Doing funny things with lines

I've tried all kinds of art and craft from felting and crochet through to painting and pastels. Part of the fun is just having a go and seeing what happens, but eventually you have to focus in on something if you're ever going to grow and develop.

I'm not sure I'm ready for that just yet, but I've been trying to spot the threads running through what I enjoy the most. So far I've got...

• Simple, graphic-style line drawings (or woolly things!) 
• Not much perspective, a lot of 2D
• Making a connection with people - a smile, a nod, a memory. If I'm really lucky, a laugh.

I've also found creating something daily is incredibly useful for trying new techniques and coming up with new ideas. Over the summer I'm putting all of this together and posting cartoons on Instagram. 

I used to do little drawings as a teenager - I thought nothing of it at the time, I was just messing about with the kids at school. But it's great fun to be having another go and to be able to share them online.

Here are my first few...

I feel like drawing some cartoon style stuff this summer. Here's the first... #cartoon #cartoonart #cartoonarts #monster #monsterart

A post shared by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Aug 2, 2017 at 12:43am PDT

Today's cartoon and I'm learning how to get across emotions using a few strokes of a pen. Today's challenge = embarrassed hamster! #hamsters #cartoon #drawing #sharpieart

A post shared by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Aug 3, 2017 at 12:00am PDT

Today's cartoon inspired by the times I tried to repot cacti. #cacti #cactus #drawing #sharpie #sharpieart

A post shared by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Aug 4, 2017 at 12:27pm PDT

Today's cartoon #carrots #stuntman #drawing #drawingcartoon #cartoon #cartoonart

A post shared by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Aug 5, 2017 at 12:30pm PDT

I know, very silly.

With a daily thing like this some work well and some are duds, but each time I've tried it I've learned loads. It's well worth a try if you fancy it.

Update: I've really struggled to draw daily so far because of life in general getting in the way. But I'm doing my best and staying relaxed about it.

Amazon Merch: Getting started

I like art and I'm also a bit of a geek, so I love the idea of combining the two and selling the result online.  In other words, using print on demand to sell my designs on t-shirts, canvases, mugs, pillows and anything else I can find!

If you're not familiar with print on demand, this is where the customer buys the product and then the item is printed to order and shipped to the customer.

A few months ago I discovered Amazon Merch, which is Amazon's print on demand service. It's still only available to buyers in the USA and you can currently only print on t-shirts, but I wanted to get some designs on Amazon ready for when the service is rolled out to the rest of the world and more products are available.

And of course I can sell on Amazon.com immediately.  

The first challenge with Merch is that it can take months to be approved (for me it was just over three months). So if you're thinking of trying it, apply right now (link). 

My application came through a week or so ago and as you have 120 days to get your first design up before your account is inactivated, it was time to get designing! 

You need to upload a .png file with the right dimensions and a transparent background. Amazon provide templates to help. That part is fairly easy. What is more challenging is... 

- Finding a design that will sell (there's tons of competition) 

- Optimising your product description so people can find it when they search

I'm still working on  these because it's early days!

Another challenge is the copycatting that goes on. If you do hit upon a popular design, the chances are someone will copy and undercut yours, so it pays to not share all your designs in one easy to find place. 

For this reason I'm only sharing one of mine here...

T shirt to celebrate the USA solar eclipse on August 21 2017. I've always been an astronomy fan so I drew this sun by hand and put it on a t-shirt! Currently available only at Amazon.com, here's the link bit.ly/eclipseT

A post shared by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Jul 30, 2017 at 2:52am PDT

There are already  tons of t-shirts on this theme so it's not exactly risky.  (No, I didn't do much research before I came up with this one. I'll try harder next time!) 

As you can tell, it's early days for me. I always reckon the best way to learn is to just dive in and do it. After making so many digital products I love the fact I can make physical products, too. Great fun!

If you'd like to know more about Merch I recommend the Merch Entrepreneur podcast.

If you have any questions on Merch just let me know and I'll do my best to help.

Opening Night at the 25 and Counting exhibition

Wednesday 5th July 2017 and it's the opening night of the 25 and Counting exhibition at the Panacea Museum in Bedford...

At the #25andcounting exhibition!

A post shared by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Jul 5, 2017 at 11:12am PDT

Yes, this is the 'woman' exhibition I've been mentioning for the past 6 months or so! The name has been changed to reflect the twenty-five plus women who are now contributing.

The exhibition is mostly on the top floor of this beautiful Victorian building, which was part of a religious community until just a few years ago.

