Illustrated fiction post..

Sorry I've been so notably absent, so much to do after the Design Week shows so without further ado!...
A eargerly awaited illustrated fiction post from Julia F Green.. here it is..
Just a note.. I'm thinking of combining these cool illustrated fiction post into a zine, what do you all think about that good idea? Id appreciate your thoughts.. :)

Est


When Clarice turned the corner, she said shit. Somehow, overnight, two cranes had appeared in the middle of the block of 20th Street she walked down each day to get to work. As everyone in New York knew, cranes were falling out of the sky and to walk under one was to look God in the eye and tell him to go fuck himself. That dude was not going to laugh that one off. Kaboom, and they’re digging for your wallet in five feet of rubble.

She could have turned back—she could have gone back to 6th Avenue, walked up or down a block, over to 7th and then cut back to 20th. But what a waste of fucking time that would be. Who lives in New York and walks around in circles just to avoid danger? Clarice murmured the only prayer she remembered from her mandatory early childhood church attendance, opened her umbrella to the clear blue sky, and strode toward her destiny.

New pics for me&my products from the fab Charlotte Broster

Hey got some new pics done of me and my products for upcoming trade fairs like the fab Content and the pretty to good to miss One day designers sale at Crafts Central...
I love them im very pleased, as I knew I would be form my talented friend, she is very reasonable and i would defo (!) recommend her!!
Her info here: www.charlottebrosterphotography.co.uk
Pics here:

some new stuff on etsy

Hi some new work to show you.. the yellow teapot was picked for a related images post in etsy here the post was on twitter and well worth a lot, id love to hear your views on twitter people of the www! have a great day..

just a little something im working on..

Doodlers Anonymous

Hey,

Today i have a bit of a cracker for you recently I was contacted by the fab Chris Piascik who did a little post about some of my drawn on ceramics plates on this fab blog which shot straight into my bookmark list Doodlers Anonymous, check it out below!
the link to the blog piece on my plates here.

Some pretty pics from some other doodlers here:


































pic one: Chris Piascik
pic two: OKAT

Commission anyone?

Hey folks,
I'm about to open up a new part of my etsy shop, a commissions area..!
I've been picking up some great stuff at boot fairs of late and they are just perfect for commissions..
I get many enquires about commissions for gifts, weddings or for your own home, and this is how it will work, purchase a blank item at the full finished price, email me your image and hey presto finished drawn on commission winging its way to you!
I cant wait to be doing all the new drawing projects!
Here are just a few jugs i have right now which would be perfect for commissions!
Hope to hear from you soon,
Esther

New summer collection

Some great new work has just gone up on my etsy shop and with the summery wedding season soon upon us some of these would be great gifts, and ideal and unique item i hope and lets face it with the current climate a pretty reasonable spend, check out more on my etsy store.

Finished TSP wall drawing...

Only just realised I have yet to post images of the finished drawing I did in Boston last week for TSP, I think it turned out pretty well and the space there is shaping up to be v.cool, should be a very groovy digital lounge type spot if your in Boston drop by..

On the little screen!!

Hey!..
This Thursday on the UKTV FOOD on Sky TV there is a great little programe called Market Kitchen, and they, the wonderful people at Market Kitchen, are featuring my little lace doilie cake stand available through my etsy store and also the wonderful online shop Green Union!
Check it out!
market kitchen
green union
my etsy place

Bit of News!

My English Rose cake stand pictured here is featured in "Wedding Magazine" this month (March/April). It's now sold, but for similar check my etsy store in a few days as I'm about to post some new work !! www.esthercoombs.etsy.com

A little doodle for Wednesday..

Behold a twig, I so love that spring is coming..

Illustrated fiction: Fisherman, Part II

Ray told me he'd planned a special evening for Valentine's Day and told me to come to his place at seven. I put on a black dress and heels and took a cab, feeling excited and uncertain as we zoomed through the darkness of Central Park.

In the week since he'd shown me the pants, revealed the secret, not much had changed, except that I was seeing fish everywhere: two-dimensional guppies drawn on the walls of the subway, cheesy edible goldfish in the hands of children on the bus, starfish and sea anemones on socks and cosmetic cases and umbrellas.

