Emily Catherine Illustration: HAPPY NEW YEAR! January Blogger

Happy New Year you boggers! I hope everybody had an amazing Christmas and New Year and you all are ready for 2016 in good health.

As we fast approach February, Treehouse HQ has been a hive of activity! Prints, cards, events, fun and commissions!

Firstly, I have fantabulous new set of Celebrity Risograph prints, similar to my Paloma Yourself Together and Have Faith in style, of 5 celebrities which will be released throughout the year and are top secret!

The brilliant boys at Dizzy Ink (https://m.facebook.com>dizzyink) have been working hard (sometimes against my tide) to help me get these to fruition.

Sometimes, with Risograph, one gets little mistakes which are priceless, and, on one of my visits to Dizzy Ink HQ I had the pleasure of sharing the studio with the talented Mr. Tim Kloed. Tim was working on some wonderful geometric shape prints and an accidental collaboration with one of my prints took place:

Tim Kloed and Emily Catherine Accidental Collab .... Purple Raining Geo Prints? Ha!

You can follow Tim on Instagram under the name 'Timkloed' or contact him on tim-kloed.co.uk. Since our serendipitous print we are discussing a planned collaboration in the future, so watch this space.

Dizzy Ink are having a party on February 3rd at the Lacehouse to launch their kickstarter campaign for new equipment. There'll be live screen-printing, drinks, and the amazing Jay Nurse AKA Jammi Nurk on the decks and I will be there smiling and drinking tea. The event is : https://www.facebook.com/events/1672504263021046/ -pop along and get krunk and krink with plenty of ink!

Talking of Risograph and celebrity,  we sadly lost some pretty incredible people in January. Mark B, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Glenn Frey, Sian Blake to name a few. Obviously, death is inevitable but sometimes the people who have touched our lives and perhaps died unexpectedly can leave us feeling like a new year has truly got off on a bad foot. Oddly, I had created a David Bowie print in 2015, which I was booked in to print when I heard the sad news that he had passed. In memory of him, and frankly, everyone who has passed, I released my Bowie print early and decided that all proceeds go to Macmillan Cancer Support. You can buy the charity print here in the Prints section of the website and is stocked at Cavology. The good people at Cavology in Cobden Chambers, Hockley, Nottingham, are waiving their commission to do their bit for charity.  Here's a pic:

Bowie Charity Print

Thank you to everyone who has bought the print, there is only one left on the website and three at Cavology.

On a lighter note, February does bring with it the month of ...luuuurvvve. Which means Valentines Day is fast approaching.

As some of you may know, I am not wholly celebratory of enforced celebration days, and I like to applaud the fringe minority at times of the year as these, which is why my Valentines Cards have so far been Anti-Valentines cards. However, if you're going to let someone know that you love them, I also have printed two of my Versace inspired fashion illustrations to cards and now have the perfect mix this Valentines Day. 

My cards are all £3.50 and printed onto high quality textured matt card, come with cellophane and an envelope and are blank inside for you to freely express yersen.

Capriccio Dancers Card. £3.50 Emily Catherine lllustration.

Gianni Heart Dress Card £3.50 Emily Catherine Illustration.

As well as cards, I also ordered my Versace inspired watercolours to be Giclée printed onto archival paper by the brilliant D.Studio boys down in Essex (www.digitalprintdesign.co.uk) and these will be available on the website and in store very soon. They are all museum quality, limited edition signed prints. Here's a sneaky peek:

Giclée prints arrived!

Now for something different. February sees Nottingham celebrate the popular event, 'Light Night'. Get yoursens daan to Rough Trade Nottingham to watch the Revenge of Calculon and legendary Tim Onga paint with light (FOR REAL) or take a stroll to the Night Market in the Lace Market.

The excellent independent publisher of poetry and illustration for the fringe of the city, Mud Press will be taking part with an excellent stall at the biggest night market event our city has ever had. On February 5th Mud Press have a stall at this https://www.facebook.com/events/1100429943302918/ with two anthologies, gifts and pretty lights. Please take time to visit her. She has a remarkable approach to poetry and has lovely red glasses to admire. Mud Press are asking for submissions from illustrators and poets to contribute to a 'zine they are curating called 'W O M A N' and I was honoured to be asked to create a flyer advertising it (see below). You can submit to www.mudpress.com.

Also coming soon to February is The Anti Gallery's launch at Rough Trade, hosted by founder Saziso Phiri on the 12th from 7pm and is free entry (https://www.facebook.com/events/1732873540267462/). The Anti Gallery will be exhibiting 'Mighty Fine Art' a curated collection of Nottingham's finest. The Anti Gallery is pop up, visionary and dynamic and supports a wide range of artists to project a voice for all perhaps outside of the interior of the art world. For that reason you'll often find really unusual, ballsy and vibrant things. Don't miss the event! I'll be there, again, smiling and drinking tea!

Right, the stoopid bits:

Sometime you boggers, I create things for my own personal satisfaction. For those of you who don't know, there is a grime artist called Big Narstie and he and Lordie (another Grime musician) have a Youtube channel called The Grime Report. As I was convalescing, feeling sorry for myself, the only thing that made me laugh was watching Narstie advise the BDL community on their problems. In honour of him, I drew him. I did contact he and Lordie and their agent to see whether I could make it into a card, as I was thinking of creating a Grime Series (Lazer Leng Character Print anyone? How good would THAT be?) However, no one got back to me, so I cannot use his image to make money without his permission. Instead, I will draw him and applaud him and love him to death. He is the happy buddha #Base, and when he laughs, I laugh. What a guy.

Big Narstie WILSON! Emily Catherine Illustration

Here's me at work:

Unwashed, unkempt, it's magic!

Here's a shocking Dizzy Ink mistake abomination of nature of two of my prints:

Minaj Et Bleurgh.

Here's my eating a massive cake at Sherwood Forest:

CAKEY TREAT

Good looking out to February, the new year, new beginnings and new cakes.

I love you all,

Emily Catherine Illustration Treehouse HQ 2016