Rainbow - Lockdown Love 2020

Has it really been that long since my last blog post? It seems a decade ago since life was 'normal'. Since my last post; COVID-19 has taken the world by storm it has created chaos, confusion, sadness and a new way of living. During March my eldest daughter had a birthday; a birthday without many and at that time no party, no eating out or celebrating with a mass group of friends or family. The rainbow was a new symbol of support for the pandemic, supporting the NHS and key workers; it was just before this, on my daughter’s birthday I digitally drew a rainbow and produced a birthday card for her sister to give to her.

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Personalised Rainbow Age Birthday Card

Lockdown Love

Since creating the rainbow card, later I launched it as a saleable product and the love for the rainbow was escalated with various designs for various occasions. I was honoured to be asked to adapt the design for a key worker nurse and had several requests for Captain Tom’s 100th birthday.

Look under the rainbow

Spot the card -

Image courtesy of Bedford School Facebook Page.

Glitter, glitter, glitter…

What makes the Liza J design rainbow special is the hand-painted finish on the cards, in the case of the rainbow design it’s the gold glitter. The lockdown love of the rainbow card meant I was kept busy glittering and sending out lots of thoughtful messages direct to family and friends; this was a special time, writing personal birthday wishes and thinking of you words. As it was full lockdown I was unable to have my usual helpers so I worked extremely hard as a sole worker, achieving milestones with stockist Not On The High Street and I had a new extra job given by default, a teacher (of all subjects), home schooling my own two children!

The diversity of the rainbow

Full lockdown lasted longer than we could ever imagine, and I hate to say it but it doesn’t feel completely over yet, a pending dread that it could happen all over again. Several occasions have been and gone, Father’s Day and the end of the school year which was missed for a lot of children.

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Personalised Rainbow Thinking Of You Card

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Rainbow Hero Father's Day Card

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Rainbow Bubbles Thank You Card

Is there such a thing as a Christmas rainbow?

Christmas is slowly approaching, I love the rainbow and so do many of you so it was my mission to make the rainbow Christmassy, I think I have achieved that with several new designs now being uploaded to the site, watch this space…

Rainbow Family Name Christmas Card

New designs are currently being uploaded to the site.

Watch this space..

Keep Safe x

Liza Cole,

Founder and Designer, Liza J design

October 2020

The Koala - Make a difference

Wildlife Victoria

All net profits of our Koala character products will be donated to this charity until 31st March 2020.

The Koala character was a new design in 2019, after a request from a birthday boy who loved koala’s. Since designing the character, drawing it using digital software, it has became a very popular birthday card. At Christmas, the design was slightly altered and it became a koala in the snow for a Christmas card!

The Design

The News

Since creating the lovable koala character, there has been a devastating occurrence that greatly impacted their habitat in Australia with a series of out of control bushfires. As of 14 January 2020, fires this season have burned an estimated 18.6 million hectares, an estimated one billion animals have also been killed and some endangered species may be driven to extinction (source wikipedia.org).

Not Just a Drawing

I was about to launch the new Valentine design and a new fine art print but felt the timing was insensitive after reading about the suffering of the Koala’s so I immediately decided to do ‘something’. I joined up and donated to the ‘Koala Protector’ scheme on WWF (https://support.wwf.org.uk/koala-protector).

I will also be donating further to an Australian local charity Wildlife Victoria, I have chosen this charity as the money will go directly to help the wildlife in the area affected by the Victorian bushfires (including koalas) by the use of their many volunteers who are working to ensure that as many native animals as possible receive the ongoing care, shelter and food they need. The donation will happen by the means of the proceeds of any Koala product purchased direct on this website. With the launch of the new Valentine’s collection and soon to be uploaded the new print collection there are now a few products to choose from.

New

fine art print…

All net profits of our Koala character products will be donated to charity.

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Koala Children's Art Print

from £10.00

A cute koala bear fine art print on a pale grey background, a perfect addition for the nursery, child's bedroom or the home.

