Wintersong

I try to keep it light on this blog, but this time, no.

It has been a dark advent.

This may be a tl:dr for anyone reading this, so don't worry about it. This is just for me:

Sunset over the fields near Barrow

The Daily Polymath

Found this old draft post. Posting it anyway.  It's still true.

Big Summer Adventure: Hadrian's Wall

This August I finally got to take on a challenge I've been hankering to do for over two years now: Hadrian's Wall.

This partially ruined wall marked the edge of the Roman empire in 122AD when Emporer Hadrian, struggling to invade Scotland while dealing with his rebellious British subjects at the same time, withdrew troops from the more Northerly Antonine Wall (earth ramparts) to consolidate their position.  At 6m high this engineering feat took three Legions (15,000 men) only 6 years to build and is a symbol of both the power of Rome and it's limitations.  It stretches from Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the North East of England in an almost straight line clear across the country to Carlisle, and then on to Bowness-on-Solway where the river becomes unfordable and attacks from people wading across would no longer have been possible.

This idea of what it means to be invader and invaded has been with me for a long time, and the Wall symbolises a lot of that for me.  My dad and uncle walked it together a few years ago while I was in university, and I'd been hoping to do the same (although unlike them, we won't have to walk from the Wall to our lodgings each night, as Nathan and Dad will be having a parallel holiday and have kindly agreed to pick us up and drop us off each day!)  This year I mentioned it to my Mum and we decided to do the trip together.  We would start at Heddon-on-the-Wall, the first place the Wall itself becomes visible, and finish in Carlisle.  It's a 55 mile trip, it was to take us almost five whole days of walking, and as usual I kept a diary...

Dinos in Spaaaaaace!

I've been working on a big awesome project lately, plus doing the Big Year course, plus taking up a new sport - roller derby!  It's been a big change and I felt like it needed its own blog to help me keep some perspective on my progress, so I've made one HERE.

One of the things I like about roller derby is the bonkers extravagance and enthusiasm that goes with a game.  Each one has a different theme, and a recent home game went of the heading of 'Dinosaurs In Space'.  I ended up making the poster for it!  It started as a rubbish little doodle in a pub, and ended as this bold and brilliant poster base.

I'm actually really proud of this.

 I enjoyed the theme so much that I ended up making a collection of Dino Derby stickers.  Each features a different dinosaur with a different derby name, like Terror-Dactyl, Stego-Sore-Ass, and my personal favourite Tyrannosaurus Ref.  Because our hard working refs deserve some love and stickers too!

What's been really nice is that I've started noticing them on the helmets of our team.  I already sold out of one particular design, so I'm going to keep taking these to games and see how long it takes for me to get rid of them all :)

Return from the Land of the Dead and Gone

Among the projects keeping me busy lately has been this CD cover for Jake Manning's new album.  He came to the table with some strong ideas about what the look of the image ought to be and initially we went down the route of the classic scary B-movies before discovering it was a bit harsh for a folk album and dialling it back!  We're both really pleased with the result.

Hopefully you've already spotted the guitar shape in the landscape, but what you probably don't know it that each of the elements you can see - the house, the winding path, the ghosts and the watery man trying to escape from his ocean - all appear in Jake's songs.  He uses some fantastic imagery and crafting it into a story like this was probably my favourite part of the project.

Hourly Comic Day 2014

Hourly Comic Day has gone and gone again.  I looked back on the previous year's comics, and it's amazing how much has changed since the first one I did back in 2011.  In my opinion, this year's drawings are some of the better ones I've done so far as well!

Trying my hand at some vintage design

Some birthday invitations I made for my Mum's 50th.  I've never considered myself a natural designer when it comes to things like fonts, but I actually think these are pretty good!  Nice and simple, but this excellent MarketDeco font I found totally makes it.  

The 1940's aesthetic was really fun to work with (the actually event was a mid-afternoon tea party, so lots of bunting, vintage crockery, and live music from the excellent Ella aAnd Her Jazz Band).  Each guest received two postcards - one to keep, and an RSVP to return.  because who doesn't love getting postcards in the mail.  Nobody, that's who!