My exhibition at Charleston Gallery opened last week!!! If you want to take a trip down, the show runs from 20th July – 28th October at Charleston, Firle, Lewes, East Sussex, BN8 6LL. I can't recommend a tour of the house enough, its a brilliant day out and such an inspiring place. Open Wednesdays to Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holiday Mondays. Wednesdays – Saturdays: Guided tours only 1pm – 6pm (12 – 6pm July and August). Last tour 5pm. Sundays & Bank Holiday Mondays: Freeflow, timed tickets 1pm – 5.30pm. Last entry 4.30pm. Photograph of Charleston House by Penelope Fewster © The Charleston Trust.

Rob is currently hanging his show at Charleston Gallery so I'm afraid he's absent for this blog post!! Its a very exciting day at Ryantown HQ as we've just received a delivery of the second S.P.Q.R Newspaper!!! This is the summer edition and is dedicated to the exhibition at Charleston and features lots of peices from the show. Sort of a home-made exhibition catalogue (but a lot more interesting!) so if you can't make it down to Charleston, get yourself one of these guys!!! For those of you who can make it, the show runs from 20th July – 28th October and the newspaper will be available from the gallery shop. There will also be a selection of handmade bits and bobs available in the shop. This edition is now available from etsy

In Style

Alphabet Bags

Earlier this year I worked on creating an alphabet for the very lovely Hayley and Lucas at Alphabet Bags, well they are being launched at the end of this week and look very sweet too.

Fired to Purrfection

It's only just over a week until my small exhibition in Charleston Farmhouse Gallery opens, I've been busy hand painting ceramic pieces. These two chaps have just emerged from the kiln looking very fresh and shiny indeed.

Calendar Update

We have listed some calendars on Etsy but as we only have a limited amount, we would kindly request that our American customers refrain from buying these from us as the calendars will be widely available in the US and Canada.

New Year is Now !!

We've been working with US Publishers Rizzoli to produce this wall calender for next year. It's mainly produced for the US market but we've managed to nab a few copies for sale in our little shop at £10 each.

We've just taken delivery of a new scarf that we've produced with NV Calcutta. It is now available on etsy here!!!

It all went a bit royal this weekend in London, but here at Ryantown, 126 Columbia Rd, London we only recognise one queen.

Stylist Mag Cover

The Stylist Magazine asked me if I could make a papercut design for them on the theme of a street party, here is my effort. I'm a big fan of the Stylist, they seem to have an adventurous streak when it come to commissioning artists to create special covers for them, only 2 weeks ago Nikki Tibbles made an incredible picture for them constructed entirely from cut flowers ! It was stunning. Tracey Emin did last week's and I remember a lovely cover too by the inspiring illustrator Quentin Blake. They are not dictatorial at all in their approach and seem to understand that by placing minimal constraints on the commissioned artist they will recieve in return the best results !

Achilles in The Guardian

In a feature relating to Greece leaving the Euro to return to the Drachma the Guardian newspaper asked me to do customise a 5 Euro note to act in transition. Here's my effort and the caption to go with it. 'Achilles and that damned heel of his. He's holding on his spear the letter omega, the last letter of the alphabet - the end.'

There's some new cats in town !!!

It seems as if we've been working on these pairs of cats for years but really it has only been many months ! They have been scattered all over the study staring at us as we go about our daily tasks "When are you going to hurry up and finish us" they taunt "We're bored being in this studio" They have been made in an edition of thirty, part transfer decal and part handpainted so in there own small way each one is unique ! They are hand numbered and initialled by me on their base, and come in smart black boxes. Off into the big wide world you go - Shoo !

Stationery nerd alert.

One of my favourite things to do in Japan is to hang out at the Tokyu Hands Department Store, especially in the stationery dept where they have the most incredible range of all types of sticky tape. It is stationery nerd heaven ! I have produced quite a few tape designs myself now, in fact we took delivery of a new one yesterday which you can see here . Although my dream would be to see it in here

Walk the walk

On Saturday thousands of women walked the street of London all through the night to raise money to fight breast cancer. The Moon walk ! The lovely (and inspiring and incredible) Nina asked me to design a T-shirt for them. Go Ladies !!!

Hot off the press!!

Check out our SPQR newspaper! It will be available to buy in Ryantown this weekend, priced at £2!

These T-shirts live 5937 miles away

I've done a collaborative project with Tokyo based T-shirt designing geniuses Graniph, the way that they've adapted my designs is really fresh and unique - I love them especially the diagonal rainbow fade ! The green on Black has been done in flocking so the color is intensely vivid, and nice to stroke too !!

The Senate and People of Ryantown

Although I guess I'm pretty busy all the time, I always have the feeling that I'm not doing a tenth as much as I'd like to be doing. In my notebooks I have loads of stupid ideas for work that will never properly see the light of day. As an experiment we are going to produce a little newspaper every quarter year that will in a small way fill the space between what gets done and what doesn't. I'm hoping that as it develops it will become more like a notebook/scrapbook of ideas and thoughts and pictures that would be nice to share. We've almost completed the first one and already I think this isn't quite what I wanted but I guess its a start! It will be available mid-May and is called Senatus Populusque Ryantown, The Senate and People of Ryantown. S.P.Q.R.

TAG Fine Arts will be representing me at this weeks' London Original Print Fair.

TAG Fine Arts | Stand 2 | Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, W1J 0BD
Thur 10am - 9pm | Fri 10am - 10pm | Sat & Sun 10am - 6pm
19 - 22 April 2012

For a complimentary ticket check out their blog here


or download a complimentary ticket here

I was honored to find out recently that I have been nominated for a Kate Greenaway medal for childrens book illustration for my work on 'The Gift' by Carol Ann Duffy. You can see a film interview with me here where I explain my inspirations, methods and techniques on illustrating the book.