He cooked me dinner, which he had done before, but this was the nicest dinner he had ever cooked me: tuna tartar, seviche, broiled calamari, fresh sole in a lemon butter sauce. The tuna came out in the shape of a heart, and on either side, he’d done our initials in ginger vinagrette.

Over dessert -- a classic chocolate souffle, airy, potent, a return to the basics he knew I loved and and relied on -- Ray explained that he’d simply wanted to devote an entire evening to the realm of things he loved, so that I could be more a part of it. I was delightfully full and lazy with wine and attention and wasn’t lying when I said I was enjoying myself.

After dinner, we settled into the couch to watch what Ray said was one of his favorite films. It was about a group of men who tended a lighthouse in northern Maine in the late 60s. They worked on a rotating basis, and apparently when one was doing his stint in the lighthouse, the others would take a fishing boat out and return a couple of days later to unload their haul and have briny intercourse with their wives. Then one of them began cuckolding another, and there were betrayals and fistfights, and then a town fight about doing away with lighthouse keepers entirely, as technology had rendered them unnecessary.

To Ray’s dismay, I dozed through some of the movie. To my dismay, I had waking dreams of orgies involving all of the characters, plus what they’d fished from the depths of the sea. When it was over, Ray poured me another cup of coffee and I stared at his backside while he did the dishes, wondering what it is that draws us together and keeps us there, what it is that makes one man love a fish, one woman love a steak.

In the middle of making love, Ray sucked his cheeks in and made a fish face at me. I laughed so hard I nearly fell off of him.

"What does that mean?" I asked him.

"I guess I’m trying to get you to admit that you think I’m insane."

"And why do you think I think that?"

He sucked in his cheeks once more and moved his lips up and down, fish bobbing for bait. "Aren’t I?"

"Aren’t we all?" I responded before closing my eyes and riding a white wave into an elysian oblivion.

doodles of a first draft for tsp..

hey
I'm doing a drawing on a wall for Boston company tech superpowers and I'm just doodling the first draft, any comments? I think its going well it a great space in their new digital lounge, still more to do though I think..

Illustrated fiction post: Fisherman.

Hey it's Wednesday...
Here's the illustrated fiction post all around a piece of my new work on fishermen!
This is a cracker!























"He wants you to dress up as what?"

Like a bored child dragged out shopping by her mother, I stood idly behind Chase as she flipped through the dresses. I considered crawling into the middle of the rack and playing hide and seek with myself.

"A fisherman?" I said, more of a question than a statement.

"So what you’re telling me is Ray -- cooks-dinner, cleans-the-bathtub, wants-three-kids Ray -- gets off on fishermen?"

"I guess he’s not as boring and predictable as you’re painting him to be," I said, though I wasn’t mad at Chase. I had been a little surprised when Ray had brought out the slick yellow jumpsuit, but he was sheepishly ecstatic and turned on, which, like everything else about him, I found adorable. I would have dressed up like a school bus if he’d asked me to.

"Does he want to lick fish oil off your belly? Or do you have to reel him in?"

I smiled. "I really don’t know. All I saw were the pants." This was true. He was too afraid to go into details, which was the only thing still making me reluctant about this new development. It had taken him six months to even tell me about this, and I wondered why, when it was so obvious I was gaga for him, he was so afraid to share these things with me and if he was hiding anything else.

"So what are you going to do?"

I shrugged. "I’ll try anything once." I wasn’t sure why I was being so circumspect with Chase; I was ready for anything with Ray. I’d bought my ticket, sold the house, signed my name -- or whatever it is that they say. I was in it to win it with Ray, but it seemed more delicious if I kept that between me and him.

Chase held a dress against her body and squinted at herself in the mirror for a second. Then she looked up and caught my blank expression in the mirror. "Thar she blows."

We erupted into giggles, our faces flashing maniacally in the mirror.

Fishermen at work drawings..

Hi,
I've been working on some new drawings..
Below a couple of the results, lots more to be added for sale on my etsy site!