Beautiful garden at The Panacea Museum #25andcounting

A post shared by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Jul 5, 2017 at 11:43am PDT

The aim of the exhibition is to make women's art more visible. This seems a noble enough aim, but once I found out just how little women's work appears in galleries around the world... well, I was shocked.

'Work by women artists makes up only 3–5% of major permanent collections in the U.S. and Europe,  and 34% in Australian state museums.'  - nmwa.org/advocate/get-facts

To attempt to redress this balance, women are putting on their own exhibitions. And that is the goal of Ana Ortega and Sophie Atkins of NOHATcollective, who organised 25 and Counting.

I've written in previous posts about how I found this subject hard. It was so broad yet at the same time so personal. And for me, 'broad yet personal' describes the exhibition, too. Each piece tells something about an individual's experience of being a woman, whether that's her personal story...

Nike, goddess of victory at #25andcounting exhibition by Wendy Watmough

A post shared by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Jul 5, 2017 at 11:49am PDT

Wendy Matmough discovered Nike the goddess of victory was the symbol of her own home town, which resonated with her own experience of overcoming a difficult marriage.

...or an experience shared by almost all women around the world...

Our Labour of Love celebrating women around the world who cook every day by Jackie Hodgson #25andcounting

A post shared by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Jul 5, 2017 at 11:51am PDT

... or more political  statements about about how women's rights are in danger of being eroded (One of the Monkeys on The Back of Womankind by Helen Jones - I didn't manage to get a photo of this one).

Each one is like a window into someone else's world.

Here's mine, it still seems surreal to see my own work hanging on a wall at an art exhibition!

Thank you and congratulations to Ana and Sophie.

The exhibition is open at The Panacea Museum in Bedford until 12th August.

Mixed media Art Workshop at Bedford Arts and Crafts Centre

I spend a lot of my art and craft time at home, learning from the Internet, so it was a real treat to go out for a whole day last Saturday. I went along to a mixed media workshop with a couple of friends from the craft group I attend and spent a full five hours of interrupted time just making stuff.

Yes, I did eat some lunch but I timed it to fit around my work's drying time!

The tutor was Lisa Tilley who is a textile artist at uoldbag as well as teaching at Bedford Arts and Crafts Centre.

The day started with Lisa talking us through her process for exploring and experimenting with a variety of techniques and materials. I found this really helpful because I've fumbled my way through a process for the last two exhibitions and it turns out I wasn't too far off track. Maybe I'm being a bit too hard on myself because it was based on the process I was taught as a design and technology teacher. That was a long time, ago, though!

The big lesson for me was to not be too concerned about the outcome in the early stages and just see what happens. I've also been a little hesitant lately about practical things like which glue should I use to stop my work falling apart? Why does my thread keep breaking when I try free-motion machine embroidery? Lisa helped me by answering lots of these questions.

Then we got stuck in to the making. The main techniques in the morning were batik and printing. Batik is 'drawing' with hot wax on fabric or paper, then applying dye, followed by removing the wax with a hot iron. Then you can repeat the process if you want to. Here's the first one of mine (blue dye on purple fabric):

With the printing, we applied (thick, sticky) printing ink to a plastic sheet then either removed some or put in objects to cover some of the sheet before pressing a piece of paper on top. Here's one where I scribbled in the ink:

I'd not used either technique before, so I spent quite a while just experimenting, to find out what was possible and how the materials behaved.

Once our work had dried it was time to layer it up, combine it or add embroidery (hand or machine). When I've tried this before I've struggled with composition. I'm never sure how to change a collection of objects into something that looks like a whole. So I did a lot of arranging and rearranging. 

I've been playing around with sewing and crocheting on paper this year, so this was also a good opportunity to pick Lisa's brains on how to approach this!

I decided I needed a theme and as I've been playing around with ink and lines lately, I decided on 'words'. 

Here's what I came up with:

Top right: a page of the script from the film Casblanca, with batik on top.

Top left: printing inspired by hand lettering or maybe a signature

Bottom left: Batik pattern inspired by some of the artwork on the Lindisfarne Gospels with hand embroidery on top.

Bottom right: A print of a feather with silver ink added on top.

Middle: Quote by John Dryden 'Words are but pictures of our thoughts' on thick paper with torn edges.

This was great practice at going with the flow, as this was a more experimental approach than I normally take. Usually I have the end result in mind when I begin.

It was a really enjoyable workshop and I learned quite a bit, too. If you're in the Bedford area I recommend taking a look at the programme on offer at Bedford Arts and Crafts Centre.

Next time I fancy trying lino printing!

Hello impostor syndrome, welcome back!

A few weeks ago I handed in my art work for the Woman exhibition, which opens in just a couple of week's time. The exhibition is now called 25 And Counting.

