New Work from Abby: Healthy Eating!

As a little side project for uni, I decided to produce some pieces for a healthy eating campaign. I've really wanted to work with food and text so this seemed a perfect excuse to combine both.

Basically my idea was to use children's quotes to promote eating 'five a day'. By working with the idea that children say the cutest things and the fact they don't know unless you teach them, I placed sweet things that children may say alongside images of the fruit. For instance, the first one says: "I love strawberry cheesecake. Is that one of my five a day?" and is placed next to strawberries. I think this campaign could be successful, because most people know a child so can relate to their sweet questions and it drives home that unless you teach people about healthy eating, they will never learn.

Anyway, take a look and see what you think! :) (p.s. I've used a logo from an existing campaign - it is not my own!)

I hope you like them! Enjoy the bank holiday!! Abby x

The Ballad Of Lola Bacon

Hi lovelies,

It's been an exciting week here at T&C HQ! First, our Digital Artist feature and today the latest installment from Ballad Of Magazine has arrived yay! My little black eyed bandit illustration has found himself among the beautiful pages of the Ballad Of Lola Bacon.

Illustration by Rachel Clare Price

It's a gorgeous issue, full of lovely visual things I definitely recommend a read. A few of our twitter friends Faye West, Daria H, Jamie Mills, Jo Cheung and Avril Kelly have also made an appearance with their wonderous creatures!

Much love for Lindsey, Claire and the Ballad Of team! x

Tea & Crayons featured in Issue 20 of Digital Artist!

 

This month, we were kindly asked to be interviewed by Digital Artist about collectives; how they work, what are the benefits and how to go about starting one. Above is a crop of the contents page where our lovely Kayleigh Buck had her work featured :)

 Closeup of Rachel Price's piece featured :)

Little extract from our interview.

To read the full article, buy issue 20 now - it's out for the next few weeks. Really privileged to be featured alongside other established collectives like Puck and Monster - exciting stuff!

Rachel L

Does Mr Bingo Work for Free?

While I wouldn't have put it quite so er... eloquently.... he's right. Does Mr Bingo Work For Free? No. And neither should you. Discuss.

Image of course by the rather spectacular Mr Bingo.

AUDREY GRACE BOUTIQUE ILLUSTRATIONS ♥

Hello lovelies, hope you're all well! I've been working on a lovely collaboration with Jaclyn Bethany of Audrey Grace Boutique, here's a little look at the illustrations I've been doing. These are still in the early stages but it's such a wonderful project to be working on. I can't wait to share more illustrations and limited edition creations for the boutique. I'm spending my days surrounded by felt tips, piles of paper, cups of tea and listening to pretty playlists. I've also watched more Audrey Hepburn films- thanks to my sister, who is an Audrey fan, borrowing me her Audrey Hepburn collection. So far my favourite has to be Breakfast At Tiffany's, it makes me want to move to New York and wear pink candy coloured dresses.

Audrey Grace Boutique is going to stock all manner of pretty illustrations from illustrators like Caitlin Shearer, Kerri-Anne Hulme and Grace Hamilton and bespoke fashion pieces from designers Tatty Devine, TBA and Alexandra Grecco. ♥

Lovely blogs featuring illustrations and interviews for Audrey Grace Boutique can be read here too- Grace Hamilton's blog, Calla O'Malley's preview of work for the boutique and Emmakisstina's project for the shop! ♥

Take care lovelies,

Natasha ♥ x

The Fear of Failure

Milton Glaser – on the fear of failure. from Berghs' Exhibition '11 on Vimeo.

A wonderfully inspirational video by the legend that is Milton Glaser. If you do anything today, watch this. Really made me think about the whole professional/personal work divide.

p.s this is our 100th blog post! Hurrah! Tea for everyone!

Rachel L x

Full Steam Ahead

Over the weekend the lovely Abby came to Bristol to visit me (Fritha) and we had lots of fun. I just had to show Abby one of my favourite gallery's in my home city, the Here gallery :) There were lots of zines and postcards from some of our favorite artists and gave us lots of ideas for future Tea and Crayons publications!
We also got to see the Tom Frost and Teresa Murfin exhibition which was stunning! Here are some pics:

pretty no?

Jotta.com Interview with Rachel L

Hope you're all having good sundays and have had nice productive weeks? We certainly have; it's all go here at T&C HQ!

