Purrnickerty Cartoons

A REALLY exciting event

Alex — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:29:27 +0000

So it's been a while since my last blog entry - but hopefully, you will see that my time has been put to good use.

I am happy to announce (insert drum roll here) that we have published the very first Purrnickerty book.

Well, so maybe that makes it sound a bit grand, but.... well, see for yourself.

You can find "A REALLY Lovely Birthday by following this link http://www.viewfromahill.co.uk/book.html

If you have any comments - then I would be glad to hear them :)

Love is in the Air

Alex — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 20:46:26 +0000

It has been an odd week. Mainly because it feels like everyone who I have ever met has been struck down with the lurgy. Sam was sick from the New Year on and still hasn't made it back to school, and to different degrees, everyone else followed suit. Even I had to finally admit that I was sick this week and visit the quack. Hopefully we're all on the mend now, and can start to move into 2009.

Sam had Guitar Hero for Xmas. The full pack with a drum kit, guitar and mic that you plug up to the console and rock. As a result of this, he is the only 9 year old I have ever come across who is more of a hippy than I am. He is wandering around the house humming 70's Fleetwood Mac numbers, and this morning, before we were even out of bed, Jage identified the bass riff from Mr Crowley by Ozzy Osbourne drifting through the floorboards. That's my boy :)

It's been a fun and manic week for Purrnickerty. We have added more designs to the t shirts, cards and prints available on Red Bubble - and I had a burst of cold drug induced inspiration and have been drawing like a demon all week. Some of the next new things that you are going to be seeing from us are Valentines cards. Cute, but a little tongue in cheek - watch this space - I hope you like them!

Best foot forward (..and all that)

Alex — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:52:30 +0000

So who feels that it is back to the post Christmas reality with a bang? It is harsh isn't it? Made worse this year, of course, by our gloomy global financial outlook (I couldn't have found a nicer bit of alliteration if I had tried!).

I went to our local market town today, and it was terrible to see the Woolworths building on the main square sitting empty, Adams the childrens wear shop closing today, and countless local businesses with "Everything must go!" posters in the windows. It almost feels that all we will be left with are charity shops and supermarkets.

The biggest marketplace remains of course - the internet. We have made a conscious decision to sell Purrnickerty products primarily via the internet - for us, being completely comfortable with trading in this way, it seems an obvious route. We have today signed up with a company called Red Bubble (see us here http://www.redbubble.com/search/purrnickerty ) and now you can purchase all sorts of interesting Purrnickerty gear via their website.

As we add our portfolio to other similar sites, I will keep you posted.

Meantime, enjoy your first week back in reality!

...and a Happy New Year

Alex — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:26:45 +0000

New Years Eve already, and I don't know where the last 2 weeks have gone.

Xmas is great when you have kids in the house, especially when they are enthusiastic children like our boy. His face is just full of joy with whatever happens to be in each of the brightly packaged gifts secreted all around the house. Are we the only ones who buy presents, hide them in a panic and then forget completely where you hid them?

There is only one thing around Christmas that irritates me more, and that is forgetting to pack away that last decoration. Every year, when we start stripping down the decorations, we try to pack them away in an order that makes sense, and in the same place. We pack away our tree, and put all the other random shiny seasonal objects around the tree in the box. Every year, Jage says "is that all of it?", we search again (the same process that we go through when checking out of any hotel), find nothing, and the huge box gets winched, with great threat to life and limb, up to the attic. Within 24 hours you can guarantee that we find a candlestick, a santa money box, a bauble etc that we have forgotten to pack. Last year it was a bit of tinsel. And we haven't bought tinsel for yearrrs, but this one managed to escape the box. In our defense, 90% of the time, this bit of tinsel was behind the door, so unsurprising that we forgot it. Anyway, we tried a new tactic with the errant tinsel. We left it where it was. So this Christmas we had a head start on the decorating.

If it was up to Sam, we would probably leave the decorations up all year - but there is a new series of both 24 and Lark Rise to Candleford starting next month, and for those, I really do need to see ALL of the telly.

One of the things that we will be doing with Purrnickerty in the New Year is posting to the website the location of stockists of some of our standard prints etc. We also intend to offer the Purrsonalised names on mugs and other gift items, so watch out for them.

