have you ever had it blue?

Damn, I'm going to miss this place this year. These are drawings of Clermont Ferrand. They're a kind of mixture of realism and imagination, fact and fiction. I like that place in between both. I have an idea for a small series of these drawings. So, if I will not get to physically visit this year, I will travel there through drawing.

lost in France

I started this drawing on New Years day. It felt good to start the new year drawing. I really needed to. With everything else I've had going on, I haven't really got lost in a big detailed drawing in a long while. This is the first in what I hope will become a series. It was drawn from a mish mash of photos, and memories (and a bit of imagination) from a trip to France in November. I've always loved France. When I was young I used to wish I was French. My favourite film is French. It's the country, outside of the UK, I've visited the most. For the last few years I've exhibited my work in France. And, now, of course I've had my book published by a French publisher.

So this is a love letter to France. Je t'aime.

and finally...

 You know, when I started out drawing I never imagined where that would take me. I was just doing it for the love of drawing. And, then after a while I began to believe that it could become something else, something more, it could be what I want to do with my life. Then things start happening and you get to a level of success. And then, you end up doing all sorts of other stuff that keeps you away from the drawing. That's how I've felt recently.

But then you have to take a step back and take a second to see where the drawing has actually taken you. I don't know if any of that makes sense. I'm tired. But I think I know what I mean.

Signed copies of my book (!), a book about my work (!!), is now available HERE.

carnet de voyages immobiles

So here's another thing that's been happening for me recently.

Here are some photos from the printers who are printing a new book. My book.

 When I went to Clermont Ferrand's wonderful 'Rendez-vous Carnet de Voyage' exhibition last year I got to meet some publishers.

And one of them took a shine to me - well, took a shine to my work.

 These photos tell the tale of what's been happening since then.

 Next week the books will be at the publishers and I'll be back in France in November to promote it.

It's insane really. When I started drawing a few years ago, this would have been one of those things I would have dreamt of happening whilst not really believing it actually would. It still seems a bit odd. But that is indeed a book about my work and I really will be going to France to promote it. As I said, insane.

playing on my mind

So, Tim here, Andrea's friend, stepping in as her technology has failed her yet again.

Obviously there must be a reason for the need to post something, anything, this thing.  The reason is that Andrea is about to release a, wait for it, brand NEW zine!  Hooray!, I hear you cry.  So here is a first glimpse of 'An Idle Daydream Based On Colour' a pen review (of sorts); as it is titled.

This Daydream is all about pens used in making some of Andrea's iconic images. So if you like pens, or like the work of Andrea, or both, or are just interested in the tools of an artist then read on.

The zine is A5 size, professionally printed on a lovely 170gsm silk paper, 12 pages and includes not only images from this very worldwide blog, not only a story about the pictures' creation but also a new illustrated pen on most of the pages, representing the pen used (sometimes) in that pictures', er, creation.

I have one of the 'Daydream's here and it is smoothly gorgeous. They will available worldwide from the Etsy shop SOON. Possibly by the time this is read by you, you lovely followers of the wonderful work of Miss J.

Thank you letting me bother you, and do check out the new zine, I think you will like it.

Bye.

you've come a long way baby

When I began my first travel themed journal I filled it with the souvenirs I'd brought from my trips. Because back then I would never draw in front of people, and so I could draw the souvenirs from the privacy of my own home. In fact, when I made my second little zine I wrote inside "I am a reluctant public sketcher. Actually, that is a big fat understatement. The thought of drawing in public fills me with horror". That was about three years ago.

 And, here I am today. drawing on planes, and in airports, cafes, parks and streets. I made the sketches, above, on the way back from France. I was sat with a really nice French guy who watched me draw through the whole flight. He commented on my sketches and even suggested the passengers who I should draw. The guy who is asleep in the middle of the page was looking over my shoulder at what I was doing (when he'd woken up, obviously!) and the flight attendant came over to take a look. I didn't mind. At all.

 I don't know what has changed in a relatively short space of time. I'm certain it's not one thing. Sure, my confidence has grown and I worry less that people will think my work is rubbish. When I reflect on how far I've come it inspires me to keep on going. And, to keep pushing myself in directions that I never thought I'd go. Roads I never thought I'd travel down. Learning as much as I can to become the best illustrator that I can be. 'Cos, I love drawing. It's as simple as that really; I just love drawing.

after the rush when you come back down

It's taken a little time, after the Clermont Ferrand exhibition, to start getting back to normal. There's so much to process. So many exciting potential opportunities. That's the thing about an event like that (actually, there are not many events like that), it's not just the taking part and the sharing of you work whilst you are there. It's also all the little acorns you plant in people's minds and memories.

