Monday 28 January 2013

Zine fair; Manchester Art gallery

Thursday 31st (this Thursday) 5-8.30 we will be having a stall at Manchester Art gallery as part of their Thursday Lates evenings.

We will have zines (obviously) Sugar Paper, Kandy's rollerderby zine, Alison Erika Forde's art zine, Ben Cooney's comics and Some of Seleena's zine (that are mostly 90s or EMO centric!)

COME ON DOWN (more info HERE!)

Tuesday 22 January 2013

Kim Thompson; Take Comfort

On my way to tap class yesterday, I passed through the Cornerhouse I managed to get a glimpse at Kim Thompson's latest exhibition, Take Comfort...

Kim's paintings are awesome, she manages to mix block primary colours (argh the colours are so good!) and fine detail!
The exhibition is on until 18th February, for more information go HERE!

Sunday 20 January 2013

Jigsaws!!

Before we start, yes this is just a blog about jigsaws!

For Christmas Kandy bought me a jigsaw of a Tara McPherson image!!! (in case you thought we were a couple of wild, cool girls*, then we're not, I like to do jigsaws!)

I've always liked doing jigsaws, my sister and I used to do them all the time when we were  little, we had a set few that we did, a round floral one, a round country garden one, a seaside street rectangle, and a cartoon one of comedy mishaps at the beach (1000 piece) were some of our favourites. We did them so often it wasn't even a challenge. We both did certain parts on each jigsaw, like on the flower one, I did the bluebells and my sister always did the foxglove.

Anyway I was worried I wouldn't have the jigsaw talent (I did this 420 piece in just under 3 hours, so I'm a little rusty, but that did involve a few tea breaks and cat interruptions!)

Started off separating the edge pieces, and put those together.

Made the mistake of doing the easy bit first, oops. Tea break time

Ned comes to help.

Then Chip comes to help too

And finally it's done!!

I of course put the edge pieces in a separate bag when I packed it away, make it easier next time

So yeah it turns out I still love doing jigsaws!

So here's some songs about jigsaws or something



*I know from Harry Potter obsession to travelling halfway across the globe for a comic con makes us seem totally wild and cool, sorry to mislead you!

Saturday 19 January 2013

The First Cut; exhibition

We stated before how much we love paper art (in this blog here!) and so I've been meaning to get down to The First Cut exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery for a while. Kandy had taken her students down a while ago, but I made it there myself this week.

I LOVED IT! I can't remember who made what and which my favourite pieces were as I didn't make any notes, take any photos or even get my hands on accompanying literature (if there was any).

I can tell you that there are some amazing pieces, from gigantic, to tiny and it blew my mind how anyone can make art on such large or small scales with paper!!!

I really liked Andrea Dezso's work,


but my highlight was the room full of big Kara Walker silhouettes LOVE!!!

It has another week left so go and see it if you can!!

(photos stolen from Alison Erika Forde's blog!)

Love it!

Yarn crafts, check, cake, check,  Stop motion, check, Buddy Holly, check loving this...

Wednesday 16 January 2013

Seleena's got an exhibition....

2013 is turning out to be an exciting year for us here at Sugar Paper.
Kandy has something she's been working on for a while appearing this year (it's top secret, but super exciting!) and together we are planning non Sugar Paper stuff.
And I (Seleena) has an exhibition, that looks like this....

Thursday 3 January 2013

All the good stuff 2012 - the Kandy edition!

So, I actually do have a bad memory, so I'm going to write things as they come to memory and go from there. There will be some crossover with Seleena's list in here, but we hang out together...a lot!

-Roller Derby, there was a LOT of this in 2012, and a lot of achievements too. Playing my first bout with the Sheffield Steel Rollergirls' A-team, Captaining our B-team to a home and an away win! Playing as part of the intraleague tem the 'death leopards' and getting some awards along the way.

-I started a big exciting and still secret (until later this year) project for Knit and Destroy, ohmygodiwanttotellyouimightburst!

-Went on the roadtrip of a lifetime up the Pacific NW coast of America with Ben, and fell in love with it.

-Visited the Harry Potter studio tour, I am a massive fan, there are no words to summarise this....I wrote a blog about it though, so if you are interested, you can read that! 

-Had FUN..(more fun than most of the kids that were there by the looks of them) at Legoland.

-Sugar Paper reached issue 10, we did it, double figures.

-I gave a conference paper about knitting patterns at Cambridge, and made friends with my craft idol Freddie Robbins in the process, she is lovely, and we have similar brains.

-Went to a festival, the same small, indie festival we went to last time, at a railway museum yeah!

-Got tattooed by Angelique Houtkamp in Amsterdam, had one of those 'minibreaks' at the same time, bloody love Amsterdam.

-Gave blood, they actually got a useable amount out of me, very 'appy wi that!

