Salaric

So I have a Patreon account – the idea is that people can basically sponsor me to create art, poetry, science etc… at the moment I am posting the progress of a secret art project up on there. Though the art work will eventually go live for everyone to see you are looking at a year or so I think but if you are a patreon then you can see how and when the project progresses – this is only fair as it is money from this platform that has allowed me to buy the art supplies I need for said project.

There will be extras for the higher paying patreons as well 🙂

Also it is not the only thing – often my stories and poems appear on there before they go public as well.

One secret art project.

Art prints of A Stranger Dream have arrived – these are wonderful – I am really chuffed with the quality and I have found some black frames which work really well with the images.

Currently there are only three designs: Dismissed, Identity Clinging and Love. As these sell I will have enough capital to get more made but it is going to be a slow roll out – sorry guys!

Also I am not currently selling things online other than the book itself which you can get through amazon. The reason for this is that the after affects of head bang make it still a bit too much for me but I am selling them at events.

Obviously I have only just launched A Stranger Dream: Love a non-linear visual poem as a colouring book but… well people have been asking about other books – now I have a long list of other potentials but thought I’d see what people want 🙂

Trying to decide what type of ink style colouring in book to draw next – so here's a poll! tweet me "other" too 🙂

— Sarah Snell-Pym (@Saffy) May 6, 2016

Yes it’s on twitter – I’m not quiet sure how this works but if you can’t click the options on there then just comment 🙂 Also I am happy to consider other suggestions 🙂

Thanks muchly 🙂

I am a poet, I am an artist, I am many things some of which seem contradictory – after the head bang last year the question of identity reigned large in my vision of self – not just my identity but everybody’s and societies reactions to identity issues – so I started working on a series of images.

I was learning how to draw again and the ideas were appearing faster than I could create them, I spent 3 months working on the visuals for A Stranger Dream. And mainly I have had positive feedback though some people do hate the style and that is fine it is stark, it was meant to be.

But what is A Stranger Dream? Well for a start it is not A Stranger Dream it is A Stranger Dream: Love but it’s not it is

Love: A Stranger Dream…

or both or neither or something…

It is a non-linear visual poem on identity, gender, our place within family, our concentric non-ecludian intersecting and exclusionary circles of all the cultures of us – it is the distorting mirrors within our own heads – the fitting and the not fitting – the fires within.

I know it doesn’t look it but it was a hell of a lot of work.

Then someone said “it says colouring in book to me” and I thought… why not?! I thought people colour to relax, to sort thoughts, to just be themselves and that is fitting – plus colouring in book is on the list of to-dos and I have been producing colouring in sheets for my kids workshops for ages.

So I started by popping the images up as individual sheets for download and colouring – they are still there and they are free.

Then I made ring bound ones at home for shows and events… people far away started asking how they could get hold of them so I have created a colouring in book complete with purple spine and title box because… I am the Purple Poet!!!!

Here is a picture of the spiral bound ones at The True Believers Comic Book Festival earlier this year.

And this weekend (April 22-14 2016) I am having a launch party – sadly I am only running a virtual one but it is going to be epic!!!

I will be pinging around the internet – of course hoping people will buy the book but as I said don’t feel you have to because I put the individual sheets out there for free download and I know times are tight (having said that I need to buy more art supplies… to you know produce more art!).

There is a Facebook Event, a Google+ Event, a twitter hashtag # astrangerdream and my patreon account (which will have hidden extras in it for patreons only). There are also the blogs namely this one and Turquoise Monster which is my poetry blog 🙂 So I think that is pretty much everyone covered – I am hoping to do a little film thingy too but we will have to see how the laptop holds up!

The colouring book is already up on Amazon and Book Repository etc… it is appearing as £10 odd – I meant it to be roughly £7 if you’ve bought the £10 copy let me know as I have a little goody bag to post to you containing some lovely tie-in items 🙂 (yes I am trusting people to be honest here! Thankyou 🙂 )

Oh and there should be a gallery unveiling where people can post pictures of their colouring in – if they wish 🙂

There are going to be give aways but there will also be merch for sale and special offers etc… (sorry guys I would love to give you everything for free but I do need a new computer!).