All that is left to say is "Happy New Year" from all of us - and let's hope that 2009 is a good one for all.

Merry Christmas

Alex — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 21:21:45 +0000

Well, here we are - Xmas Eve. And don't complain about me using the abbreviation of Christmas, because today I learned something interesting, as detailed here on ye goode olde Wikipedia:

The word Christmas originated as a compound meaning "Christ's Mass". It is derived from the Middle English Christemasse and Old English Cristes mæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038.^[4] "Cristes" is from Greek Christos and "mæsse" is from Latin missa. In early Greek versions of the New Testament, the letter Χ (chi), is the first letter of Christ. Since the mid-16th century Χ, or the similar Roman letter X, has been used as an abbreviation for Christ.^[8] Hence, Xmas is often used as an abbreviation for Christmas.

If it has been good enough for others since Tudor times, then it is good enough for me :)

We are currently in the process of getting Sam to bed, at the same time convincing him that he doesn't have to be up in the morning before the reindeer are home. This not helped, of course, by Grandad encouraging (otherwise called getting his own back on his daughter) our early riser with tales from my own childhood. Thanks, Grandad. We'll call you as soon as we are up...

One of the funniest sights in this house so far over the holidays has been watching Sam covering peanuts in Xmas wrapping paper. For the gerbils. All 11 of them. So now they are under the tree, labelled and wrapped. 11 peanuts.

Being (ever so slightly) disorganised, we forgot about feeding the reindeer this year, and have had to resort to Using Our Initiative. In this particular case, taking the form of defrosting a pack of mixed veg from the freezer. The sooner Santa gets an engine, the better.

Now back to Purrnickerty. I promised a book - and the book is written. But we did have some technical difficulties, which mean that we have been unable to post it as promised. All I can say is that we are working on it - keep your fingers crossed.

Finally, we would like to wish you a very happy Christmas, that brings you everything you hope for.

An Introduction to Purrnickerty

Alex — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:38:39 +0000

Well, it's bizarre that I was writing about the TV at the beginning of the week, because now we have a new telly. My brother in law Dave (thanks, Dimples) was kind enough to let us have his huge wide screen tv now that he has bought a plasma. So now we have widescreen, and I can see even less of the programme past the tree. We picked it up from him yesterday, and of course, by the time we got it home there was nowhere to park the car near the house. There was one of those moments, halfway down the street where my head started telling me that I was going to drop the TV, and it flashed before my eyes that I would be eating my Xmas dinner with the cat if I did.

And that brings me conveniently back to cats. Well, one cat in purrticular really. I have exciting news. Watch this space, because the first Purrnickerty book is due to be posted FREE to the site in the next few days. I am just finishing off the illustrations, and Jage is doing the hi-techy important websitey stuff, and then it will be here. I will be interested to hear what you think about it - but only if the comments are nice!

Insides Out

Alex — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:26:48 +0000

So it's Monday again, and I still have an appointment with Purrnickerty that I have been putting off since last week. Jage wants a new T-shirt design, and he is very specific about how it should look. Now, I know that there may be a few who think that I am getting precious about this, but Jage doesn't draw - he thinks that you just pick up your pencil and something spectacular flows out - and this just isn't always the case.

Here's what he wants (in Jages exact words). "I want him to be coming through your ribs like that (please at this point imagine rib spreading actions), like Eddie"

Now - to me, this sounds much less like a cute cartoon and much more like a dodgy video found at the bottom of a car boot 3 months after the car boot sale. I have asked him to expand on this explanation, but the hand signals just get more exaggerated, and the words coming out seem to reduce. Eddie is the character/mascot that features in the artwork on almost anything by Iron Maiden - and he is great and suitable for that purpose, but I see few ways that he can be applied to anything Purrnickerty.

But it still puts me back to this question: how do I make a cute cartoon cat, who I am becoming increasingly attached to, emerge from inside your ribs in order to print on a t shirt?

Well, I'll just put it on hold for a bit, and come back to you when/if I know the answer.