All good. Then the publicity materials began to appear...

Also good, but I felt a bit of discomfort at 'An exhibition by woman artists'. I'm not a woman artist, I got a GCSE in art in 1988 and that's about all. Is my work art anyway? After all, I did it with marker pens.

Hello impostor syndrome, welcome back!

If you look up the definition of art, you'll find about a million different answers and my work is sure to fit into at least one of those definitions. If you need to have gone to art school to be an artist then I don't fit the requirements, but then again it's not like I'm practising medicine here. Nobody dies if I get it wrong.

And what does wrong mean in this context, anyway? Is it even possible to get it wrong? Perhaps knocking out something without thinking, caring or having a message might count as wrong. I definitely did none of those things, I gave this project a lot of thought.

Coming at this as an amateur gives me an interesting perspective, actually. I see the art world admiring conceptual art that makes you think and challenges you, but almost everyone else admiring art that shows technical skill and (often) looks very realistic. I feel like I'm bouncing around somewhere in the middle, feeling a fraud because I'm not clever (skilled? qualified? experienced?) enough for the conceptual stuff (yet?) but I don't have the technical skill to make myself feel confident as a layperson, either.

I could spend all my time going around in circles with this, but the only thing that will move me forward is to actually do it. Make something, anything. As I found with my online business, you learn by doing, not by planning and thinking. OK, some planning is good, but a surprising amount of my plans fall in to place as I'm practising, testing, playing around. Suddenly the fog clears and the path appears.

So my way through impostor syndrome is to stop thinking and start doing.

This was inspired by a post I read by Amanda Palmer yesterday. It's reassuring to read that someone as successful as Amanda still has to deal with these gremlins! If you don't know who she is, the best intro to her is probably her TED talk, The Art of Asking.

How do you deal with your impostor syndrome?

Just an average human? My latest piece is finished!

It seems a very long time since I agreed to take part in this summers' Woman exhibition but my work is done and the official hand-in date is tomorrow!

Here it is:

It's acrylic on canvas and the brief is here. 

The theme of women and identity was so incredibly broad that I found this really tough. Lack of experience was also a challenge for me, I had some ideas that looked great in my mind but I didn't have the skills or experience to go ahead and create them! Eventually I decided to pick one idea and dive in; I'd learn what I needed to know as I went along. 

If you're wondering what my painting is all about here's the statement that I'm submitting alongside it...

What is it about me that makes me a woman? What is my identity as a woman? And how do I feel about it?

As I explored what this might mean I found nothing really resonated with me. I didn’t understand why until I realised I was digging down through clichés and stereotypes of what a woman should be.  Underneath it all I found that I just wanted to be a human being.

I also discovered that being able to feel this way is a privilege, because many women do need a strong female identity to stand up for their rights. I don’t feel the need for this and I’m very grateful to the people who came before me who made this possible.

My piece is a collection of objects around me in my everyday life. What can you tell about me from them? How are they different from the objects a man might have? And how are they different from what a woman may have had a hundred or even a thousand years ago? 

The exhibition is from 5th July to 12th August at the Panacea Museum in Bedford. I'll post more about that here on my blog and on Instagram nearer the time. 

Drawing with the boy

I've written a fair bit about art and craft from a female point of view but one thing that bothered me a little was how boys can feel excluded.

I couldn't help but notice that many of the art and design activities for children were a bit girly. It would be a shame if boys were excluded from being creative because the activities we give them aren't engaging them.

Luckily for me, I stumbled across a solution. When I started to work on my drawing about six months ago, the style that appealed to me was a graphic, almost cartoony one. This is perfect for my seven year old son and soon we were drawing together.

Here's one of his drawings:

7yo has been drawing scenes from #doctorwho

A post shared by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Mar 8, 2017 at 12:18am PST

And here's one we worked on together (I drew the dalek, he coloured it in.)

I drew a dalek and my 7 year old coloured it in. #drwho #whovians #dalek

A post shared by Helen Lindop (@helenlindop) on Apr 26, 2017 at 11:45pm PDT

Yes, Dr Who features a lot in his art work! (There's a lot of Star Wars, too). His drawing has improved lots over the last few months, in fact a few weeks ago his entry won a drawing competition and the prize is to paint his design on the wall of our local food bank. Very proud mum.

I hope that having an activity we can sit down and share will be a useful conversation opener over the coming years, too. I'm sure there will be times when we need to talk and it might not be easy to get started.

By the way, if you're looking for a craft activity for boys, these pipe cleaner ninjas are brilliant. (Girls love them too.)