My Favourite Sculpture

Today Rich and I had the day in Bath, we've both been working pretty hard lately so I felt we deserved a brake, one of the places we always have to and have a look in is The Victoria Art Gallery, it's free to go in and they have some really amazing stuff on display.

My favourite thing is the sculpture they have in the entrance hall...



This is 'Lady-Hare on Dog' by Sophie Ryder, I think it just wonderful, I love the fact that the artist has used toys, kitchen implements and bits of old metal like bike chains and stuff in the casting.



Whenever we're usual there its always surrounded by kids looking at all the pieces in it and trying to recognize them, I really love the fact that this sculpture seems to draw so many people to it, you can't help but want to touch it!



You can see where Dog's nose has gone all shiny because everyone strokes him as they go past! No day out in Bath is complete without saying hello to Dog and Lady-Hare!

Shop Update

I have just updated my shop with my latest Christmas card designs, hopefully there will be some more stuff going up in the next few days including another Paper Circus!









Merry almost Christmas!

©Under The Stair Studios

Fairys

Here's some bits I produced for a small company in Ireland a few months back, the theme was fairy's and was aimed at little girls from about 4 to 8 years old, the idea is that these images can be used on any produce from stationary to kids wear.







© Kat Whelan 2008

Watercolour Illustrations

Just a quick update to show I am still alive and drawing, these are just some ideas I've been playing around with lately, not for anything in particular mostly to keep my hand in and because I love using watercolours!





© Kat Whelan

Web Work

I realize I haven't been updating much but that has mostly been as I've been waiting to finish up some deadline's before I could show you what I've been up to.

One of my latest briefs has been for a blogging friend of mine, I've been designing some banners or her web site (soon to be redesigned to include my stuff!) Her site is a gardening and green living web site/forum, pretty cool stuff, just up my street!

Here's what I've produced for her:






















Here's Lucy's web site, check out the forum, there's some really good ideas on there!

http://www.ruralmuse.co.uk/

Selling Cards

I haven't had chance to post these last couple of weeks, I've been run of my feet finishing verious jobs (which I shall post about later!) and getting cards ready for shops, I am now selling to a new shop in Bath. The Widcombe Gift company has taken 17 cards from me to see how they sell (fingers crossed that their popular!)

Dancing Hares

I've got a real thing about hares, I just love them for some reason. This would be why they seem to end up all over my designs, I cant help it they just scurry on there and they wont budge!

Anyway I have got the latest Etsy offering up in my shop, my Paper Circuses are now available to the world at large, lets home some nice people want to give them good homes!...and what has this got to do with hares, well I couldn't resist doing a dancing hare circus.









I don't care if no one but me likes it, the one I made for the photos will sit on my little desk making my happy!

Etsy

Finally, I have my shop up and running (I think?!), the test will come when someone wants to buy something. It was pretty easy and straight forward, nice and user friendly thankfully or I'd be really stuck!

Take a look and let me know what you think

UnderTheStairStudios.etsy.com

Pigs in Bath

We live in Bath in the UK, it's a really beautiful Georgian city (for those who may not have been!), at the moment around the city we have a public art event going on called King Bladud's Pigs, basically we have around 100 life sized pig sculptures all around the town that have been personalized by local artist and designers. Each pig has been sponsored by a local business and will be auctioned of in October (if you want to know more here's the link to the official website)

I really love this idea, every time I go in to town I spot one I haven't seen before, I'm a bit sad they'll only be around till the end of summer, anyway here are some I hunted out today.























I think my favourite so far is this last one, hes so cute!

I'm also worried I am become a little obsessive about this and start trying to photograph them all!

Circuses

I love paper sculptors, well any sort of 3d paper design is pretty cool in my book, I always love the idea that something that look's so intricate and complicated can be make out of something as simple and ordinary as a sheet of card.

These are the latest idea for my Esty shop (hopefully up and running in the next few weeks!) they are paper circuses, each one is design for a special occasion, Birthday, Wedding and New Baby. The idea is that if you wanted to send something a little more impressive that an ordinary card or if you were struggling to find a present for a special someone then these would be perfect.

They are all hand make my me, and the disk in the center spins round so you can see all the little illustrations, a small message can be written on either side of the flag on the top so you can put who its too and who its from.







I'm not sure how well these will sell but I'm going to give them a try and see how they go, hopefully I can add to the designs if they are popular.

Butterflies

Phew, finally I've got round to updating! Sorry its taken so long, mad, mad week last week leading to not much art work being done and lots of boring stuff like sorting my computer out and ordering from my card supplier!

Anyway this is a quickie update, hopefully there will be more photos tomorrow, the latest idea I'm playing around with is a small verse range with 3d butterflies.

I'll take some pic's tomorrow to demonstrate the butterflies better, the idea is the wings are die cut and pop put of the card, so it looks like they just landed on it, I'm pretty please with the finale look, lets hope they come out in the photos!

Up Date

Finally some quick photos so you can see the effect of the butterflies.

New Cards

The last week or so I have been working on some ideas for small cute cards, I'm hoping to open an Etsy shop in the next couple of months so this is hopefully some of the stock that will be featuring in it.

These cards will be 7 x 9.5 cm so pretty small, I have always prefer smaller cards, I think people tend to hand on to them as a keep sack if they are small enough to put away or they get kept out on show long as they don't take up vast amounts of room and get in the way.

The cards will feature a 3D pop out, this makes them stand better on a flat surface and also adds a little some thing extra!

These cards are aimed at women but I thing the subtle blue colouring would make them ok for the man in your life too.

I'll keep you up dated as I develop this range, at the moment it only has 6 occasions but if they are popular I will extend it.