Yay! Beautiful things for me! A very talented Toby Attrill of Natural Attrill, made me a gorgeous button necklace. I love it! It's my new favourite Thing and I want to wear it everywhere!
I think I might wear it to the private view of the exhibition I am taking part in on friday. (Feeling sooooo nervous about the pv! eek!)

In the meantime, Mr Snailywaily kept me calm the other day, he was tiny and pretty and happy and slow and thoughtful... Here he is trundling across my finger in the sunshine...
I released him back into the wild afterwards, amongst a jungle of planty things, where he skipped off into the leaves out of sight.

Webbysite!

http://www.paulabowles.co.uk/

My new website is up and running! At least it should be.. it should look something like this:

It's not perfect, but I hope it works on everyone's computers! I only have a limited amount of webby knowledge, and really am amazed each time I update my website that I can actually do it! Hooray!

Verrrrry busy at the mo too, so many things to do!

In the meantime, a song!!!!

Weezer - Island in the sun

This song represents the new lovely project I am working on :o) Yay! x

I'm so excited!

Things are happening again in Paula World and it's exciting! (Why does everything always wait to come along at the same time?)

First off, I'm taking part in an exciting exhibition in Bath with the South West Illustrators!
You can read more about our exhibition here

Our exhibition is in association with the Bath Kids Lit Fest. Our private view is next friday (and I still haven't decided what I should wear). It's going to be such fun, all my housemates and my brother are coming along, and I even get to go and poke my nose in at the lit fest launch party!

I'm exhibiting with lots and lots of fabulous illustrators, so here is a taster....
Jackie Morris
Margaret Chamberlain
Anna Popescu

I am exhibiting my 'Mice cup of tea' and my 'Uncle Lion' :o)

One thing I'm worried about, is that the day of our private view coincides with 'International talk like a pirate day'.... I wonder if all the illustrators, publishers, art directors and agents will come along dressed and talking like pirates.. ? I hope so.

I'm also a bit worried I'll get a bit tipsy and make a fool of myself. But i guess that won't be anything out of the usual, i'm used to making a fool of myself (even when I'm not tipsy).

I'm also re-inventing my digital style to work with magazines. Here's my latest creation, Mrs Glam. She's concerned about the topical issue of 'ethical shopping' and regularly consults her 'Guide to Guilt Free Glam' book while out clothes shopping:

And I'm also updating my website! Woooo! It's nearly done and should have it up over the weekend... but here's a sneak preview....I love re-designing my website, it makes it all clean and fresh and new.

In other news.. I'm making the first steps into my secret project with Random House!

And in even more other news... I'm making the first steps into another secret project with another really really lovely publisher who I just love their books! I can't believe it.

AND, I nearly forgot, check out The Wind in the Willows at a lovely 'childrens musical publisher' called Out of the Ark! I painted lots of scenes from the Wind in the Willows as 'illustrated back-drops' to be projected on to walls to assist in school plays! How exciting is that!? My work is going to be enlarged to life size proportions! *squeeeee* I hope I get to go and see it all in use! I hope the children like it! I hope they see the funny little things I put in each scene. I wonder if they'll 'interact' with the illustrated back-drops.. ? I wonder if it will inspire them!? I wonder if they'll remember it for years to come and think back to when they're my age to 'that funny play they put on at primary school once'. I wonder if some of them will end up being illustrators too!? Wow! I'm actually playing a small part in a whole group of peoples lives who I have never met.. (so I hope I'm a positive influence!)

If I ever get to play a part in the play, I want to be a tree. or the piano.

I'm so excited!
x

Let's go fly a kite! It was Bristol's annual Kite Festival last weekend, it was very surreal! I've never been to a kite festival before, lots of unusual shapes, octopus, ghecko's, snakes, crabs, bears, and butterflies. It amazes me how they all stayed up in the air! It was such a hot sunny day too - extra special!
I cycled home over the Clifton Suspension Bridge, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel... I remember doing a project about him at school, and I had to draw this bridge. Little did I know in 15 years time I would be cycling over it.
It's a beautiful place, I feel so lucky to live here.
Lately, I have decided I want to try and get back in to editorial work - doing illustrations for magazines and newspapers. (Mainly aimed at womens/cooking/gardening/home/parenting magazines). I used to do a few bits here and there, but not for a long long time (mainly because childrens illustration has taken over, and is the biggest priority). But why not try and push for editorial too? I'm sure I could do both at the same time... and I'd much rather get up in the morning and paint something for a magazine, than go to my boring telephone job.

