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.

My good friend and carpenter Graham Smith drew this little picture of Ryantown a while ago and I asked him if I could use it on the bags for the shop... and he said yes!!!

I think they look brilliant so thank you Graham!!! Have a look at some of his work here. As well as being a brilliant artist, he does all the carpentry work for Ryantown shop and here at Ryantown HQ too which you can see on his website.

Here's another sneaky look at another piece I'm working on for the exhibition at Charleston gallery. I love the way the decals overlap and create new colours!!!

I come from an Irish family and every year I make a St Patrick's day card to send out and I thought you might like to see some of them. So here are the last 7 years of St Patrick's day cards!!! Don't forget, the big day is tomorrow!!

A very small amount of the 2012 card (top) will be available in Ryantown this weekend.

Olympia is one of the great buildings in London which is used for all sorts of shows and exhibitions. This year is its 125th birthday and they are celebrating by commissioning artists to create artworks to mark the occasion, and here is mine!!!

At the moment I'm working on some ceramics for a new show in Charleston, the home of the Bloomsbury group. Its a fantastic place to visit, I've loved it for a long time and was honored to be asked to exhibit there. Here is a sneek of one of the pieces I've been working on!!!

A big congratulations to The Gentle Author of the Spitalfields Life blog who has had his blog posts published into this beautiful book!!
I was very touched to be asked to do the front cover especially something quite unusual as these Staffordshire dogs.

I've also done the little illustrations at the beginning of each chapter and there's a story about me as someone who works in the area.

Spitalfields is an area in East London and this book tells the stories of all sorts of people living in and around Spitalfields, from Tailors to Graffiti artists and everyone's favourite bag merchant Paul Gardner!!

The beautiful end papers are by Mark Hearld.

This is publication day for The Gentle Author so I'm sure he is very happy!! You can get a copy now from his blog here.

I've just seen this blog post on my good friends at Tatty Devine. They are being completely ripped off by Claire's Accessories. It is so shameful that big companies feel they can make almost exact replicas of original designs and mass produce them and get away with it!
They have not only copied the Dinosaur necklace but 4 other brilliant brilliant designs, you can see them all here
If this makes you as angry as it makes me, please send your thoughts to Claire's on Twitter, Facebook or email them on this address marketinguk@claires.co.uk

Every week the brilliantly prolific 'Its Nice That' ask people to share their top five books. You can read mine here.

Starting from tomorrow, Faberge are conducting a giant egg hunt in London for 40 days and 40 nights. There will be 200 eggs to find, all individually decorated by artists and designers and both me and my fantastic assistant (also fantastic artist) Hazel have both done our own eggs!!!

Mine is hand painted and reads:

'We promise to keep the egg safe, we promise to keep the child safe. Every bone, beak and wing is precious to every bird in our world'

'We promise to help this small, small bird in this big, big world!'

Hazel's is made from thousands of sticky dots which she bought on our recent trip to Japan and reads: 'Its what's inside that counts'



You can read all about the Big Egg Hunt here.

I was asked by Stylist magazine to participate with the likes of Naomi Campbell(!!!) Dame Edna(!!) and the BRILLIANT Caitlin Moran in a feature called 'When Stylist Met Kylie'

We all had to ask her a question which was pretty exciting as you can imagine!! Here's mine:

ME: 'You stole the show at the Sydney 2000 Olympics; which British musician would you love to see opening our Olympics this year in London? (For me it has to be Elton!)'

KYLIE: 'That would be appropriate; Elton is a living legend. It would be sensational. And having just seen Coldplay recently that would be spine-tingling as well. What I mostly remember from my performance at Sydney 2000 is fear. Fear, excitement, and also pride. The pride in the country was so immense at the time. To be in the stadium, centre stage and know it’s being broadcast to four billion people; it was just such an honour.'

You can read the rest of the questions here

A little while ago, I was asked by Pitney Bowes to join lots of other artists and celebrities in the 'Pushing The Envelope' campaign. The idea is to customise an envelope to be auctioned which will raise money for The National Literacy Trust.

Here's my entry!

NEW LASERCUTS ON ETSY!!!!!!!

We have decided to expand the range of screen-printed cards in the Ryantown shop!! We have got 8 new card colours and have printed them in various colour combinations and are looking great!!!! We spread them all out onto my desk and picked the best ones to reproduce so they'll be in the shop this weekend!!!

I've just received a copy of this new book, Print & Pattern 2 by Bowie Style. Print and Pattern is a brilliant blog and always has loads of interesting stuff to look at so go have a look here!! There's already been one Print & Pattern book which has evolved from the blog and I was really pleased to be included in the new book along with lots of other talented designers, it really is worth a look!!!

Every year I do a special Valentine's Day print for all you helpless romantics out there !

Here's this years one ! It measures 28.5 x 35cm and you can get one for £120 from my shop Ryantown in London or on the internet from my etsy shop by clicking this link



The print comes in 3 slightly different versions, man & woman, woman & woman and man & man.

And the words on the prints read.

‘All of the thoughts that I have held inside me ever since I was very small, silly fancies, grandiose ideas and embarrassing and happy and silly dreams that were always just mine and mine alone.
Could I share with you, and you alone, everything that lives inside my heart and my head that I have never shared with anyone but myself all of the years I have lived so far until now.’

Yesterday, we tested out colours for my new 2012 mug and they came out brilliantly!!! They are two-colour mugs in 3 different colours which you can see above. The mugs are all hand-made here at the studio and they should be in the Ryantown shop this weekend!!!