MA – Daisy Hirst

Napkin Bolognese II

Following on from last year’s snakes and skates, here is what a heap of illustrators, in Bologna for the bookfair, got up to during dinner at Trattoria Rosso (Bar 51 now has cloth napkins – pah!). First a shape game that turned into a story:
Then some shape-game people:

Then just some folks:

And some weirdery:

I don’t know why the class of 2012 (Zack, Trudi, Becky) are being so possessive of that second-to-last one – they were surely outnumbered by 2013 (Vic, Suzanne, Steve, Elena, Emily, Hannah, me), if not by staff and very welcome outlanders (Paula, Ariana, Saskia).

It was lovely to see Cambridge illustrators’ books – just published and not quite published – all over the fair, two graduates in the Illustrators Exhibition, and too many hundreds of other beautiful books to get excited about. And it is Quite Grand to see your own book there for the first time too. It is sometimes a bit intense though, and you worry that maybe someone has gotten hold of your squeegee and you better go home and see.

Monsters again

Eeshk, because I finished a book, I now have to make a new one – this is like actual work with my brain, or should be. It is quite scary to be back in the early development stages again, after over a year, although (with a lot of help from most excellent people at Walker) it is just beginning to feel like it might possibly be possible in the end.

These monsters were originally invented for our MA show catalogue, but now they need another book to live in. For one thing, a brand new mountain of amazing graduates is about to take over the world: their London show is at Candid Arts, Islington, from 11th-15th February.

Napkin Bolognese

Further to my recent post on napkins, I have just returned from the Bologna bookfair, where collaborative drawing happened in a grand number of ways, including this three-napkin bonanza by Elena, Becky, Caroline, Emily and me in Bar 51 (click to see it bigger).
We also drew on placemats and on giant paper on the side of our stand at the fair, and we played a stunning game of telephone pictionary which I hope to share at some point.

In other news, I met hundreds of beautiful books and several beautiful ice creams; I also had an altercation with a wheelie-suitcase on the way to meet a publisher, which resulted in a split lip and an afternoon spent in hospital on a sugar drip. Many lovely Cambridge people looked after me and I am getting less scabby every day.

Oh and here is the suitcase I took (and didn’t trip anyone up with):

Pictures from the show

Publishers are grand, obviously, and I wouldn’t be without my auntorage – or, indeed, the other lovely family and friends who came to our MA show – but you can’t really beat the kind of visitors who properly test your toys and write things like this in your comments book:
It was amazing how many people came to see – I honestly do value the over-tens very much too. Below are a few pictures in case you couldn’t make it, although the show will be up again in Cambridge from February 27th until March 14th.

Some monsters are cake

Can you BELIEVE the ridiculous splendour of this cake? Love and Cake made it for our private view on Thursday because she is cakemaestro extraordinaire.
It’s not even the first time she has rendered my persons in cake. Just too good, I can’t even.

It was also exciting how Elena was striding purposefully around the gallery delivering slices on the point-forwards blade of the knife – although this resulted in surprisingly few maimings. Whoever snuck into the box in the pub afterwards, when only the monsters were left, and transplanted the red eyes onto the blue monster, is a monstrous human indeed and likely to be eaten when found out. Nyahaha!