The Little Eggs

I was very flattered to be asked by The Big Egg Hunt to paint a limited edition of ten ostrich eggs for their pop-up shop in Selfridges. But pride goes before a fall and the operation did not come off without at least one casualty, and yes it was a completely finished one that rolled off the table onto the floor and smashed into little pieces.


These eggs come from Africa, and measure approximately 18 cm (7inches) in height. Their surface is a layer of dimpled cream enamel which is and varied in texture yet gives it a ceramic feel. I've included a picture below of the hole each has where the egg is blown to remove the yolk and white. The Big Egg Hunt shop also sells the unpainted ostrich eggs for £20. 


The colours of these do vary. 

Egg boxes

Painting

Hole where the egg is blown

First set of three

                                  

Last seven

Egg display in Selfridges

wOL on the shelf courtesy of Steve Newton 

Postcard from wOL painting competition 

 All proceeds raised by the The Big Egg Hunt go to the The Elephant Family.


Please scroll down to see blogs about the original egg.

wOL's location - The Big Egg Hunt

Map of Covent Garden 

Although The Big Egg Hunt maps are a quite wonderful design, the Covent Garden egg zone doesn't go far enough to show wOL's current location for he is currently residing at the end of King Street, where Garrick Street meets Bedford Street. So I've marked the spot with a red target to the left.

Also, I was very pleased to see Creative Review have included wOL in a nice little article this week. The graphic designer in me is quietly proud.

In situ. Picture courtesy of Steve Newton

The Big Egg Hunt

wOL the egg

Today is launch day for The Big Egg Hunt. It's an event comprising of two hundred decorated eggs that have been painted, embellished or cut away in beautiful patterns by a wide range of individuals from artists and architects to artisans and famous personalities. We've all had a little go a redesigning the ovoid. Now the results have all been scattered about London, to await discovery. After the success of the Elephant Parade 2010, The Elephant Family, took on board the fact that people really enjoyed searching for as many different elephants as they could find. And so they came up with a traditional egg hunt for their next project.

Some of the eggs are highly exotic precious pieces made from all sorts of wonderful materials, some have a serious message, but mine is just a brightly painted bit of fun really. My original design was a dragon that was going to wrap itself around the shape. The owl was an afterthought, a doodle I sent in case they had a spare egg to do, but the organisers preferred it. 

Dragon. Felt tip on paper.

Owl. Felt tip on paper

Since waving goodbye to wOL he's been swanning around London - apparently he's been seen in all the right places. When he eventually settles on a perch, I'll let the location be known. 


I'll have more about The Big Egg Hunt at a later date. Till then ahh, look at him...

By a BIG clock

By a BIG Hotel

By some BIG lights

Lunar New Year of the Dragon - Royal Mail

Click on image to enlarge

                                    
The Chinese New Year was celebrated this year with a stamp set that depicted its firework celebrations. But this stamp sheet also had stickers of celebrations from around the UK as well as the five dragon stickers; Metal, Earth, Fire, Wood and Water.

One of the decorative dragons

I was asked to make dragons for the sheet and for the stickers. The decorative dragons were made up of lots of separate layers of scales, but the sticker designs had to be simple enough to shrink down, yet fit comfortably within the sticker format.

My original snap shots of the five dragon stickers are below. These were then professionally photographed to produce more shadow and thus depth for the final artwork.

Earth

Fire

Metal

Water

Wood

The sheet can be purchase here at the Royal Mail shop for the price of £9.50. 


I believe they have gone down extremely well and the client is very pleased.  

Royal Mail Yearbook 2011

Front casing for annual

A Happy New Year for me has brought a copy of the Royal Mail Special Stamps Issue 2011(to give it its correct title). A fortunate year as not only was I asked to design a stamp sheet, I also got to illustrate a section of the book that features the World Wildlife Fund's stamp issue.

Continuous line (starting and finishing at the tiger) made up of endangered species on the
WWF list. Click to enlarge

I was asked by Magpie Studio to work on this project, and it was their idea to have an illuminated letter as an introduction to each section. They also wanted each initial to come together on both the book's casing and its front cover image, to spell out ROYAL MAIL. A total of nine Illustrators were separately commissioned to take on each issue section in order to give the project an eclectic feel.  

The Royal Shakespeare stamp sheet issued in April

The Royal Mail issues an album every year and included in each plush edition is a full set of stamps. The Royal Shakespeare Company stamp sheet I worked on for Hat-trick was issued in April 2011, and so that has a page of its own too!

Layout of WWF page

Detail of the 'M' tiger on cover

The Royal Mail Yearbook is a wonderful album to own. I've had a full-page illustration included before, but more importantly for me it is so wonderful to be involved in the creative side of stamp issues. I've had a lifetime's obsession with these little pieces of divine graphics, as I've collected them avidly since childhood, and British Stamps especially. And for that reason alone I am extremely proud to have the Royal Mail as a client. 


A little more detail (a review) about the yearbook from The World of Stamps website is here.