These are the things I have been pondering as I've done three loads of laundry today.

Oh, and if you are interested, there's a lovely little review about the Clermont exhibition, by my new sketching friend Omar Jaramillo, on the Urban Sketchers website HERE.

in the twist of seperation

Hello folks, and a Happy New Year to you all. No, I didn't fall off the face of the earth I just got distracted by the holidays. The festive season didn't start too well for me and all I really wanted to do was lock myself away at home alone but my friends and family had other ideas. Which I am very pleased about. It was just 'what the doctor ordered'. Hope you all had a great time too.

Here's a couple more drawings from my travel Moleskine. I've almost finished this sketchbook. Just a few pages to go. I am then going to treat myself to another Moleskine for the second volume. I've enjoyed this theme so much I can't stop at one.

You might recognize the drawing above. I made THIS POST about it a couple of months back. I really liked the simplicity of the composition, but I don't do simplicity (as you might have noticed) and I wasn't at all confident that I could leave the page as it was. I was right to not be confident because this is what happened, below. Now that I see them on screen I'm not sure which I prefer. What do you think?

So, I know things have been slow around here but I have so much happening in the next couple of weeks. There'll be creative new year resolutions, news about how business is going and how trying to become an illustrator is working out, updates on all of your orders, new posts on my children's book blog and, of course, LOTS of new drawings. I hope you'll be joining me in this next phase of my journey in 2011 (2011? surely that can't be right).

Happy New Year my friends.

i've been whistling down the street

It wasn't until the day I was leaving Clermont Ferrand that I realised that I hadn't bought any souvenirs of the trip. We'd been so busy at the exhibition that I'd forgotten - which is ironic as I was there to exhibit my travel sketchbook that was themed 'souvenirs of my travels'. So on our final day we had an hour before we had to be the airport to find some souvenirs.

Luckily my stadar (a kind of radar, or gaydar, that detects stationery outlets in the vicinity), which had been going off for the whole trip, pointed me in the direction of a great big stationers close to our hotel. Now, for me, stationery plus souvenirs ticks so many boxes I couldn't have been happier.

So, here are my souvenirs of Clermont Ferrand; a half blue and half red pencil, two stencil maps of France and a ruler. Mission accomplished.

I'm not so happy with the blue and red drawing, above. No doubt I'll mess around with that some more in the future.

Of course, there are also all of the sugar packets, napkins, tram tickets, receipts, bills and business cards I also collected during the trip, but hey that's another drawing. Or six.

These drawing are a part of my aforementioned souvenir themed sketchbook. You can see the rest of the series HERE.

using words i never say

Wow.

Wow. Wow. Wow.

What an amazing weekend I've had in Clermont Ferrand at the Biennale Carnet de Voyage exhibition. I was there to show my sketchbooks, specifically the travel sketchbook, to (what seemed like) the whole of France. The event turned out to more than I could ever have imagined. It really was amazing.

No doubt I will go on and on about it for some time, but right now I just need to say some big 'thank yous'. Firstly to the organizers of this brilliant exhibition, specifically Anne, Anais and Marie who looked after us so well. Merci girls.

Of course a huge HUGE thank you to everyone who stopped by to look at my work. This is the first time these sketchbooks have been exhibited 'in real life'. Obviously, I have shown the drawings here on my blog, to a great response, but nothing beats seeing that response first hand. To see the look on peoples faces and hear the reactions was a beautiful thing and quite overwhelming. I returned to the UK a very happy person.

Finally, a big old thanks to my friend, and manager on this trip, Tim. I couldn't have done it without you mate. It certainly wouldn't have been SO much fun. You were great despite your appalling French.

Over the next few weeks I'll bang on about it a lot more, and I'll post some of the drawings of the souvenirs and memories that I brought back from Clermont Fernand. I hope you come back to see them.

Merci beaucoup.

for such a long time now

Another from the travel Moleskine.

I'll be exhibiting my Moleskines, including the travel Moleskine, at the Biennale; Carnet de Voyage event in Clermont Ferrand this coming weekend. If you are planning to visit the exhibition stop by and say hello.