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D is for Dachshund

07 February 2012

I’m in week 2 of my February challenge to create an entire alphabet of animals out of recycled materials and lo and behold, I’m already behind. So much for an animal a day… to restock my ‘rubbish pictures‘ supply, but hey – I’m still happily creating and with ever so  slightly more realistic expectations, am up to ‘e’ and busily sketching elephants :-)

The glue has now dried on yesterday’s recycled beastie, a Dachshund made from a dog food newspaper advert and a Bourbon biscuit wrapper. It’s her I’ll put up here for a ’show n tell’ moment I think as she’s one of my simpler designs and gives a bit more of a sense of the direction I’m taking this project in stylistically.


A is for Armadillo

31 January 2012

I’m not too keen on February. It’s a rubbish in betweeny month mostly spent getting fed up with winter and waiting around for Spring and the good stuff to start happening. So February is normally a head down and crack on workwise month and I’ve decided this year should be no different, but I shall try to be more inspired and less… grumpy.

I’ve set myself a challenge to restock my rubbish pictures supply and to create something cool at the same time. I hope. My middle daughter recently was asked to find an animal for every letter of the alphabet. I can’t remember what the homework was in relation to, but I found her loopy doodled  list in amongst the tower of paperwork on my desk (in amongst my ‘ahem…. ‘important’ pile, no less) and I thought I would make good use of it. It’s afterall, a lovely thing. So rather than incoporating her list into a zebra, as I was about to – This February, I’ve decided, I shall make better use of it. I shall create an animal for every letter of the alphabet out of rubbish. That’s what I’ll do. February might be more fun than expected afterall :-)

I know it’s only January 31st but hey – let’s kick off anyway. Head start and all that.

Today I mostly made an Armadillo.


A rubbish Parrot

24 January 2012

The latest addition to my ever increasing library of ‘Rubbish’ Art (unique artworks created entirely out of discarded domestic rubbish) was completed this week and has already flown to it’s new home as a little boys first birthday present from his parents.

Pretty Polly was made out of Christmas wrapping paper, yo-yo dried fruit snack wrappings, a cereal box, 2 cinema tickets, a crisps wrapper, an orange juice carton and a page of the Yellow Pages.


Book Monsters

20 January 2012

New Year brings with it a new crop of eager little artists for my primary school art workshops. This term we’re looking at ‘Myths & Monsters’ and to warm up I let them rip (literally) on a very dull musty book I found in the charity shop. The best 20p I’ve ever spent – the resulting layering of the children’s doodles over the Greek Mythology text works a treat. Now that our doodling fingers are well and truly warmed up and paint splattered, we’re looking forward to tackling ‘The man on the moon’ next week. Moons to be made out of lots of squished tin cans. Naturally.


Jack’s Radio Mission

12 November 2011

‘Jacks Radio Mission’ written by Sarah Boland and illustrated here at Wallop, is finally complete! The original project (see here for my earlier blog post about the project) which started almost an entire year ago was the result of an idea by Sarah Boland to create a series of fun books for children going through traumatic cancer therapy treatments.

Today then is a bitter sweet day – the first preview copy of  ‘Jacks Radio Mission’, her first story covering radiotherapy, arrived in the post from the printers this morning. Apart from a little fine tuning, it’s looking rather wonderful, meaning that the project is reaching completion. It’s almost ready to be sent out into the big wide world!

The bitter part of the deal is that I’m writing this just a couple of weeks after Sarah lost her own battle and passed away.

So I declare today a big fat ‘yay’ day.  She did it! I really hope she knows it. I reckon she does, there’s a particularly oddly behaving sun beam outside my window…   ;-)

We were helped along the way by staff at the Royal Marsden Hospital whose advise was invaluable and we planned to get the book complete and into the hands of the children entering units such as those at The Marsden by the end of this year and then made available via other cancer aid organizations as well as directly available for purchase through Amazon and the like, as soon as possible thereafter. Any profits will be going straight to  leukaemia & lymphoma research.

