I have lots of new products at the moment.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, best,
Mel

The Stroud Site Festival 2012 has been running now since the beginning of May. If you missed your chance to come and have a snoop in my studio at Stroud Valleys Artspace, here’s a virtual tour.. Both weekends went really well, with lots of visitors, and some really positive feedback which was great.  I met some lovely people and chatted all day long. It made all the hard work worthwhile! Yesterday my fellow studio members and I finished off the day with a much needed champagne toast. Great!

This is the painters studio on the top floor, where my space is..

And here’s my little room – the armchair is essential to sit and daydream and eat lunch in..

Some of the work on display – there was more but it got sold. I should have taken photos beforehand!

And my decoupage chair which got a lot of admiring comments. This is for sale, please contact me if you’re interested.. (UK only)

The next few weeks will be busy ones for me as I’m opening my studio doors for folks to come and have a peek at what I do. There will be prints and crafts for sale plus demonstrations and (much needed) explanations of how you can use the graphics I sell in my web shop. You can snigger at my unfinished art experiments gone wrong, wonder why I didnt clean up a bit more, and hopefully see a special piece of wall art if I can get in finished in time! The Stroud Valleys Artspace John St studios will be open on the weekends of 12th-13th May and the 19th-20th May. There are 26 painters, sculptors and textile artists in the building with lots of beautiful and varied artwork to enjoy. Here’s a taster..

The Site Festival is an artist led contemporary arts festival, now in its 16th year, which brings a full and dynamic programme of visual arts, performance, music, screenings, open studios, artist talks and workshops to the Stroud Valleys for the whole month of May. To view the Site Festival programme click here. The online version of the Open Studios brochure is here

Sorry people, my site got hacked, and I just spent the whole of Easter weekend cleaning up and reinstalling. Really not fun. It wasn’t chocolate eggs they hid in my server either.. As you can see, the look of this site has changed and it’s all muddled and confused (like me). I am working on it – but please bear with me if it’s a little slow, I have a lot on right now.
As for the shop. many of you have emailed me to ask about it, and I’m happy to say it’s now all fixed, so you can now safely head over there.

Thanks everyone for your patience, especially the lovely people who emailed with advice/support. I love you guys..