New Product- Mug Cosies!!

Hello again,

I have a new product which I have been developing over the past few weeks, its a mug cosy which will keep you tea warm in these cold winter months! I have a two designs of mug cosies, one my screen printed doors, and the other is my milkmen. I have also up-cycled the mugs with my Illustrations , so everything relates.

I need to put little wooden buttons on them but I think they are looking good!

What do you think?

Thanks for reading. 

Drum Roll Please for my Website!!

Hello,

I was like to introduce to you my very first website, www.lucyanneharding.co.uk I have been slowly learning how to use it and what not. Soon enough there will be online store where you will be able to purchase some of my work, which is very exciting!

Feels like ages since I have written a blog as so much has happened in those few weeks. I have some very exciting news; I have now started my 3 month artist residency at Smithy Studios in Glossop which is very nice to have somewhere creative to go and be creative, and the journey in also gives me time to update my blog (or fall asleep).  The studio is a fantastic space with a lovely kiln that keeps us warm, I have only been in there a 3 weeks and already put a bisque and transfer kiln firing on (with some help from the wonderful Catherine Carr) In addition we have converted the garage in to what my dad likes to call ‘the office’ where I can do my drawings, screen-printing and applique work, I seem to live in there when am not at the studio.  And YES you heard right I know can screen-print from home!! I love screen printing, it’s so relaxing and I have been very eager to get my screens so I could get printing!

My lovely studio

My Office in the Garage

I am starting to develop new work based on butchers and the decline of butchers on the local high street, so I have spent a few days filming in a butcher in Mansfield, Nottingham so I can start illustrating. I want my new work to include slab built vessels, so hopefully in a few months they will be developed and ready to show you.

No Milk Today work is progressing too; I am creating more original textile wall pieces which are coming along nicely ready for THREE craft fairs I am exhibiting at!! BREAKING NEWS!!! I have the delight to have the opportunity to show and sell my work at South Hill Park Craft and Design Fair, Bracknell, Craft in the City, Nottingham, and Merge Contemporary Craft Fair, Oundle. So I have been really busy preparing for them, creating a mug and mug cosies which look really nice, my upcycling work is developing well with a range of blue and green cups and saucers, I am also doing coffee cups and pots.

I went on a trip to Origin at the end of September; it was amazing so many very talented crafters, Catherine Carr with her amazing glass, Abigail Brown who I was really looking forward to seeing and it didn’t disappoint, and Jennifer Collier with her unique paper sculptures.

I also have a few exhibitions coming up which is exciting and my work is currently until the end of the week in an exhibition Cheeky Stitches at Punch Gallery in the Corner House in Nottingham. It is a really lovely space and all the other artists are so friendly and very talented.

Thanks for reading!!

Finally Finished!!

Hello!

My hand in date has been and gone! The few days running up to it were very exhausting, and I have now had a couple of days to recover due to the lack of sleep.

I am very happy with the end result, I have worked so hard and just hope it pays off. The work up for assessment looks really good, clean and exciting!

In the end I created-  two different types of cup cosies, ones with my pattern that fit a normal sized coffee cup and ones that fit my ceramic cups with digital print. 

I also had four final wall pieces two with my digital and appliqued milk man, which are my favourite and the other two are bigger and have my screen print as the background. I also appliqued a milk man’s overall jacket with a couple of milkmen which I really like as well.

My upcycled work looked really good as a collective of vintage ceramics and newly made ceramics. In addition I had three aprons, and also my ceramic cups on show for my assessment.

The next stage now is tomorrow I have to take my work down and then help with the 3D degree show where my work will be shown, and also this week I am going to create pieces to sell.

Thanks for reading!!!

Two Weeks till Deadline!

For the past two weeks, I have been running around like a headless chicken trying to get my work complete. It is now progressing and my hard work is pulling off; my upcycling is going well, I am now focusing more on milk jugs. I am still upcycling cups and saucers as they look really sweet, but milk jugs relate to my project of the milk round and milk much better. I have been using my doorsteps to create a new patterns on the tableware, and I have also been using quotes from my questions about milkmen from forums. This gives my work that extra authenticity and also to show that milkmen our apart of the British community! This week I have started to add my illustrations to the floral patterns that are existing on the tableware, make the flowers blend in more with my illustrations and also so the existing floral pattern doesn’t stand out as much.

My screen printing is going really well, I have made a few repeat patterns to be made into aprons and other things. My wall pieces are starting to come together using the digital print and appliqued milkmen looks lovely, and gives my textiles more depth.

I have also created my cup cosies from the digital print, and my prints. There are 5 cup cosies and they tell a story about Ernie the milkman, whose milk starts going missing and goes on a hunt to find the bandit.

Thanks for reading!

Lucy

Upcycling!

Genius is the ability to renew one's emotions in daily experience- Paul Cezanne

Yesterday I spent the day in local charity shops, collecting vintage tableware as I want to use up cycling pieces in my work. Up cycling is taking discarded items which would normally end up in a land fill and finding a new use for them. It’s a very exciting turn in my work; I am going to apply my doorsteps to the pieces to create a whole new piece.  I have chosen pieces with bits of pattern already on them as I want to integrate the old pattern with the new. I really love the idea of up cycling, as another man trash is another man treasure. Up cycling can be linked in to my theme of saving milkmen as it is known that milk man were the first recyclers as you ‘rinse and return’ your glass milk bottles.  I have been mainly looking for china that has been made in England, because I want to support English industry, as I don’t think that we make any pottery or very little pottery in the UK, and like milkmen, the industry is dying out. Tomorrow is a very busy and exciting day, as I am adding my designs to the china and also screen printing!

 



Very excited to work with this pieces!