-Saw the Yayoi Kusama exhibition in London, which inspired and moved me more than any art ever has in my whole life, I wanted to live in that exhibition.

-For my 29th birthday, we learnt to trapeze, it was super-fun, we got to do loads of moves and tricks and the instructor was amazing.

- Hanging out, and having a laff, of course!


Here's my photo for the year, Jamming for SSRG's A-team against Auld reekie rollergirls in a tournament in Glasgow, woop!

Kandy's Crafty Christmas!

Being a crafty kinda gal, I love handmade gifts, every christmas I wish I had time to make more but usually just do a few for my nearest and dearest.

This year, my making and doing was completely outshone by all the handmade gifts I recieved.

 
A fancy pin cushion and bag from my Mum

 
Fairy lights with shades made from coke cans from Tamsin 

 
An amazing notebook made to look like my favourite book prop from the Harry Potter studio tour...

 
..A super rag-rug that will be keeping my feet toasty and cozy in my studio...
 
 
...And a roller skating themed bookmark and cross stitch patch, all from the super-crafty Seleena


 A beautiful collection of drawings related to our late cat Sirius from Ben.

Now....I'd better start making gifts for next Christmas if I'm going to be exchanging gifts with this talented lot again!

Wednesday 2 January 2013

All the good stuff in 2012: The Seleena edition!

Despite having an amazing memory I kinda couldn't remember what I had gotten up to in 2012, so scanned this blog (how sad is that) and thought real hard, to bring you a list of my fave stuff of 2012...

-ZINES!!!! 2012 was a good year for zines for me. I contributed to some (Shape and Situate, Theme Park zine), I made more and set up a zine shop. I made my first (and last!!) fully illustrated zine, a Placebo/biog zine, edited a MSCL related zine and finally got the wheel in motion with Em for Poor Lass zine.
Sugar Paper also made it to it's tenth issue!!!

-Started volunteering at a youth centre in my local community helping with arts and crafts workshops with 8-12 year olds. I "don't like kids"(I think I do now, not all though, just a few) but I enjoy this! I also started volunteering at Whitworth Art Gallery doing various bits and bobs but held a workshop there with a bunch of 14/15 year olds!

-I don't think I went to many gigs in 2012 I couldn't even tell you the last gig I went too, this makes me feel old, hopefully rectify this in 2013 (this can only be done if the two bands I like that still exist tour and I follow them round or if all the other bands I like reform, so not holding out much hope!) but I did get to see Andrew WK and it was one of the best gigs ever, despite being ill with tonsillitis, it was RAD!

-I finally got me sen a website (with A LOT of help from Kandy) which makes me look like a proper artist!

-KITTENS!!!

-Had an awesome 28th birthday at Legoland (life long dream realised!!) and the Yayoi Kusama exhibition (mind blowing art).

-Nick getting me the best birthday present, my name tattooed on HIM!!!

-Whimped out of camping but still had some rad northern lass time at Indietracks, right tret our sens we did.

- Despite not being one of those Potter heads like 85% of the people I know I still had THE BEST time down Harry Potter world (aka Warner Bros Studio Tour) with some of the best folk!

-Seeing Wicked with my oldest pal Katie and getting excited about Matt from Busted being in it!

-DJing at Bad Rep and busting some moves.

-Learning to trapeze. That was good, I totally wanted to be a trapeze artist after that, but then I ached a long time after and you know I've got tap to work on!

-Stopping being stubborn after like 15 years and finally watching Buffy and proper loving it!

-VEGAS! yeah Vegas itself was rad, making new friends was rad, staying in a fancy hotel was rad, the con itself was rad, meeting yr heroes and them not sucking even a little bit was beyond rad!! VEGAS WAS THE BEST!

-Using the money Holly gave me to pay for her Vegasness to buy myself some Johan Waters art by Jessicka Addams!

-Dressing as one of my idols Dawn Weiner for Halloween

-Doing a photoshoot with Nickie.

-All the ace stuff my friends and family did, they are the best!

And just hanging out with all my pals, nowhere near enough, but more of that in 2013!


This is my photo of the year as my face looks ok but really it's having sooooo many feelings (taken at Hard Rock Hotel Las Vegas!)

Christmas; cats,crafts and comics!!

I got another great haul this Christmas, woo for me!

But as usually I noticed a running theme (and it wasn't just MCR although I did get two special presents related to them).
It was all about cats, crafts and comics!!

From some cat mittens from my mum, too Crafting With Cat Hair from my friend Laura. A poster signed by Hope Larson and Bryan Lee O'Malley (and an AWESOME BLO doodle) from Ben Cooney to a knitted jumper by Kandy of Enid Coleslaw!I got A Junko Mizuno comic too and some rad art, from Alison and Nickie! My walls are gonna look special.




As are my shelves with these other special gifts (to keep in the box or not ARGH!)