The Hiber-Nation Opens

Our exhibition, The Hiber-Nation, opened at the Wales Millennium Centre last Thursday (December 5th) and runs until January 5th 2014. Thank you to everyone who came along, to Gulp for playing (brilliantly!) at the launch and to the WMC for making it all possible. Here's a selection of photos of what to expect if you're making your way to Cardiff to see it (including one of Louise/Felt Mistress with the incredible 9ft huggable Hugger that she made!). All work is for sale. If interested please email me for a price list (details in my profile). Thank you!

Striders keep on stridin'

New painting for our Hiber-Nation exhibition (see previous post) - "Striders Striding". Watercolour 40x50cm. Exhibition starts at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff on the 5th December at 6 o'clock with a special launch night. Everyone welcome!

The Hiber-Nation at the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff

We're very excited to announce our latest exhibition and it's our biggest yet! It's called "The Hiber-Nation" and it's at the Wales Millenium Centre in Cardiff. It contains 53 new pieces - 30 pieces of pieces of flat artwork from me (watercolours, acrylic paintings and ink drawings) and 23 new pieces from Louise (AKA Felt Mistress) including 3 HUGE new characters the tallest of which almost 9ft tall! The opening night is Thursday December 5th (6-8pm) and you're all invited.

There will also be music on the night from GULP. I think we're more excited about this than we are about the exhibition. We're not worthy!


Here's the press release with all the relevant details -

Mystical Welsh creatures to take up winter residence at Wales Millennium Centre


Seeking refuge from the harsh Welsh winter, The Hiber-Nation will be descending on Wales Millennium Centre this December. Hand-crafted by the inimitable Felt Mistress out of new and vintage fabrics including tweed, wool and flannel from Welsh mills, the band of quirky, colourful creatures are soon to be found huddled in stairwells and suspended from ceilings around the Centre.

Louise Evans, alias Felt Mistress, has crafted over 20 x 3D pieces for the exhibition, including 3 x 8-10ft works: a snow queen, a huggable yeti and a woodland guru.

The inspiration behind the 3D creatures lies in the striking illustrations created by Jonathan Edwards, Louise’s partner and a regular illustrator for the Guardian newspaper. Around 30 of Jonathan’s original works, – a collection of watercolours, acrylics and ink drawings - depicting the characters and the landscape they inhabit,will also be on display during the exhibition. Video content introducing the characters will also be presented on the Centre’s projection wall.

From her studio in North Wales, Felt Mistress has created a legion of felt characters for the best part of a decade. While both her work and Jonathan’s has been exhibited all over the world in cities including Osaka, Los Angeles, Berlin and London, The Hiber-Nation exhibition is to be the Welsh-born couple’s first in their homeland. In 2010, the couple presented a Christmas window display at Selfridge’s iconic Oxford Street store.

Louise Evans originally trained in fashion design and millinery and has brought many of the skills learnt through years of work as a couture dress maker to the world of character design. As well as original Felt Mistresscharacters, Louise has collaborated with a variety of artists including Jon Burgerman, Ben Newman and PeteFowler. A 400 page retrospective of her work, "Creature Couture - the Art of Felt Mistress" was published in December 2012.

Along with providing illustrations for the Guardian, Jonathan Edwards has produced illustrations and comic strips for magazines and publishers around the world. His artwork also appears on the covers of records by artists such as The Black Eyed Peas and The Jungle Brothers.

Louise Miles-Crust, Head of Programming, said: 'We're very excited to be bringing the work of Felt Mistress and Jonathan Edwards to the Centre this Christmas. Their work is both visually stunning and fun, so we hope that art lovers and families alike will enjoy the exhibition. It’s also great that we can host the homecoming exhibition for the talented Welsh duo and display some of the truly unique and exciting art and design work to be coming out of Wales.'

Felt Mistress will also be offering a free workshop on Saturday 14 December from 2.45pm to 4.45pm where participants will be able to make their own felt creatures - the perfect Christmas gifts. Booking is required as spaces are limited.

The exhibition will open on Friday 6 December, with an open-to-all launch party on Thursday 5 December 6pm-8pm, with live music from the band Gulp. The exhibition closes on Sunday 5 January 2014.

"Tony Cloudburst" for the Monster's Club Exhibition.

Here's my contribution to the Monster's Club exhibition. An A4 watercolour of your friend and mine, Mr Tony Cloudburst. It's an A4 watercolour available to purchase at the show. There's absolutely LOADS of great artists taking part. If you're in or near Bristol make sure to go along. Here's the official press release.

Explore a fun and bizarre exhibition that explores the playfulness and interactivity of character art. Featuring everything from plush designer toys and sculptures through to paintings and prints from illustrators, graffitti artists and monster makers from around the world.

