A Book & Sketch a Week: #1

Starting things is a particular strength of mine. Finishing on the other hand…that doesn’t always happen. At the beginning of a new year I always enjoy thinking about the year ahead and what I intend to start. This year is no different and I have set myself the challenge of reading a book a week and doing a sketch/painting a week.  At the end of the first week I am pleased to say that I am 100% on track, as my goodreads 2016 reading challenge metre happily told me. This time next week will probably be a different story – but for now I’ll indulge in the fact I have finished 1/52 of what I have started.

Sketch of the Week: 

I was particularly inspired to paint again after watching a Sky documentary on the winner of the Portrait Artist of the Year award. Christian Hook is an artist with the remarkable ability to empathise with his subjects and then translate this into his portraits and studies. In the weekend I had watched this program at my in-laws, my husband had many cuddles with his childhood best friend, his black labrador Inca. The result of this was a watercolour sketch of Zac and Inca:

It was a challenging paint as I had to get familiar with watercolours again. Not entirely happy with it and poor Inca looks a bit out of shape, but I’m determined to keep up with the painting in the year ahead!

Book of the Week:

This week I read: ‘The Man Who Forgot His Own Wife‘ by John O’Farrell. It’s a humorous read about a man who has a sudden onset of amnesia in the middle of a tube journey in London. Vaughan finds himself without phone, wallet or keys and not a clue of who he is or where he is going. As the story unfolds he starts to piece his life back together, only to find he’s in the middle of a messy divorce.

I came across this book by chance when a friend left it by accident after staying at my house. John O’Farrell is not an author that I had heard of prior, nor was this a book I had seen on the shelves. However, a couple of sentences in and the humorous, sarcastic tone of O’Farrell had won me over.

After reading a few books with a slow start (The Miniaturist being the most recent) I welcomed the fast pace of which the story kicks off. A few pages in and I was already concerned for Vaughan and his sudden flight of memory. However, where I felt the book started off strongly, the second half frustrated me somewhat. O’Farrell’s witty writing seemed to turn into your average chick-lit, with certain scenes towards the end which made me cringe at the end shouting: ‘That would never happen in real life!’. That being said, there are some moments in the book where O’Farrell presents some particularly thoughtful questions to the reader. For example, in one scene Vaughan is in a pub with his best friend Gary, discussing his state of amnesia. He questions whether his new personality post-memory loss is a result of not being able to remember the events that had shaped his character:

“Is it possible that all the character-defining experiences of my life were wiped along with the memories of them? I had a teenage cycling accident which I don’t remember. I still have the scar on my leg. But do I still have all the mental scars of a failed marriage and all the other disappointments and unrealised ambitions, whatever they may have been?” p.309

Passages like this throughout the book show O’Farrell’s ability to touch on something more in his writing. However, for me this was not sustained throughout the story. All in all, it was a laugh-out-loud read, and an enjoyable way to kick of year of reading.

So that’s my first week of reading and painting in 2016. Just 51 weeks to go!

A Little Bit of Colouring…

Today I want to talk about adult colouring books. Yes, they are a thing now.

Since I am now on the other side of my degree, deadlines met and exams completed, I can look back and say that I wouldn’t have made it through without my daily colouring sessions. Adult colouring books have taken a recent surge in popularity, and as a self-confessed lover of these books I totally get why. Throughout my time at university, I struggled with insomnia. After long days of pouring over books, writing essays and creating presentations, my brain found it incredibly difficult to switch off at night. However, I found that colouring books provided my busy brain with something to focus on that at the same time was relaxing. My favourite of these books is the ‘Can’t Sleep Colouring Book’ by independent publishers Michael O’Mara Books who are leading the way in adult colouring books. The patterns and designs in this book encourage relaxation with their repetitive curves and swirls, making for very soothing colouring. The designs are also not too intricate and fiddly, perfect for someone who is trying to get to sleep. I also love that the thickness of the paper meant that I could use either pens or pencils. Here’s an example of one of the pages I have been working on from the book:

A page in progress from the ‘Can’t Sleep Colouring Book’

My enjoyment of colouring has continued even now I’m not so busy with a degree. Luckily for me, there’s a huge range of colouring books out at the moment to satisfy my colouring cravings. Publishers have really picked up on this growing trend, and now there are colouring books for people practicing mindfulness, for cat lovers and even a colouring book solely of Ryan Gosling pictures. Designs have got more creative, intricate and unusual, perhaps best displayed in ‘Animorphia’, a colouring book that is visually stunning before it’s even been flooded with colour. With all of these different colouring books the same outcome is always achieved; there’s a satisfaction in a completed page of colouring. This is another reason why I have clicked so much with colouring. As someone who loves to be productive, adult colouring books provide me with a quick fix way of feeling that sense of productivity. That is why these books are also great for people who are not particularly creative or artistic. Most of the hard work has been done, you can just sit back and colour and still feel as if you have achieved something artistically.

