I had my picture snapped last week with some of my work as part of the new Nesta Campaign (I was in the Sunday Times!). The article was to launch this year's call for applications for their Starter for Six Programme. The scheme runs in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow and offers people with cool ideas some business training...and the opportunity to pitch their idea in front of the Nesta panel for funding up to £10,000. Yip, that's 10K! The business training isn't the usual bog standard cash flows and spider diagrams, they take more of a creative (maybe even quirky!) approach and tailor the advice towards the type of business which think a bit more outside of the box. Nesta are a fantastic organization to get involved with; enthusiastic staff, great contacts, sound business advice, big cash investments and a super-cool HQ in London that's straight out of Ugly Betty!...read more.

I’m super-chuffed to announce I have won a 4Talent Award, Channel 4’s annual hunt for new UK creative talent. From over 700 applicants, the judges picked out 20 category winners. Along with those bright sparks that do amazing things with cameras and film, I’ll be picking up the Wildcard Award, which 4Talent delightfully describe as a “creative catch-all” encompassing fields such as illustration, fashion design and fine art and was judged by James Estill, Senior Producer at 4Talent and Jonnie Turpie, founder and Digital Media Director at Maverick TV. ...read more.

Late last night, whilst listening to the Shipping Forecast on Radio 4, I finished the computer manipulation of the hand drawn design; tidying up the lines and flipping the half moon to make a full sphere. Today I’ll be printing out the motif on my A3 printer and popping along to the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art Library to photocopy the motif onto acetate. There’s lots of ways to transform artwork onto transparencies for exposing onto the silk screen, some people paint straight onto big sheets of ethulon paper (a glossy sort of hazy tracing paper) with a thick opaque ink called Speedball, others print the motif onto tracing paper in black and white but I think you get the crispest print by using acetates, it costs a bit more, but the result is a more defined image on the screen from which you get a beautifully detailed print. Nice. ...read more.

The dark, cold mornings are back with a vengeance - winter is here once more, boo. I thought I would give you sneak peek of my desk today. I've been working on a black and white design for a big Scottish organization (will let you in on their secret identity as soon as the commission is finalized - counting your eggs and all...) The brief was to create a limited edition print for them which could be presented as a gift to VIP's. I wanted to create one of my signature spherical black and white designs with a Scottish accent, so I intertwined the foliage with the odd thistle head and jagged little prickle. The hand drawn stage is now complete, so the next step is to scan it into my trusty Mac, tidy up the artwork and flip it in Photoshop to create a perfect circle. After that, I'll print the black and white sphere out onto acetate and expose it onto a silk screen, before getting mucky and hand printing the first few samples. The whole process should be complete by Monday, just in time to pop the samples in the post to my Mystery Client. Check back over the next couple of days to see updates on the process and see the first prints, hot off the print table!...read more.