Note: All net profits of this print will be donated to the charity Wildlife Victoria, read blog post.

size:

Select size A4 Unframed - RegularA3 Unframed - Large

A4 Unframed - Regular A3 Unframed - Large

Quantity:

Add to Cart

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Personalised Koala Valentine's Card

from £5.00

A cute Koala bear Valentine’s card for him or her, personalised with a name and words ‘You’re Koalaty! Additional words Happy Valentine’s Day.

size:

Select size small A6medium A5

small A6 medium A5

inside text:

Select inside text blank insideprintedhandwritten

blank inside printed handwritten

Quantity:

Personalise & Add to Cart

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Personalised Koala Relation Birthday Card

from £5.00

A cute koala birthday card, perfect for a girl or boy on their special day and personalised with a name and relation if required.

size:

Select size small A6medium A5

small A6 medium A5

inside text:

Select inside text blank insideprintedhandwritten

blank inside printed handwritten

Quantity:

Personalise & Add to Cart

Since writing this post @NSWRFS has tweeted that the current rainfall has helped, so let’s hope this continues and helps towards the containment of the wild fire.

Liza Cole,

Founder and Designer, Liza J design

January 2020

Beach Hut - A Different Project 2016 and ongoing

The year 2016 we (joint family venture) purchased a brand new beach hut, located in the popular and upcoming Pakefield development just below the Jolly Sailors public house. So, we had a bare wooden hut that resembled a garden shed and was open without many restrictions to decorate how we pleased.

The Design

Inspiration for the design of the hut was the surrounding area and where the hut is located. Natural colours of the sea, beach and grass verges became the focal point of design with a starting palette of white to give movement to add to or possibly change in the future.

The beach, seagull footprints.

Colours

The Seagull

The base colour white was a great blank canvas to paint some characters on, inspired by the recent beach hut sign design created through my work I decided to paint a seagull on the back which is visible from the Jolly Sailors public house.

View from the top

Spot the seagull...

The Name

Deciding on a name is a tricky business in the beach hut community. Having a walk along the promenade there are many lovely ideas but we wanted something unique to our hut. After the painting of the seagull on the rear of the hut we felt it would be nice to incorporate this into the name, eventually (after much deliberation) we decided to call our hut Sea Gu11 (the ll's of seagull are represented as the number 11 as our hut is in fact number 11!)

We then added some stripes on the front of the doors, as this is a stable door design we decided to reflect the colours of the sea and sky with blues on the top section with the sandy beach yellows on the bottom section.

The Interior

The colours of the outside have been carried on in the inside. We even made a clock and painted that the same colours. The whole hut has been boarded out, painted white and wooden floor laid. It is an ongoing project with bits adding to it while still trying to use it as a relaxing day by the beach (and not working on it all the time).  

The Mural

Enjoying the hut can take over from actually working in the hut; it has tea making facilities and when the British weather is good (which can be hit and miss), it is nice to take advantage for some relax time. The next thing to do is finish the windows and paint the mural planned for the inside of the door with a nice beach scene, as you can see the background has been painted but it still needs the design painted but this will hopefully be completed in the next few weeks (in-between work painting). 

From Start to Finish

So thats the start and I will add to this post in the future once the hut is completely finished!

The new Seagull birthday card has been reproduced from the actual seagull on the hut!

Liza Cole,

Founder and Designer, Liza J design

July 2019

Resident Artist - Primary School Project, India Art October 2015

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I was recently asked to get involved with another project for the local Primary School to produce some artwork to take to India on their forthcoming trip. 

The Project

As the artwork was destined for India, initial ideas decided on a subject matter of 'our local surroundings'; creating artwork representing the 'seaside' near where the children go to school and live.

I've just discovered canvas boards and thought they would be a great base to work on as they are easy to store and travel in the Headmasters' suitcase on the trip to India!

Children where picked from each year group, Upper Key Stage 1 (Year 2) up to Key Stage 2 (Year 5); due to the nature of how the boards would be hand delivered to India unfortunately only a few children where able to be selected in this task and a total of 15 final pieces of artwork was produced.

The development of the artwork

The project ran over four sessions, the first session the children were asked to think of their surrounding area and produce a quick sketch and paint the background colour of their canvas board. 

