Being and illustrator and a mother of a two year old can sometimes be a little challenging during the month of January. As an artist, the Christmas rush is over and inspiration is now needed to start this year’s line of prints and crafts. As a mum, January’s harsh wind and rain tend to lead to little, bored noses pressed up against window panes in need of mum’s bright ideas!
So what better way of breaking the grey, drizzly monotony of this month than getting stuck into as much colour as possible? For Jules that means recycling all of those amazingly colourful sweetie wrappers that (after shamelessly eating all the chocolate!) we then saved over Christmas. Together we stick wrappers, foils and whatever else we can find onto card and contact paper to make fabulous collages to cheer things up again in the house after all the Christmas decorations were taken down. We also have fun with pasta, rice and grains which we dye every colour of the rainbow, using food colouring and vinegar (check out our Facebook page this month for the recipe). Jules can spend hours scooping them up into various tubs, containers and beakers and admittedly I can spend hours hovering up afterwards! It’s still great fun though….
As for me, I get out my own inner child and let loose with plenty of vibrant inks, thick, rich oils and even jams and jellies which please the eye as well as the tummy. Surrounding myself with colour at this time of the year lifts the spirits and helps me breathe life into my new creations.
It’s an exciting year ahead for Little Cloggs as a fledgling business and I hope to launch two new print collections by the end of this year, as well as continuing the prints that are already becoming firm favourites. I hope you will continue to send us your cheerful comments, messages and suggestions as they are very much enjoyed and next time you look at a bare piece of wall in your own home and feel the urge for some colour, I hope you will choose one of my illustrations to lift your spirits!
Happy New Year….!