I shall blog again when I have links to share :-)

In the meantime if you would like more information about how you can help The Royal Marsden, through donations, charitable events or even just giving your time and volunteering, click here.

Zebra hoofprints trotting across the globe

10 November 2011

I was delighted recently to be given a brief to doodle zebras and maps in a doodly style. How perfect. The doodliness was Wallop’s contribution to the redesign, with Dusted Design, of a very important website for the NET patient foundation. The results are now launched for all to see and looking great.

Today is NET cancer day – did you know? Hopefully if you didn’t, you will now and will help spread the word.

Dusted were briefed on the redevelopment of the Worldwide NET Cancer Day website following the successful redesign of the NET Patient Foundation website (which represents patients and carers in the UK). In its first year, more than 5,000 signatures were added to their online proclamation and this year the target is for site visitors to show their support via a global map featuring the zebra mascot and a virtual journey around the world. Sharing this message via Facebook, Twitter and email is naturally a key part of support strategy.

Continuing with the global community theme (and social media aspect), another map element of the site aims to join people together from across the world in a global video event brought ‘live’ on the day itself – November 10. As the day moves west, video clips (pulled from YouTube) will become available to watch – from Singapore to Sweden, from the UK to the USA – visitors will see how the World NET Community is working together to raise awareness of NET cancers around the globe.

The zebra mascot  stems from the fact, medical students in some countries are taught, “When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras” to encourage them to think about the most likely and common cause of symptoms.  However, this approach risks that rarer diseases like NET cancers (“zebras”) will be overlooked.

Calendar girl!

18 October 2011

Well who knew I could be a Calendar girl at my age. Miss December no less :-)

Being a member of the lovely Doodlers Anonymous Community is a lovely thing. It keeps me on my artsy toes and satisfies my urges to doodle indiscriminately, so I was delighted this week to be informed that my doodle for December has won a place on the Doodlers Anonymous official 2012 Calendar. Hurrah!

Thanks very much to all the doodlers who voted and for the DA Editors who made the final decision :-)

Ghost Birds

04 October 2011

Ghosts of Gone Birds is a series of multimedia exhibitions that breathe artistic life back into extinct bird species, celebrating their diversity through paintings & sculpture, talks & poetry, installations & live music.
The exhibitions will raise money and awareness for BirdLife International’s Preventing Extinctions programme.

The project presents a unique collection of originally commissioned artworks, from some of the UK’s leading contemporary artists, writers and performers including – Ralph Steadman, Sir Peter Blake, Rob Ryan, Billy Childish, Desmond Morris, Pete Fowler, Charming Baker, Jamie Hewlett, Kai and Sunny, Rebecca Jewell, and many more – each one of them has adopted an extinct species and breathed life back into it through their creative talents.

All Tropical, has partnered with Ghosts of Gone Birds to challenge designers to create a Tshirt for the exhibition, to be sold at the exhibition being organised from 2-23 November at the:
Rochelle School; Arnold Circus, Shoreditch, London. E2 7ES

I like a good cause, and I like to doodle birds… so here’s my entry.

The Gallery of all entries is now open and online. There are some beautiful illustrations so do go and check it out over at All Tropical. (and hopefully feel the urge to give me a vote while you’re there?  ;-)

Tshirt design. ©Wallop Commercial Art & Design Ltd.

Egg n’ Chips

16 September 2011

In celebration of it being Friday – A little doodle I did as a submission for Wrap magazine

More Smart Art

08 September 2011

Following on from the recent Smart Art Drive through gallery on Londons South Bank, I was delighted to hear today that my illustration ‘Wishing on a Star’ which was created for The Outsmart Project last year, is now to also be featured in the main exhibition hall of Mercedez Benz world this weekend at the Smart Fest 2011

So if you like Smart Cars and you like Art, why not pop along and feast your eyes :-)

©2013 Wallop Commercial Art & Design Ltd. All Rights Reserved.