Power Up! Simmer Down exhibition. Cafe Zenon, Tokyo

Pics from our exhibition, Power Up! Simmer Down, at Cafe Zenon in Kichijoji, Tokyo.

Louise produced 5 figures and I painted 10 characters.

Thanks to our friends in Japan for their support especially Katsuya and Yusei!

Railhead concept artwork

To celebrate the release of Philip Reeve's new novel, Railhead, OUP asked a few illustrators to come up with their own interpretations of scenes and characters from the book. It's hard to sum up the book in a few lines (it's filled to the brim with incredible concepts and ideas).Here's a quote from the back of the book -

"Come with me, Zen Starling, she had said. The girl in the red coat. But how did she know his name?
The Great Network is a place of drones and androids, maintenance spiders and Station Angels. The place of the thousand gates, where sentient trains criss-cross the galaxy in a heartbeat.
Zen Starling is a petty thief, a street urchin from Thunder City.
So when mysterious stranger Raven sends Zen and his new friend Nova on a mission to infiltrate the Emperor's train, he jumps at the chance to traverse the Great Network, to cross the galaxy in a heartbeat, to meet interesting people - and to steal their stuff.
But the Great Network is a dangerous place, and Zen has no idea where his journey will take him"

I chose to draw an escape across the rooftops and Uncle Bugs, a Hive Monk ("a creature made up of thousands and thousands of insects, which come together to form a being with consciousness. Hive Monks choose to form themselves into a human shape, including making themselves a kind of paper mask for a face."). So much to choose from in the book. I'm sure it's going to be another massive success for Philip.

Also be sure to check out Ian McQue and Robert Ball's interpretations of the Railhead world. Amazing. I'm not worthy!

LICAF "Wish You Were Here" postcard project.

Here's my contribution to the Lakes International Comic Art Festival's "Wish You Were Here" project. It was an honour to be featured alongside such a stellar group of artists - Bill Morrison, Sean Phillips, Dave Gibbons, Bryan Talbot,Steven Appleby and Sarah McIntyre & Philip Reeve.

You can read more about the project and see all the postcards HERE.

I was determined that I wouldn't draw Castlerigg until I'd visited. What a place! Here's some preliminary sketches.

Stylist Magazine

We were recently asked to create a collection of Felt Mistress characters by Stylist magazine to model shoes and bags for their special Fashion issue. Here's my original sketches (all characters were to be furry and brightly coloured. Louise chose all the fabric first and we took it from there) and below are some of the pages from the shoot featuring Louise's finished Felt Mistress creatures. Thanks to Alexandra Fullerton and Tom Gormer for directing the shoot (and having the idea to commission us to work on such an enjoyable project) and thanks to Omer Knaz for the fantastic photography. It was a joy to see someone taking so much pride in their work and paying so much attention to detail.

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival Characters

I was really pleased to be asked to create a set of characters for the excellent Lakes International Comic Arts Festival (now into it's second year). Here's the official press release -

Guardian and MAD magazine cartoonist Jonathan Edwards has created “Poblin’s Gang” – a family of mascots for this year’s Lakes International Comic Art Festival, which returns to Kendal from 17th – 19th October.

Poblin and family reflect the inclusive aims of the Festival, offering events that will appeal to the whole family –from children’s workshops and film screenings to creator talks and signings.

“We’re delighted with Jonathan’s designs,” enthuses Festival Director Julie Tait. “The characters will appear in many different ways and places, some expected, others unexpected!”

“When someone described LICAF as having a character all of its own, we thought that this is exactly what it should have,” she adds. “In the great tradition of European festivals and other great comic art producing cultures such as Japan, we thought the creation of a festival character/mascot (or gang, as it has turned out!) would bring a distinct identity and encourage our audiences to feel more ownership of the festival.

“Who better to approach than one of the UK’s leading character designers, Jonathan Edwards, who has a fine track record in comics and a whole multitude of creative strings to his bow?”

“The characters started life as a request from Julie Tait to create a single mascot,” says Jonathan Edwards, whose illustration work has also graced the covers of albums by The Black Eyed Peas and The Jungle Brothers, and is also a guest at the Festival.“But the more we talked about it, the more I realised that one character couldn’t really sum up the entire Festival. So from one it increased to four… then six – then eight!

“We’ve ended up with wide-eyed newbies who, despite loving comics for a long time have perhaps never attended a festival (Poblin and Froop), long-time Festival attendees (Woolton), comics connoisseurs and academics (VeVe and Gubbs) and visitors with specific interests – Manga (Blizz), Small press/zines (Zinny), foreign language aquatic adventure comics (Trimp).

“Design-wise I’ve used a colour scheme suggested by the Lakes logo,” Jonathan reveals. “Red, black and white – and stuck to the classic Matt Groening advice of giving each character a distinctive silhouette.

“You’ll be able to spot any of these across a crowded room!”

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 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.

"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".

Barnaby Grangle Riso print

Here's the Barnaby Grangle print (my contribution to the Blank Slate 10x10 series). My first Riso! Barnaby is one of the Felt Mistress characters we created for the Headspace event in Osaka in 2011. The print is £10 (a bargain!) and available from Blank Slate.

It ain't over until...

A Valkyrie style opera singer. A recent commission for a Scottish tourism magazine.

Ska Badger

I've drawn a Ska Badger for The Somerset Badger Group charity. You can win the original by donating here.