Emperor Penguin Christmas Card

This year's Christmas card is a penguin, plain and simple. It's the fourth year I have managed to design a 3-dimensional animal for the annual family greeting. There's no particular reason that I choose animals, they just work well and seem friendly. For the design the only criteria I conform to is firstly an easy construction, simply because I have to make a large quantity, secondly that they are printed on one side of a piece of paper (this includes the greeting) and thirdly that they fold flat to fit into envelopes. 

On the technical side I work out the mechanics of the prototype then scan the plan onto my computer. I do a few things in Photoshop and Illustrator before printing the result onto cartridge paper. Then there's a bit of cutting, scoring and folding. I decided to use felt tip for the penguin's crown as it made it look more like a party hat. 


As well as family and friends I send them out to clients where they tend to go down well. They are often mentioned and it's extremely pleasing when recipients keep them.


My blogs about previous Christmas card designs can be found here.

                                    
Finally, I would like to wish you all very merry Christmas!                                

Elephant Parade Books

As Pavonia currently stands on Orchard Road in Singapore I thought I'd do a little blog about the books that accompany each of these charitable art events. Not much to say really, but part of the joy of painting these elephants is viewing my work alongside that of Paul Smith and Ricky Gervais (yes, that Ricky Gervais), as well as many other prominent celebrities and talented artists. And if I can't be there to see them in situ, then this comes as second best. 

The pictures below are the hardback editions of Elephant Parade Copenhagen and Elephant Parade Singapore.

Covers 

I spend weeks painting these enormous works and am not embarrassed to say I'm slightly sad when I have to part with them. So it's nice to be reminded of them in print, even if it's just for a keepsake.

Paradise Lost: I felt I wanted to say something about the loss of forestation in my design. Not just about plants and trees, or indeed the Asian elephants, but about all the other creatures that live by symbiosis there. 

Pavonia: I wanted to paint beautiful colours and patterns onto the surface - to make it a gorgeous.

To see more pictures of these elephants here are the links to my past blogs for Pavonia and Paradise Lost. 

Whiskey Label

This miniature whiskey label was designed for the owner of a private House in Scotland. The client wanted his ten year old single malt from the Islay distillery in Bruichladdich bottled-up to send out to clients and friends.

Hat-trick came up with the concept of printing the house on the reverse of the label so it can be viewed through the bottle between the house's distinctive gates.

There's a little pack shot-film of the bottle below by Laura Bowman who also did the graphics. 

I have yet to acquire any file copies.  

The private Estate in Scotland 

Elephant Parade Singapore

Pavonia

I first stepped out onto the street at the heart of Singapore about five years ago. En route from Vietnam to London I thought this tiny republic warranted a day's stopover between flights. Its main shopping centre, Orchard Road was lined with trees that were wrapped tightly in white-spotted red paper with baubles hanging from their branches and decorated to match. I don't know why they were there, but they looked quite fantastic. And perhaps it was the humidity or the fact that we'd come from the extreme contrast of Ho Chi Minh City, but they made the vast thoroughfare seem quite unreal, and despite fitting in a few Singapore Slings at the Long Bar, they remain my overriding impression of the stay.

So it's fabulous to now hear that Pavonia, my latest elephant for The Elephant Parade Singapore, is going to be placed in this famous street. And I hope he, and the rest of the elephants have the same sort of effect on the shoppers and tourists that the bizarrely wrapped trees had on me.

 Orchard Road, Singapore 2006

The idea for this elephant started as an M.C.Escher type attempt at patterning the leaves into the spaces where the branches met, but at some point I started painting a peacock in an ear and really liked it. Then the backside seemed a good place to paint another, and then the rest just happened. 

Pavo is the genus of Peafowl or Peacock. But only the male has the wide-eyed patterns that fan out from its tail feathers during courtship displays. 


There's nothing like a bit of post-rationalisation.

Escher inspired leaf/branch pattern

Peacock in the ear

Frederic, Lord Leighton, Pavonia, 1858-9
Inspiration for the name, not the image!

If you know Singapore or just want to see where the elephants are going to be, you can find them on this pdf. Pavonia is number 35.


Other elephants and an orangutan can be found on my website: http://www.rebeccasutherland.co.uk/

Pavonia is being sponsored by ABN-AMRO Private Banking. 

Kate Mayfield: Mini Card Identity

Kate Mayfield is a writer friend of mine. She has recently completed The Undertaker's Women, a memoir of growing up as the daughter of an undertaker in a small Southern town in America. Far from being dour Kate is bright and funny with a penchant for the gothic that comes more from a fascination of Victoriana and the modern take on the term, than the obvious link to her late father's occupation. 


Although she's currently penning a novel Kate has recently been busy with book functions and was feeling the need to get a little card made up with her details on. So we discussed a small run of business cards for the purpose. My only brief was the mini size and possibly the use of illuminated letters for her initials. I drew up the "wrought" K and M from a selection of letters we'd both been looking at and was very pleased with her reaction of complete delight when I showed her. Apparently the ironwork lamp outside her father's funeral parlour looked just like the lettering - which is pure coincidence, but nice. I also like the fact that the cards are rather like a bookmark and can be used as such.


Since the printed cards have arrived I think they've gone down very well with clients and friends. And unable to choose, most people have been taking one of each colour. 

Roughs from the printer

                                        

White Card

Black Card

Kate Mayfield writes a blog called Here and Hereafter.