I was kindly interviewed by the lovely peeps at Jotta, who have just launched a competition in conjunction with Wacom Bamboo, and are on the hunt for drawn definitions of ‘Style’. They asked to interview me on my own opinions of the definition of style, especially within fashion illustration. They were also interested in Tea & Crayons and how we individually tackle the idea of style.

Click here to read the full article on jotta.com – here’s a small extract however:

Why did you start the Tea and Crayons collective, and how did you all meet?
We all met through Twitter actually; which sounds a lot stranger than it is! There's a very close community of illustrators on there, and it came about quite organically - we are from all over the country but in some ways this makes us quite unique. We started it because as a freelance illustrator, it can be quite a lonely existence - at first it was quite a casual set up, emailing each other for support, advice, but now we share contacts, promote each other's work, have a collective blog and aim to have an exhibition this year. There is no way any of us would be able to contact so many art directors and drum up so much interest if we were all still working solo.

What are the varying types of fashion illustration which the other members create?
Abby Wright is very much about the detail and precision, she loves illustrating jewellery and embellished clothing. She works mainly digitally so this really suits her. Whereas Natasha Thompson and Rachel Price prefer a much more soft, feminine type which alludes to fairytales and the romance of fashion. Kayleigh Bluck and myself like to be quite true to the original designs and represent them in that way, whereas Fritha Strickland has a wonderful childlike-quality to her work which is less about true representation and more about how the clothes make you feel.

Rachel Lewis

  Abby Wright

Natasha Thompson

The competition is great as well; submit your entry for the chance to win an iPad2 with an awesome Bamboo Stylus pen, which allows you to draw directly onto your iPad!

“Have you ever wanted to capture your thoughts on the iPad? Ever wanted to be creative, to draw and sketch on it, just like on a note book?
Wacom’s brand new Bamboo Stylus allows you to do exactly this. It is ideal for handwriting notes, drawing, sketching and much more on your iPad.
How to win this incredible bundle? Take this canvas and show us what it means to you to be stylish. Draw, sketch or write about your personal definition of “STYLE”.
Upload your stylish imagery or illustration here
You can increase your chances of making it into the TOP 10 by getting all your friends to like your creation. Our jury will then select the most creative and inventive submission. The winner gets one brand new Bamboo Stylus AND an iPad2.
The remaining shortlisted entries will get one Bamboo Stylus each.”

Thanks so much for the interview, Jotta!

Rachel L x x

Tea & Crayons Promotional Packages - and GIVEAWAY!

So we've been busy the past few months getting our Self Promotion organised (not a small feat when we all live in different parts of the country!) and now they are being sent out as we speak to Art Directors across the country, in hope of drumming up some interest about our collective and ourselves as individual illustrators.

 

Each package has 6 postcards in, one from each of us. We did 12 designs in total, 2 each, so that we can mix and match depending on the recipient. For example, this one is going to a publishing company, so I chose ones that I thought fitted that particular companies' style already. There's also a hand-written cover letter explaining who we are!

 

 Then the postcards are bundled up, with string in my case, and a teabag, crayon and badge is added. There's also a sticker which I'm using to seal the packages with, so they know who it's from before they open it.

 

Et Voila! I am pinning the button to the edge of the teabag so that it doesn't get lost in the depths of the jiffy bag.

 Then the sticker is stuck on the back, and it's ready to go!

Here's my first batch of packages ready to go - we've each got about 75 contacts to send to, and this is my first 20. In a few weeks all will be sent out!

So the next step is to contact these people to see if they've received our lovely present and if they are interested in what we do. Of course, if you are reading this and are a commissioner of illustration, do let us know and we'll send you one in the post!

So now I can reveal that we are launching our first giveaway - one of our lucky followers will receive one of these packs, with maybe a few more surprises inside too ;) All you have to do is follow us on twitter - simples. When we get to 1000 followers (dizzy heights we know) then we will draw a follower at random and you'll get a lovely T&C package in the post. Good luck!!

Tigerprint Hand Drawn Competition: Our Entries

Hey Crayonettes! Hope you've all had lovely long weekends and haven't been working too hard! We were back at work today and it was a bit of a shock to the system!

Some of us spent our bank holidays wisely by lending our typography talents to the monthly (ish) Tigerprint competition; this month the theme was Hand Drawn which of course suits us all very nicely!

Entries by Natasha:

Entries by Fritha:

Entries by Rachel L:

Good luck to everyone who entered!!