Tiles

I usually set aside Monday night for pottery practice in a small local workshop. I’m still something of a novice, but it’s good learning about glazes and skills on the wheel… the hard way. Mostly it makes a change from printing or click-clicking a mouse. I’d recommend it, though I’m still unsure whether to try something in multiple to tie in with the cards, or keep them as separate as possible.

Inked Edges

Perhaps I’m easily pleased, but it gave a little thrill to see coloured page edges emerging from an Amazon package last week. Imagining untold others had passed me by, I had a one-handed search of the shelves during breakfast. Sure enough, there were a handful of drab hues (burgundy, black and something akin to moth’s wing), but it was these vintage volumes that truly paid off.

A pity there’s been no discernable revival of this detailing; either on editions from bibliophilic publishers like McSweeny’s, the former Black Sparrow Press, Persephone Books, retro-obsessive book-jacket designers like Chip Kidd… or just notebooks even!

Valentines

Foolishly, I cast a critical eye over my portfolio before sending it out recently and so began a weekend of rushed/radical update. Ransacking the archives (a bag in a box in a cupboard), I came across these valentines; some of 12 completed last year for Otto Trading in Japan (a curiously beneath-the-radar company considering they licence both Barbapapa and Curious George). With full-colour outside-and-in and a complete Pantone choice on envelopes, they certainly do things differently… such a pity then that our Japanese agent is soon shutting-up shop.

Snow Business

Wow, so much snow in London today! I watched the neighbours’ kids build a snowman… then sweep it into a cardboard box. Perhaps they imagined it’d keep until next year.
  
Here’s Charles Schultz, creator of Peanuts, circa 1930. It's as though his laconic, beleaguered snowman portends the characters to come.