Interzone. Nearly.

rejected piece from Interzone. Andy was right.

new baby card competition

Kicked out of bed for the hayfever snores...

My entry for a competition to design a new baby greetings card.

Terms and conditions

1. 

So...where have you all been?

My friend Jenny emailed me one day and said 'would this be of any interest to you?'. She was referring to a competition to illustrate the new Julia Donaldson book - 'Freddie and the Fairy'. I though about it for about three seconds and decided to enter. I had less than two weeks to complete five colour character sketches and a full page double spread. If any of you know my daughter then you know how little time I actually have to do any work. But, for once I worked to a deadline and it was good. I loved it. I actually liked the piece.

It got posted on the day Emily was having an endoscope examination at Yorkhill. As a result of trying to get back to the hospital I never had time to find a printer that could do large scale uploads - so I had to make do with two horrendous A3 colour copies. Like most people (I suspect) I thought I might be one of the six shortlisted, so never bothered too much about the 'send original art which cannot be returned' part of the terms and contracts. Naturally, I wasn't shortlisted, and joined a queue of people suddenly thinking, 'Shit - they're going to trash my work'. Meh - you win some lose some. I like the idea of my picture being recycled...maybe into a nice pair of sap green knickers (If anyone wants to start a range then get in touch :)) Anyway, I digress - all I had left to show for my efforts was the photocopies, which scanned into my computer with all the colour definition of a chalk drawing at gthe bottom of a lake. I tried to fix it the best I could in photoshop but most of the colour has been lost - most notably the green hue that permeated the background. I can't use it as a folio piece but it's a nice cationary tale nonetheless.

I'll do another post about the other entries. Some of them really, really need to get published.


Current listening - Die Krupps - Machineries of Joy