Wednesday's Illustrated fiction post, "Postcards"

When I feel sad, I go to the junk store and leaf through the postcards. They have highly contrasted color photos of state capitals or big block letters that say "Greetings from the Grand Canyon!" with slivers of cacti and Indian jewelry within each letter. On the back, wives have written in loopy script: "The weather in St. Louis has been great. Only one day of rain and tomorrow we’re going to visit the Arch!" Or: "Hello from Idaho! Hope you’re well." They were always addressed to Mrs. Harold Mathers or Mrs. Ronald Kline or Mrs. Lawrence Bennett. Most date to the early 60s, when the stamps cost four cents. I picture tan women in big sunglasses and big hairdos writing the postcards to their friends, licking the stamps and affixing them carefully, while their husbands check under the hood or buy soft drinks. They wear lipstick and polyester and when I think of those ladies, and when I think of their vacations, seeing the U.S.A. from the passenger seats of their Chevrolets, I don’t feel so sad anymore.

Please vote for me!!

Hi, I'm up for Loveliest Ladies' items poll on the Storque. You can check out the poll here
If I get enough votes I have a chance to be featured in the Season of Love Gift Guides and on the Etsy blog.
I'm up for my Barbican tea cup below,

And so t'was Tuesday and it's still snowing...

.. its taken me 3 hours to complete a normally 20 min round trip and my toes are frozen but enough of that, today its Tuesday and so it should be a drawing post...
Today a little something i have done recently for my cake plates line, a drawing of Micheldever Station..
Hope you like..

Monday's Etsy post

This is today's Etsy post, this work is by an amazing illustrator with such a wonderful imagination! Ashley G from Portland, OR.
Ashley G says of her work, "My artwork tends to be simple, but with a sophisticated or stark color palette. I believe great emotion can be conveyed in a simple gesture or look."
and she's not wrong check out her Etsy shop here.
Really inspirational stuff!

Illustrated fiction

Here’s Wednesdays illustrated fiction story post--the highlight of my week created in partnership with Julia Green fiction writer extraodinare:
This one is brilliant!

Lovebirds

It's a funny thing, being married to someone for 50 years. Every once in a while we end up at the mall, and while Earl is marveling over the appliances you can buy all in one place on the cheap, I go over to the bookstore and watch the people watching the books. There are these young things with teased up hair and rocks on their hands, scurrying around like field mice, can't get their hands on those books fast enough. The ones they want, they're all called things like Thin Enough and Happy Enough and Cook Your Way to a Perfect Marriage. I usually go to the cafeteria part, get myself a small cup of coffee, and park at a table where I can see 'em well. Every once in a while, after I put two sugars in my coffee and start over to that table, somebody as old as my grandkid rushes over and calls me 'ma'am' while offering to help me along. I started getting ma'amed as soon as I was married, even though I was 25 going on 12. Today, even with my rickety hip and silver hair and funny smells where there didn't used to be any, honest to God I don't think of myself as a ma'am. A ma'am's got a beehive and handbags that match her shoes. All I know is whenever I hear ma'am, I think of Earl's daddy and his big old Studebaker that he let Earl take me out in on a Friday night and we'd park up on any old hill where we knew we wouldn't be bothered and we'd fog up those windows till there was no air left in there to breathe. These girls reading the magazines looking for the tips, clipping out the secret formulas, the ten signs of whatever, they think it wasn't like that back then, treat me like some celibate grandma who never had a day of fun. Sure, I remember the ration cards and the victory gardens, but the past ain't a history book. We raised four kids and between all those babies crying and doors slamming and pots of whatever cookin' on the stove, we still found time for plenty of hanky panky. Drove the kids crazy sometimes, especially when they were teenagers and started getting wise, realizing there was a reason their old parents were so happy all the time. I don't want to ruin nobody's fun, but those girls with the stacks of books under their arms, well if they spent fifty dollars on something nice, instead of those boring books, you know? My favorite part is when Earl comes back, some kinda new tool in a big old plastic bag in his hand. I'm still staring away at people in a way that really makes them think I've got the forgetting disease and I wandered out of some place and pretty soon I'm going to start taking all my clothes off and yelling and they won't know what to do with me. When he sees me see him, his face lights up, and he hustles over and kisses me on the mouth in a way that makes everybody uncomfortable. Can't figure it out myself; I always thought two old people not in love was worse than two who were.