My Blog has Moved

I'm keeping things all together now - with my blog attached to my website. Please take a look:

https://trina-dalziel-rfll.squarespace.com/trinanewwork/

Collage Animals

I took a wonderful online course in collage recently run by Mati Rose. It was over five weeks and each week was themed. These are my pieces from the week called "Creatures". I absolutely love working with paint and collage and would happily do it all day long.

Chalkboard Reminders of Exhibitions in London

I did these recently as a reminder to myself of all the exhibitions I'd like to see in London this summer.

Cards for TeNeues

These arrived in the post recently - samples from TeNeues of cards with my artwork that they produced as part of this summer's range. There are sixteen pink typewriter cards and envelopes in the box and the little gift cards have eight of each design. The dogs are trying to reassure an insecure cat and the bears are just standing around with balloons. The doggies are the same dogs on my banner above - they have been wandering along there for a couple of years so I'm delighted that they have a home to go to! TeNeues produce cards that have often caught my eye in the past so I'm thrilled to have my work chosen by them. 

Italy Map for Swimwear

I loved doing the artwork for this project. I was even able to incorporated a couple of photos taken - one in 1986 when InterRailing around Europe and one in the summer of 2001 on a trip to the Italian Riviera. Makes lugging my heavy photo albums around from home to home feel justified! It was for an Italian textile company and I believe it is for swimwear.

Blooms of Nigeria

This flower is a response to a project called "Blooms of Nigeria", initiated by artists Rebecca Bradley and Janna Morton to raise awareness of the kidnapping of the three hundred schoolgirls in Nigeria. Each female artist involved has been given one of the hundred and seventy currently publicly known names of the girls and we were asked to draw a flower and their name. You can look at the rest of the gorgeous flowers here (more are being added each day) and read more about the project.

Typewriter cards from Madison Park Greetings

Last summer I drew four typewriters and wrote about them here. These two have been licensed to Madison Park Greetings and some samples came in the post recently. I'm always so happy when the colours are spot on and love the matching acid green and turquoise envelopes.

Artwork for Angelic Healing

A highly illustrated book which gave me the opportunity to draw many of the things I love to draw including women, animals, flowers and nature. I loved the space and clean design of the pages.

20 Ways to Draw a Butterfly and 44 Other Things with Wings

This was a lovely book to work on last year for Quarry Books. It's a selection of forty five different  winged things, each drawn in twenty different styles or techniques or using different marks and tools. It's a book with space for the "reader" to also draw their own versions. It was one of those projects where I felt nicely challenged, and developing my own skills as I worked my way through it which made it hugely rewarding.

Little Notions in Uppercase Magazine

This was a submission I did for the current issue of the beautiful Uppercase Magazine on the theme of "Little Notions" - a term I didn't know  - for small sewing accessories. I liked how the words "little notions" also sounded to me like "little ideas" or "ideas of little children". Sometimes not having as wide a vocabulary as I'd like, can be useful as the misinterpretations can spark ideas!

Printsource 2014

My agents Lilla Rogers Studio will be at Printsource in New York next week showing the studio artists work to fabric buyers. I had a lot of fun in November and December producing new work to be shown.

Origami Farm

This is the fourth origami book by Mari Ono that I have worked on. I made and designed the paper backgrounds to create colourful environments for the origami animals. It's always fun to make these as scissors and glue are a refreshing change of tools from a pen or a mouse! I also really enjoy the days spent working with photographer Geoff Dann at his studio - it's really rewarding to work in a collaborative way and to leave home for the day!

50 Shades of Erotica

A double page illustration for Woman's Weekly on writing erotic fiction. The brief was to keep it looking pretty and not overly sexy. It was fun working to a long thin format and creating a writer's environment.

Hello January

New Work from Make Art that Sells Course

Some of my new work completed as part of the Make Art That Sells Course (Part B) ran by my US agent Lilla Rogers. 

Top piece was for Scrapbooking Week. I knew almost nothing about scrapbooking (as not so big here in the UK as in the USA) but I really enjoyed the project as it allowed for the creation of lots of icons and images but without feeling the pressure when laying it out for it to need to work as a repeat. It also gave me the opportunity to really look at my partner's collection of vintage cameras....shocking how things can be in our home and I realise I've never properly looked at them before.

Party Paper on a Folk theme - I really loved working on this. Usually I draw lots of my elements separately and them scan and assemble inside my computer but for this I challenged myself to draw the whole of the plate in one go.

Christmas Card for Stationery Week. The turquoise angel decoration came out every Christmas when I was small and a few years ago my Mum gave her to me.

Moyo Directory

A few weeks ago I got the opportunity to add a portfolio to the newly launched Moyo Directory.
I haven't updated my website for a very long time (I can feel myself cowering with shame as I type this!!!) so it was really refreshing to see all my recent work together. And it's motivated me to make plans to update my own site.

A little bit about MOYO from their website - 
"The MOYO directory was founded by internationally acclaimed surface pattern designer Rachael Taylor and award-winning entrepreneur Beth Kempton to connect designers worldwide with job opportunities, and provide a place to showcase their work in the company of other designers. Rachael and Beth are also co-founders of MOYO, the world's first online magazine dedicated to surface pattern design and the wildly popular design school 'The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design'."

Auditory Processing Disorder Illustration

A recent illustration for Bulletin Magazine about a child with Auditory Processing Disorder. I love finding visual solutions to text that seems initially non visual and complex.

Anniversary Card for Trader Joe's

I received a few of these in the post recently - my artwork on anniversary cards for Trader Joe's. It was such a delight to see how beautifully these were designed and printed and on gorgeous paper. I did this illustration quite a while ago and seeing it being used again was a bit like discovering forgotten favourite winter clothes in the cupboard!

Moo Business Cards

I ordered some new business cards recently from Moo.com. Before they existed, with the option of getting many images printed at once, my cards were always homemade as I could never choose just one image to represent me on a professionally printed business card. I remember from my postcard produced on leaving art college that by the time I'd given out a handful of the 200 my style have changed! (Although I still have some of that fox card from 1990 and I think my style has sort of looped back around in the twenty three years. If only I could have reassured my brother then that Photoshop was on its way and I wouldn't always have to draw directly on top of our grandfather's notebooks!)

My 1990 Promotional Postcard 

When I was laying out the Moo cards to photograph it reminded me of rainy days as a nanny spent on the floor playing Pairs with the children....thinking it might be fun to make some sets of the game.

Drawing and Photographing Typewriters

Olivetti Museum Windows

I did these four thank you cards just before we went on holiday as a personal/speculative project. The top one is Dennis's Dad's typewriter which sits in their conservatory in Northumberland and his Dad still uses regularly.

When we got to Piazza San Marco in Venice Dennis teased me for turning my camera on the windows of the Olivetti Museum bordering the square....rather than the over photographed square itself. Though when I turned back I found him taking a close up of some cigarette butts on the ground with the towering Campanile in the background - which seemed far more sacrilegious!