My weekend was fun. Usually I spend quite a lot of my weekend on my own, while Jage and Sam do boys stuff on the computers. This weekend we Put Up Our Christmas Tree. We only have a small house, but we do have high ceilings. With that in mind, a few years ago, Jage went shopping shortly after Xmas to purchase a new artificial tree in the sales. And he did great. We are the proud owners of the best artificial tree that I have seen - really and truly. We have decorating it down to a fine art - we work on the basis that when you say "that's enough lights", you then add 2 more strings. The slight problem is this - it is 8 foot tall WITHOUT the topper. And wide. And very bushy. So for the duration of the holidays, there is a fair chance that I will miss about 2/3 of anything we watch on television.

Because I can only see 1/3 of the TV around the tree.

Free wallpaper and random other things

Alex — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 22:35:00 +0000

Well.... as the first entry into our new blog appears to have worked, then I will continue....

First, for the Purrnickerty News

(BONG!) New Purrnickerty Wallpaper launched (Click on bottom of home page and use as you please)

(BONG!) Purrsonalised Purrnickerty ready right now (Check out the great samples on the website)

And finally

(BONG!) Our shop is online!! Now you can purchase Purrnickerty items with ease.

This week has been more about organising this website than creating new artwork, although I have plans to get back to that tomorrow.

We would be pleased to hear from anyone as to what you think of the website. And what you think about Purrnickerty for that matter. Also at some stage I plan on running a "suggestions" box - we are always happy to hear your ideas!

A bit about my day now..

We live in beautiful Wales. I love the country, it has a soul and heart that is hard to find elsewhere. Today I went to the Brecon Beacons - an area covered by one of the National Parks - and protected from unsympathetic development. It wasn't a nice day, but the shadows on the mountains, the sheer strength of the landscape was mighty. It makes you feel very small to be part of it. I remember as a child being in the back of my parents car with my sister on a similar journey during the autumn. Even then I liked to draw and I recall telling my parents that I would love to have the chance to stop and paint the trees. My sister said it would take me forever to paint all those trees.......... I think maybe she was thinking more of the Dulux dog than Daler Rowney...

A birth in the family!

Alex — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 21:51:31 +0000

Well I guess that this is the first entry in the Purrnickerty blog page. Maybe I should begin by introducing myself and telling you a bit about us. My name is Alex – and I am a “creator”. Of anything really. It is just something that I have always done – draw, paint, make, adapt, craft. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t – and I find that the only loss if it doesn’t is your time, and the buzz when it works is quite worth the times when it doesn’t.

I have a long suffering partner in crime. Jage has been putting up with my fruity projects for many years, and now has to be patient with our 9 yr old son, who is also showing early symptoms of being a “creator”. Jage is the talent behind the website, and the one who I invariably need to steer me back onto the track.

I am going to keep it simple for this entry as I am not sure how it is going to work out. If I get to grips with it, however, you may end up learning even more than you want to about our lives!

Let me tell you a bit about Purrnickerty.

My other love – and always has been – is reading. At 7 I was one of those geeky children that you would find in a corner, or up a tree with a book. Since all those years ago I have read everything that has been put in front of me. Of course I have favourites (and if we continue this blog, I might share them with you), but I will read ANYTHING.

I have long wanted to write a book – a childrens book – one of those lovely ones that you want to touch the cover and feel the book before you even get to the first page. One that you know before opening is going to keep you warm and make you want to share it with everyone you know.

Enter Purrnickerty stage right. He was going to be the first character in my first book. He was just born from a bunch of doodles really. But the doodles seemed to take on a character of their own and now it is like having an additional member of the family. Suddenly I was more interested in Purrnickerty himself than writing a book about him – although I am sure that isn’t out of the question. We were at our sons Christmas concert in the school last week, and Jage leaned close and whispered “He’s going to get a girlfriend!” And we both knew he was talking about Purrnickerty and not Sam. At least…. I HOPE not Sam!

Purrnickerty's new blog

jage — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:00:18 +0000

Welcome to the Purrnickerty blog. Alex, our artist will be updating this blog when I allow her away from the drawing board ( it's a drawing sweat shop )

Cheers

Jage

(Web Designer & general dogsbody)