Monsters Club celebrates art that can capture and communicate extreme emotions, encouraging the audience to imagine and contemplate fantastic narratives.

Curated by Bo Silvestre, Paul Roberts and Dom Williams, the show will be presented creating an environment with the feel of another universe. A universe inhabited by unique creatures, bizarre beasts, cute critters and magnificent monsters.

Just some of the amazing line up includes work from:

45RPM | Bill Giles | Bo Silvestre | Cat Rabbit | Cheo | Deth P Sun | Dom W | Felt Mistress | Hannah Dymond | Joel Millerchip | Jonathan E | Kristyna Baczynski | Lala Gallardo | Loch Ness | Matt 'Lunartik' JOnes | Michael C Hsiung | Muxxi | Niark1 || Paul Monsters | Rachel Pitler | RichT | Seb Burnett | Sepr | Seven Seas | SiMitchell | SpZero76 | Squirl | Steven Silverwood | Tim Ulewicz | WJC | Yema Yema | and more…

Opening Tuesday 29th October until 3rd November, with the preview night on the 29th, Bristol will see Park Street’s Parlour Showroom, opposite College Green, transformed into a different world.

Recent Instagram caricatures

Still working on the exhibition (more soon!) so I can't post much new stuff. Instead here's a couple of recent caricatures from my sketchbook (all posted previously on my Instagram feed) - Scott Walker, Sam from Moonrise Kingdom, Prince, Andy Kaufman, the cast of Seinfeld and Audrey Hepburn. No real reason for drawing any of these. Just for fun!

Recent paintings

We're working towards an exhibition at the end of the year (details soon). Here's some of the work so far.

UMO ad wins Gold!

The UMO ad (see post HERE) that Felt Mistress and I worked on has won gold in the 2013 Kolla Awards (a Swedish design and illustration show). We're really, really happy about this! It was a great project to work on and an absolute pleasure to once again work with Jakob Westman and the great team at Kärnhuset in Stockholm.

It's now up for the public award! If you enjoyed the ad please follow the steps below and help us try and win the public award. It's one vote per email address so if you've got more than one address - vote again! Thank you!

Step 1: Click on HERE and scroll down to category 6B and click the button below the plush character that says RÖSTA (Vote). Scroll all the way down and click "GÅ VIDARE TILL NÄSTA STEG" (Proceed to next step).

Step: 2 Fill out your email address. A maximum of one vote per address. Click the SKICKA IN button (Send).

Step 3: An email with a link for verification has been sent to you. Your vote is NOT cast until you have clicked the link in the email. If you don't get the mail immediately, check your spam folder.

Step 4: Click the link in the email to verify your vote. And that's it!

On October 10th the winners are announced.

Madrid Sketches

We've just come back from 3 nights in Madrid - saw Guernica, managed to catch a small exhibition of Javier Olivares originals and ate a lot of churros. All good! Also managed to do a bit of drawing.

Bowie drawings

Saw the Bowie exhibition at the V&A recently (excellent, by the way) and have been sketching Bowie in my sketchbook since. Here's two. They also work as drawings of Tilda Swinton! Like a magic eye caricature.

Painting for the Amy Winehouse Foundation

Here's my portrait of Amy Winehouse for the Amy Winehouse Foundation's fundraising events. Amy would have been 30 this September. It was an honour to have been asked to contribute something.

"The Amy Winehouse Foundation works to prevent the effects of drug and alcohol misuse on young people. We also aim to support, inform and inspire vulnerable and disadvantaged young people to help them reach their full potential." More information about the good work they do can be found HERE.

Follow @amysfoundation on Twitter for updates and on Facebook HERE.

You can see the Felt Mistress contribution HERE.

"The Weird Little Word of William Willow" & "Alice in Wonderland"

Here's some work I've produced recently for composer, Andrew Fisher. Andrew is an incredibly prolific and versatile composer who I've worked with in the past on some very enjoyable projects (HERE and HERE). This time I've produced posters to promote two of his musicals - "The Weird Little World of William Willow" and "Alice in Wonderland".

Mini Submarine watercolours

I've just added four mini submarine watercolour paintings to my shop. Ideal for framing and adorning the walls of any underwater lair! Click HERE.

UPDATE - Sold out! Thanks to everyone who bought one.

Waves

A few recent drawings of waves (no real reason!). A watercolour and ink drawing - still stretched on the board because I always prefer them that way - and the sketchbook pages that preceded it.

Tiki Joe's Pizza Tee

Here's a t-shirt I designed for Tiki Joe's Pizza and Pasta in Waikanae, New Zealand (through a chance encounter with the owner on Instagram). Pizza and Tiki - what more do you want?