Images 34 success!

What a way to celebrate moving back into my newly renovated house and studio than to find out my work has been selected for Images 34: The Best of British Contemporary Illustration! I have had one of my Garden Detectives illustrations selected by a rather prestigious jury for the Design category, so I am well chuffed! Images 34 kicks off with the exhibition launch in London in July 2010 and then the book is sent out to art directors and designers from early August.Ooh, that seems ages away...

"The Trauma of Redundancy" for The Guardian

Tsk, tsk Ms. Calder. What kind of blogging do you call this, when your last post was weeks ago? Must do better.
Sorry about the irregular blog posting, folks but I have been going through the "Trauma of Dodgy, Bodging Builders", so its been a tad stressful here in Studio Calder. However, our new builders are VERY good and we hope to be back in the house VERY SOON, so I can resume normal service again (and get my lovely studio back!)

In the meantime, I have been working away all summer on some lovely jobs, the most recent being for The Guardian. It was all about the stress of redundancy and how people felt a loss of identity and were isolated by the experience.
Writer Ian Wylie looked into the aftermath of losing your job, recognising that while it can be a psychological blow, there is much you can do to get back on your feet
Wylie described "keeping the wolf from the door" too - so I couldn't resist a big 'ol wolf.

This is a more surreal image for me,as compared to my usual narrative style but I like it - as did Sarah Habershon, the art director. I've included an image of the front page complete with illo too, so you can see it in context.

Finally, I hope you take the opportunity to have a look at my BRAND NEW WEBSITE designed by Evie at Eskymo. Lush.

Brand new look for Jillustration

Whey-hey! I hope you like the brand spanking new make over of my blog? A shiny and cheerful new header and a refresh of the typeface and colour scheme. What's all this in aid of, I hear you ask - well, my website has also been undergoing major cosmetic surgery and is about to be set free on the world wide interweb, so the blog had to scrub up too. It will be my twitter page that is getting a wardrobe overhaul next!

I am very excited about my new look website at www.jillcalder.com - it has been great fun working with Evie at Eskymo, who has designed it for me. I will announce it properly once it is all live and kicking...but it is coming VERY SOON! In the meantime, here is a sneak preview of my colour palette.

Garden Detectives exhibition - grand opening!

After all my hard work creating the illustrative element and all the National Museum of Scotland's design team's hard work bringing the show into 3D, interactive life, Garden Detectives finally opened at a private view on Thursday 25th June!

Go here to see loads more images of the opening night, the exhibition and my illustrations, of course!

It was a great evening - starting with speeches by the museum's director, Gordon Rintoul and by Roseanna Cunningham, who is the Scottish Minister for the Environment. Of course a tasty canapé or two with a glass of bubbly was in order.
The whole design team were there: Maureen Barrie (project manager), Stuart Kerr (3D), Lisa Carrington (graphics) and Cathy Sexton (she who ensured I was paid!).I was also delighted to meet Matt Black who had built a lot of the exhibits and interactive elements.

Also present were lots of children and they simply proved that the show will be a big hit, as they poured into the exhibition space and leapt upon the exhibits with enthusiastic glee! I think the most popular section was the fishing pond, "Pond Dipping" where you got a magnetic fishing rod and tried to catch all the beasties, such as minnows, waterspiders and waterboatmen beetles and then post them back through appropriate slots at the side of the pond according to where they live : in the mud at the bottom, in the pondweed or poddling about near the top.

For me, it was wonderful to see the big illustration of the dreamy garden scenes in all their 8 metre long glory - very nice indeed!

Overall, I really enjoyed the challenge of this project. I love drawing but here I had to be accurate for education purposes but still retain my inky, fairly loose style. Also, working with such detailed technical drawings was at times daunting but the designers needed me to be spot on with where each flowerhead or bit of mint was placed so they could then tell the joiners and set builders what to do with out any mistakes occurring. Also, it was fairly large amount of illustration to do in quite a short amount of time but I do like a bit of deadline pressure to make life interesting!

I'll be honest though, if I never have to draw another adder in my life, I'll be very happy indeed. Snakes are hard to draw!

If you can, please go and support the National Museum of Scotland and enjoy the show.

The Class of 2009

Thought I would promote my new batch of competition in the world of illustration - namely the 19 students that are soon to graduate from the Illustration Deptartment at Edinburgh College of Art.

The Degree Show opens on June 13th (the PV is on the 12th) and it is an excellent, varied, exciting and surprising show indeed.

This group have been great to teach and I think many of them will do well in the tough 'ol business that is Illustration. I just hope they remember the pricing and business advice I gave them back in November!
I have selected an image by Toby Cook from his book "The Upside Down House" and a life drawing by Trine Mangernes as a small taster of the variety in the exhibition.

Go along to their Show, buy something from their shop and support the next generation.

New for The Guardian

This is a sneak preview of an illo about the "Sandwich Generation" that will be published in tomorrow's Guardian (Work section cover, no less)
I got the roughs in on Wednesday evening (after a particularly unpleasant episode of dealing with my non functioning scanner) and the lovely art director, Sarah Habershon said she liked my sofa idea to depict the "Sandwich Generation" where both ageing parents and children have to be cared for - despite the fact the carer also holds down a full time job.
Sarah doesn't like to have an obvious work theme on the Work cover so I made this as domesticated and family-orientated as possible, yet trying to show the pressure that the carer is under to look after family properly yet still get work done.
I like the hamster metaphor, myself (based on Chewbacca who is my nephew's spritely rodent). The bird in the cage is, of course, a MASSIVE homage to Charles Keeping, whose work I love.

And I don't understand why I keep drawing cats when it is dogs that I love.

fantastic biker action in Edinburgh

Big red building? Edinburgh college of Art. I love this film.