I am actually stupidly excited about this and am even making myself an outfit out of the art work! The poetry cards have arrived and are beautiful in a way I was not expecting 🙂

Most of all though regardless of weather you buy or take for free or just look – mainly I hope everyone will be enriched by the work itself, it was very important to me whilst creating it. It’s kind of an imprint of the soul, maybe a darker one than people would like but it is… something – I’m not quiet sure what.

I hope you will join me for turning the starkness into a rainbow.

My eldest loves the computer game MineCraft so for her birthday I set about making a MinceCraft Banner using felt – both sheets of felt from which I cut her name – it was a pack of animal skin patterned sheet felt. And needle felt – this is a dry felt technique where you stab the felt fibre to tangle them all up together. I used a brush to sit the fibres on to stab them and got a tool that contains more than one needle so that the process goes quicker.

The creatures are a creeper and the head of an Enderman and they were created free form so there is no pattern I am afraid.

We then sewed them onto a medium width piece of green ribbon, folding the ribbon back on itself at the ends and sewing hanging loops into the banner.

Tuesday we went to Weston Super Mare were they have a Sand Sculpture Festival – these are basically giant sand castles – but… oh my! They are amazing! It’s still on and is an annual events 🙂

This guy was working on a giant gamers birthday cake with lots of vintage computer game graphics on it!

The skill and craft were amazing as were some of the ideas and geometry behind the sculptures! Here are some of my pictures but really if you get a chance to go… then go! It was a couple of quid and careers go free and there were lots of student and elderly concessions etc… plus sand pits to play.

Faces in Sand

Fairy Tales

Because we saw the sculptures just after the Dismaland exhibition I looked at the little sand world and all I could think was “I See No Borders”.

There was loads of character work – I could of taken a lot more pictures but time and weather were running against me!

Jungle – complete with the liberian 😉

The Sea – I am obsessed with seascapes so I spent alot of time looking at this lengthy sand sculpture, complete with whale and boat.

Don’t lick the sculptures! (He never listens)

The Dragon! (I took this one with the 3D camera as well and am most pleased with the result!)

Seriously love this dragon!

I was once upon a time a geologist and have mapping pens still kicking around, I also have lots of old maps of various sorts (some are the sort you frame most aren’t), and I was poodling around on Pinterest and saw some fun map projects and there some little creatures I had been meaning to draw for a while.

So I have started work on a series call The Maps of The Imagination which are going to be for sale at The True Believers Comic Festival. Pretty much there is only going to be the actual drawings rather than any books.

This is a photo – I need to get around to scanning at some point 🙂

This is also only the beginning of the map projects 🙂

One manga style colouring in sheet of Ada Lovelace as free download this coming week 🙂

Colouring Sheet

To celebrate Ada Lovelace Day 🙂 A celebration of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.

So I woke up at like 5 in the morning with the idea of painting a flamingo in water colours which is the medium I currently experimenting with.

I found a photo, sketched the flamingo and then painted, I’m finding that it is easier to paint if I don’t think about the process as such.

Glue – we used a latex based glue like copydex
Buttons – a mix of sizes and colours namely, pink, green, yellow
Patterned cardboard – we used graze boxes as they tend to have nice grass and flower patterns on them and are just the right size to cut up for these pictures
Scissors
Piece of ribbon or cording for the handle
Gold paint pen

Cut out two rectangles of card, select which one you want for the background of the picture and which one you want for the frame. Make sure the are the same size. For the frame cut a 2 cm strip along the bottom stopping 2 cm from the edge, turn scissors 90 degrees and cut a strip 2 cm wide up the edge until 2 cm from the top, turn 90 degrees and cut along the top again stopping 2 cm from the edge, now turn scissors again and cut down the side until you get to the first cut. A smaller rectangle of card should now pop out leaving you with a frame – put this to one side for now.

Lay out the buttons you have chosen in the shape you want, check that it will fit within the frame and then glue them in place.

Cut a piece of ribbon or cord for your handle and glue it in place – ribbon works better as the frame can side flat over it. An alternative is to stick the handle on the back but you will have to wait for the picture to dry before you can do this. Glue the frame in place pinching down over where the hand is – cloths pegs can help as mini clamps if it is being problematic.

Draw or write with paint pens – I did a wrote Spring and then drew a spring as an exclamation mark.

This is my creation – the toddler spilt her milk on her one, it was a sheep and she had given it gold ears.