Artist in residence - Week One, Nexus Art Cafe

I have just finished my first week at Nexus Art Cafe in Manchester where I am currently artist in residence. I have been settling into the space and letting my sculptures and drawings 'live' in their new home. I always love the beginning of a project when there are ideas buzzing around my head and I feel really fortunate to have a studio space (outside my home) to work in again. For me, ideas flow when I experiment with juxtaposing my drawings and sculptures with the space, with different textures, varieties of materials, and found objects or belongings that have a particular resonence to me. Basically when I play.

Recently I have become really submerged in research around illustrating, storytelling and the psychology of fairy tales and the symbiotic, fearful, transformative relationships between the female and animal characters in these tales .

I studied for an MA in Drawing from Wimbledon College of Art and my degree show left me at a point where I was investigating how I could transform my body through sculpture and sewn costumes/adornments. Since my degree ended I have become a mother and my relationship with my body has altered, I have begun to look more into the symbology of certain animals, and it has ignited memories of fairy tales and being read to which will be a rich resource to draw from. The cautionary, frightening and brutal nature of these tales is more vivid now that I am revisiting these stories as an adult.

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My personalised T-Shirt!!

Recently I got the chance to get one of my designs printed on a T -shirt and here is the result! I'm really pleased with how my 'love birds' design has turned out and the little Fi&Me logo at the bottom adds a cute touch too. I will be making this design into wedding stationery in a variety of colours very soon. I chose the lady-fit scoop neck T-Shirt in sky blue because I used to have a similar T-shirt back in the 90s, and this style reminded me of it. It's really comfortable, although I opted for medium and it's a little tight fitting so a large may have been better - however, with Easter having just gone by I can probably blame the chocolate for that! The site has lots of choice for both men and women in terms of style and colour and the service was really efficient with the finished T arriving a matter of days after I placed my order. I'd definitely use them again. Lu and I are thinking of getting matching T-shirts that we can wear at

Illustration Friday - Safari

This little giraffe is a sketch for a character idea, from a story I'm working on, and this week's topic (IF) has kick started this project again for me. I like to do rough drawings and block-colour them in photoshop to give me an idea of how to develop the picture further. For me, this is an efficient way of sketching on the computer if I want to get ideas down quickly.

Five Is The Magic Number

As many of you know, I run a little handmade business with my younger sister Lu. Lucy told me about a brilliant idea called Blog Every Day in May and I have decided to give it a go, in order to keep my creative/blogging juices flowing. Lately, I seem to have neglected my blog but I really don't want to let it slide so, rising to the challenge seems like the perfect remedy. Here goes! Five Lines #BEDM The Psammead www.dailyinfo.co.uk Five things about me...that all, conveniently, include the number 5! 1. My favourite story (and TV show - see above) as a child was 'Five Children And It,' by E. Nesbit. I REALLY wanted it to be true! 2.I have worked in my current role as a Teaching Assistant for 5 years. That's my day job - (as soon as night falls I turn into an illustrator and designer and begin howling at the moon. Shhh! No body knows!) ;-) 3. This blog is 5 years old. 4. I was expecting my first child this time 5 years ago (time flies!

Fiona Meakin Designs - Draw With Fi

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