More festive pattern making...

sweet-wrapper blue...

reprising my interest in sami culture and gouache...

Gouache patterns

I've been making limited palette patterns with gouache. (Would love to find a way to get them made into wrapping paper...)

Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you - Marsha Norman

(based on an illustrated book I made in a dream)

The Ladies' Paradise

Today I've been experimenting with watercolour.

This is a book cover design for The Ladies' Paradise (Au Bonheur des Dames) by Emilé Zola, a novel and documentation of the inner workings of a department store (based on the Bon Marché in Paris), detailing the experiences of the staff and the techniques used to overwhelm the senses, aimed at encouraging customers to spend. (The handrendered typography is based on Zola's own handwriting on the original manuscript.)

New Empress Magazine

I had a nice surprise in the post this morning...

Issue 3 of New Empress is now available from these stockists:

• The BFI Southbank shop in London.
• Wardour News in Soho, London.
• Cornerhouse in Manchester.
• The New Empress webshop.
• The Prince Charles Cinema, London.
• Riverside Studios, London.
• Watershed Media Centre, Bristol.

you-kulele, me-kulele

I've begun to learn the ukulele and because its swiftly becoming my new obsession I decided to make a little information book covering the history of this petite instrument, its ancestor the Portuguese cavaquinho, its close relatives, its place in Hawaiian culture, the basic chords, strumming technique, its popularity during the 1920s with stars like Buster Keaton...but I only got as far as its name: "ukulele" (Hawaiian for "jumping flea") and got so distracted by this little piece of information that instead of the planned information book, I have a little narrative developing, about the peculiar life of a Jazz-age, Gregor Samsa-ish, parasitic beastie.

r-e-a-c-h

alphabet soup

I've been playing about with creating letterforms based on imagery from my web-comic, 

Les Jardin de la Memoir (which has just been updated with some new pages)

You can now find my work on Behance: http://www.behance.net/emmaridgway

Drawing on Location

Lewis kept moving his hands while I was drawing him, so it looks like he has a cat on his lap.