A page from Animorphia for people to colour at the London Book Fair, April 2015

‘Animorphia’ by Kerby Rosanes

An Owl from Animorphia that I can’t wait to get my hands on!

So next time you are in need of an activity to unwind, try a spot of colouring. It’s a welcomed change from the time we spend staring at a screen. Get familiar with pen and paper again and let your brain switch off.

Now excuse me, I’m off to find my Crayola’s.

If you are interested in buying or finding out more about the colouring books mentioned in this post, please check out the Michael O’Mara Books website: http://www.mombooks.com/

A Student’s Experience at the London Book Fair 2015

You know you’re a book nerd when you leave the history books at your desk to go spend your day surrounded by more books. Well that’s exactly what I did today. I made the pretty spontaneous decision on Monday night to book a ticket and get myself along to the London Book Fair at Olympia Exhibition Centre. And I am so glad I did. It was a wonderful day of books, seminars and networking that has left me inspired and itching to get stuck into the publishing world. As a first time goer, and pretty clueless about what I would find there, I thought I would share my experiences from the day to encourage other students to get along.

A beautiful stall by Usborne Publishing.

So what exactly is the London Book Fair? Well, the first thing it’s important to get straight is that the LBF is not a retail book fair. That means, apart from a small Foyles book stand, it’s not a place for customers to buy books (despite lots of books being on display!). What the LBF is, is an exhibition of hundreds of publishing houses, independent publishers, self publishers, booksellers and literary agencies. Here they exhibit what they do, what publications they’ve worked on and who they represent.  Running alongside this are over 200 free seminars covering a wide variety of topics: careers in publishing, how to get an agent, book design, digital publishing. Like I said, over 200! This is what I was most interested in, and about as much as I knew about the LBF before I arrived on the first day.

Books, books and more books.

Walking into the London Book Fair was like walking into a book lover’s fantasy. Hundreds and hundreds of books lined classy shelves that were set up to make little enclosed areas for each publisher. Penguin Random House and HarperCollins were the publishers that framed the front of the entrance, and I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face as I entered to see my two favourite publishers alongside one another. But I couldn’t stand there with my mouth wide open for long as I was soon swept into the fair by the crowds behind me.

Penguin Random House remind everyone why they’re one of the big 5 in publishing.

That brings me to the next thing you need to know about the London Book Fair: it’s very busy and very big. Huge. So it’s best to grab a map and know where you want to go first, or where you want to start. I had listed some of the seminars I wanted to go, and so I set off on a hunt for the Author HQ to attend the Introduction to Publishing seminar.

‘The Principles of Successful Book and Book Cover Design’ seminar.

The seminars throughout the day were really excellent. I attended 7, which may seem like a lot! But at 30-45 minutes each, the seminars were both concise and in-depth, so 7 in one day was definitely manageable. All the seminars allowed for questions from the audience. When you’ve got an audience of authors, publishers, agents and students, great questions get asked!

Particular highlights from the seminars include:

• Being taken through the process of designing Tom Jones’ autobiography book cover from the Creative Director at HarperCollins.
• A fantastic guide to effective PR and Marketing from Midas PR and Quercus Books.
• An inspiring talk from Ella Kahn,  co-founder of Diamond Kahn & Woods Literary Agency.
• And poetry recitals from George Szirtes, James Knight and Mauricio Montiel Figueiras – all who publish their poetry through tweets.

James Knight reciting one of his poems from his twitter @badbadpoet.

On a whole, the London Book Fair opened my eyes to lots of things I didn’t know about the publishing industry. It also reminded me of a lot of things I love about the publishing industry. The London Book Fair showcased it’s vibrancy, diversity and collaboration of creativity. Many people ask me why I want to work in publishing. ‘Surely no one really reads books anymore?’ they say. Well, the London Book Fair filled me with confidence, inspiration and pride for the way the publishing industry is developing.

People certainly are still buying books.