The Blackbird Sings

Uppercase: A Nice Surprise!

Yesterday something arrived in the post. Not something I'd ordered, but a surprise package from my friend, the jewellery designer Kirsty O'Donnell, to wish me well on my trip to Paris next week!

 

Kirsty has loaned me her copy of Uppercase magazine for a bit of inspirational reading on the train. I'm resisting the urge to read it all before I go, because I've heard such great things about this magazine from various friends and I've been longing to get my hands on a copy for ages! I may have to seriously consider buying a subscription even though it's pretty expensive, because I believe this is the best art and design magazine I've ever seen. Just a quick flick through has already provided me with inspiration and ideas for new work.

As you can see, Kirsty also attached a little papercut of the Eiffel Tower she made especially for me. It's so lovely - I'll treasure it!

It's nice to have such kind friends. :)

Enjoy the images below featuring just a few of my favourite pages from the magazine...

 

 

I love this article about foxes!

 

 

My Twitter/Flickr/Etsy friend, Mitsy Sleurs of ArtMind, was also featured in an article - that was a total surprise! I own one of her ceramic 'Feelings' (Curious) - you can see some of them on the right.

I won a prize!

Last week I took part in a little competition on Twitter held by @TateShop, to win some Tate goodies to celebrate 10 years of Tate Modern. You may remember that I visited their online shop recently to stock up on some items and also to buy the gorgeous Rob Ryan tape featured in the previous blog entry. Anyway, all I had to do to enter the draw to win a prize was re-tweet to my followers on Twitter the 10% discount offer in their shop - it was as easy as that! And much to my surprise, I was one of the three winners chosen. :)

My prize arrived yesterday afternoon - I had no idea what it was going to be and so unwrapping it was a little like an early birthday present (it's my birthday on 31st May). I wasn't disappointed! In fact I was absolutely thrilled. Here are my goodies...

 

A glossy Tate tote bag and a little enamel badge.

 

 

Really lovely (huge!) book celebrating 10 years of Tate Modern. Full of wonderful inspiration, as you can see...

 

I saw this Anish Kapoor piece while I was at the Tate in January with Leon.

 

Francis Bacon.

Photographs © Natasha Newton 2010

I'm a very lucky girl! If any of these items have taken your eye, you can buy them here: Tate Shop

Have a great weekend! x

Random House Book Covers - The Actual Books!

On Friday morning there was a knock at the door. When I opened it, there stood a man with a box. I was a little perplexed, thinking it must be some kind of mistake as I hadn't ordered anything. As I signed for the parcel, I looked at the sender's address on the box. It said 'Random House Mondadori', and it had come all the way from Spain. In a split second I realised that the box contained copies of the five books Random House had used my artwork for! I knew they were due to be released in March 2010, and the designer who worked on the book covers back in September 2009 had kindly offered to send some copies when the books were published, but such a long time had passed that I didn't know if he'd even remember, and I had no idea that they were just going to turn up. So it was a completely wonderful surprise!

Inside were two copies of each book and a lovely handwritten note from Ferran Lopez. I can't tell you how exciting it is to see my artwork on actual books! I keep holding them, looking at them, and it almost feels as if it's happening to someone else; it's like a dream. The books are in Spanish so I can't read them, but that doesn't matter! I know that my work is going to be out there: that people will sit in their house, on a train, a park bench or wherever, in another country, reading a book with my paintings on the cover. It's an unbelievable feeling.

I will be forever grateful to the lovely designer Ferran Lopez for finding me/my work on the internet and liking it enough to want to use it on Jorge Bucay's books. He was delightful to work with and he did a brilliant job of the cover design/typography, as you can see from the images below...

[Please click on the images to view slightly larger versions.]

 

 

 

 

Artwork © Natasha Newton

Design © Ferran Lopez / Random House

P.S. I now have a desire to design more book covers. I really hope I'm given the opportunity to do this at some point in the future...

:)

Random House Book Covers

You may remember that back in September I told you that five of my paintings were being used by the book publishing company Random House as the cover art for a series of books by the author Jorge Bucay. If you don't remember this and would like to find out about it, here's the original blog post: My Paintings as Book Covers

As they are released this month, I thought the time was right to finally share them with you. I'm very excited and absolutely delighted with how the designer at Random House has used my artwork!

{Please click on the image below to view a much larger version.}

 

Artwork © Natasha Newton

Christmas...

...was great, and is still continuing. :)

Our Christmas dinner table in my mum's festive little kitchen.

Even though it's another family day today I'm itching to start on some more work, so I think there's a strong likelihood I'll be drawing in front of the fire later. I just wanted to stop by to say that I hope you're all having a great Christmas - please feel free to leave a comment and tell me what your favourite present was; I'd love to hear about them!

I received so many nice things: jewellery, books, DVDs, ear muffs (!), a mountain of Thornton's and Hotel Chocolat chocolate goodies..., but the book I'm reading at the moment - and getting totally inspired by - is actually my Christmas present to myself: a new book about the Swedish artist & illustrator Camilla Engman. I've been a fan of Camilla's work for a couple of years and so when I saw that she had a book out, I had to get it! It's completely different to many art books as it doesn't just feature her paintings and illustrations, but also photographs of her home, studio, inspirations, portraits of Camilla herself, and her gorgeous little dog Morran. I spent a long time completely absorbed in her fascinating world yesterday, and I now have a renewed desire to visit Sweden. It's the most inspiring, well-written, and beautiful book I've read in a long time, and something I know I'll refer to again and again.

 
You can find out more about it by visiting her website and clicking on 'shop'. It comes with lots of extras - a beautiful print, postcards, a little booklet about Morran and so on!

Anyway, I'd better get back downstairs as everyone will wonder what I'm doing up here...enjoy your Boxing Day wherever you are!

[Update: I notice that the book has now sold out on Camilla's site, but there's a link to another site where you can still purchase it.]