Soooo, I have been re-thinking my editorial portfolio, I think I would like it to be digital, but a lot simpler than my previous digital portfolio. And based around people doing things. I picked some articles from the internet and from magazines which I bought, and started drawing some ideas. I think I would like to just have a 'line and fill' thing going on, just very simple. With a few shadows here and there....

Cupcakes?
An article about the 50s lifestyle is coming back in fashion - baking cupcakes etc! (and how it's seen by some as sexy and a little subversive...)
Rattle those pots and pans!
An article about how music is important to young children, and introducing them early to musical instruments.Baking!
An article about getting kids in the kitchen more.
(I think this mum turned a bit 'Nigela'...)

Kids and fashion

An article about kids fashion, designer labels for kids, does it make you a bad parent if you don't provide the latest trends for your kiddies?

And my favourite, 'in the garden'!

Not really inspired by an article, just wanted to draw someone in the garden, pushing the figure around a bit. I think this one might be me... (when I grow up) ... in my imaginary garden where things actually grow and don't get eaten by slugs and snails!

I thoroughly enjoyed drawing and painting these different people, it's like playing with dolls - you get to dress them up in all sorts of lovely clothes!

I hope I really get some work with magazines, it would be amazing to have some kind of regular illustration work coming in. And I like doing editorials, they're so fast paced and exciting!

But in the meantime, in other news, I finally have the contract for my secret childrens book project! (not written by me, written by another author). How amazing! It really feels funny to be illustrating someone else's story, which has never been published before! I hope he likes my illustrations. I can't wait to get stuck into it!

And, other Paula World events include:

My computer getting a virus, but then calling out a computer guy who comes round at 10.30pm to take it away.... to fix it over night..... then he brought it back (thank goodness!) at 4pm the next day, all fixed! My hero!

My bike getting a puncture, it falling over on a pane of glass the next day, me crying, then me screwing my head back on and successfully removing back wheel, inner tube, fixing puncture, replacing innter tube and tyre and fixing back on bike! (With a little help from utube) (And some friendly advice from my local bike shop - the guy kindly showed me how to take the wheel off and the tyre, and that was all I needed!) I'm so proud of myself!

I bought a fancy new ipod! It's my new best friend! But upon switching it on and within the first 30 seconds, i managed to set it to Japanese... and it took the next 40 mins working out how to get it back to english....

I started a new telephone job - in another callcentre.. it's dull dull dull, but it's better than my other job because there's a lot more people doing the same thing. But most people there are students - a good 6 or 7 years younger than me! (I'm 25...)

Which brings me on to my next thought of the day/week - lately I have been feeling old! Yup, believe it or not I have suddenly been feeling old... Being surrounded by students set it off I think. Then I realised most of my friends are either coupled up/getting married/having babies. A few days ago I filled in a form and had to tick the '25-30' age bracket. This is the last year I can have a 'Young Persons Railcard'. And I keep finding grey hairs!!!

So I'm 25, does that make me grown-up? I've been told I don't look 25. And I don't feel grown up. And I don't think anyone else does, truely. We all still feel the same as we did when we were little, don't you? I know I do. I still feel like the same Paula as the 5/10/15 year old Paula. Nothing much has changed, just a bunch of experiences, memories, things I've learned, leading to better judgement of things. But ultimately, are we not just the same people that we were in the first years of our lives? It all makes us who we are now.

I've just started reading 'Friends Like These' by Danny Wallace. It's about him meeting up with his old school friends, but it's also about 'growing-up'. There's a nice line I read today "It's tricky being a grown-up, isn't it? You're just expected to guess your way through. No one teaches you these things at school..."

I didn't know the book was like this, but it's fitting in perfectly with how I feel right now! And Danny Wallace is a brilliant thinker/writer/general lovely person. He's definitely one of my heroes. I recommend his book 'Yes Man'. All his books are true stories.

Anyway, I'm not feeling sad about feeling old anymore, life is a journey and all that!

Oh, I nearly forgot - those buskers I saw in Oxford 5 weeks ago, I uploaded a short video to utube to show you their music. And a few days ago, a band member sent me a message saying who they were and what their 'myspace' was! (It's bizar, I never thought I'd find them! I just liked their music!) They are a Czech band called:

The Baskers