CAROLINE PEDLER ...INSPIRED: 2017

I haven't posted on here for so long. Lots has happened, good and bad, but I have been working hard to make my art and my practice work in the most authentic, efficient and most enjoyable way.
The most recent event was an exhibition at the Cornwall Contemporary Gallery in PZ in Cornwall, here in the UK. I completed a collage for a whole year, 366 days of the leap year of 2016. They started out in a skethbook and then as time went on, the sketchbook was impossoble to work in so I chose single pieces of card to work on, all the same size mostly. I hated it and loved it and thought it futile on occasion, but I was deteremined to carry it through. I had a goal and that goal was to create a style of working that I could make my own children's books in, while having some fun and feeling fulfilled in their content. I have created a bundle of friends that I am happy have on my website. Now to make some stories with them all : ) watch this space. Mammoth, Birdy and Crane are first!

Here's the press release for the show and the reasoning and experience of it.

an-ti-dote – a collage a day for 366 days

Starting out in 2016, Cornish Artist and Illustrator Caroline Pedler set herself a task of completing an image a day for 366 days, (2016 – leap year).

‘The driving force was to create a style that fits outside my commercial children’s books. Producing an image a day, forces you to make, regardless of mood, time, ability and inclination and without distraction.’

The downfall of having to post every day means you are vulnerable to those pieces you are not happy with and uncomfortable about posting, but I knew that if I didn’t post one day, I would lose interest and momentum, so kept going, day after day.
The upside is that I have a new body of work, a new website, new workshops and have generated various streams of interest throughout the year including a publisher or two.’

My goal for 2017 is to create my own children’s book in this style, sourcing from the characters and elements from this 366 project I’m loving the process already and can’t wait to get a publisher involved and get it out there in the world.”

Caroline teaches on a part time basis on BA and MA Illustration at Plymouth College of Art, mentors adult creatives, runs various creative adult and children’s workshops around Cornwall and continues to exhibit her fine art work locally. She has also illustrated over 50 children’s picturebooks, of which the majority, sell in 23 languages, in 28 countries around the world.

I feel proud to have achieved my goal and have reeped rewards beyond my fulfillment in that I have made a new book, greeting cards, I have a new website, an exhibition or two, a childrens book deal, a couple of magazine articles and lots of lovely instagram followers, so a great project and a new way of working. You can see a good range of the collages on www.an-ti-dotepress.co.uk or on @collage_366 on Instagram. Or follow my daily creative life on @cpedlerpics on Instagram.