The second session the children were told to copy their sketch onto the canvas board (with a little guidance for the younger ones, to proportion the scale of the drawing so it filled the board) and then block the sketch in white paint to prepare for the colour. 

The third session the children learnt the art of creating layers onto a canvas to get an overall better effect, by allowing the white paint to dry they were then able to add the first stage colour detail.

The final session was applying another layer of colour to get more depth into the paintings. During this session I also helped the children by tidying the edges and adding the final detail of outlines that were present in their original drawings.

The paintings were then taken back to the studio and spray varnished.

The results:

by Hannah, Class: Lions, Year 5

by Louisa, Class: Lions, Year 5

by Charlotte, Class: Badgers, Year 5

by Joseph, Class: Penguins, Year 2

by Noah, Class: Meerkats, Year 2

by Chloe, Class: Badgers, Year 5

by Mishka, Class: Penguins, Year 2

by Amber, Class: Meerkats, Year 2

by Marney, Class: Chameleons, Year 3

by Ewan, Class: Chameleons, Year 3

by Mikolaj, Class: Sharks, Year 4

by Chloe, Class: Dolphins, Year 4

by Hope, Class: Sharks, Year 4

by George, Class: Lions, Year 5

by Jude, Class: Dolphins, Year 4

We did have an abundance of beach huts but also had some hotels, houses, boats and ice creams!

So a special mention for students: Hannah, Louisa, Jude, Noah, Hope, Mishka, George, Charlotte, Marney, Chloe, Mikolaj, Joseph, Chloe, Amber and Ewan; you worked very hard and your work will be going over to India very shortly!

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All together the canvas boards created this layout, a very bright and cheerful collage; by using the originals I have created a Fine Art print poster (first image) so the school can keep a memory of the art project up on the wall at school.

Liza Cole,

Founder and Designer, Liza J design

October 2015

Resident Artist - Primary School Project, Poppy Mural 2014/15

Last November 2014 it was 100 years since the Great War, around this time I was asked if I could create a large Poppy Mural for the local Primary School so they could get the children involved in remembering and learning about the significance of this piece of history.

The mural was an ongoing project, of which took us into the beginning of 2015, I have now got around to writing about it as it has now been officially opened and the ribbon cut (my myself!)

I thoroughly enjoyed working on such a large scale project, it reminded me how Liza J design first came about; as large scale mural work was always my passion before I came up with an economic way of sharing my work through the postal system to customers! It was also very rewarding working with the children throughout the whole school years doing art and watching them taking great care over their poppy art.

Official Mural Opening

Ceremony ceremony of the Poppy Mural at the local Primary School

May 22nd 2015

Pictured - the children who helped paint the mural. Some of the school children wore their Brownies and Scouts uniforms and during the ceremony read a passage from "We Shall Keep the Faith" to reflect on why the school mural was created.

The Project

Leading up to the 100 year anniversary, children within their classes were asked to paint a picture of a poppy or scene to depict the Great War. With over 400 pupils, there was a lot of pictures to look through when I initially visited the school! After browsing through all the pictures, I was given the task of selecting those that I felt could be inspiration for a large wall mural, approximately 8-10 pictures were chosen from each class. After looking at the children's work, and given only one specified request (to paint the local church on the mural) and three large boards to fit into the designated space; an idea started to form!

Poppies

Example of the poppy paintings,

left - Reception (age 5), right -Year 4 (age 9)

Some of the children had painted scenes rather than individual poppies; this gave inspiration for the backgrounds of the three large canvas boards; so three different styles of children's work were copied and painted by myself onto the boards. It soon became apparent looking at the three styles that there was a darker scene, a mild scene and a brighter more cheerful scene; I used this idea as the initial concept when choosing what individual poppy paintings would suit onto each board.

The church and memorial stone that was required and given in the brief I painted onto the 'dark' board. Then gradually I looked through the individual poppy paintings and chose those that I felt would be better placed onto each board, for example some children had painted darker poppy's using black outline and gold centres, these suited the dark board. After choosing a few poppy paintings for each board at a time and roughly sketching the outline of them into position onto the board, those children who's poppy's had been picked were gathered from their classrooms and invited to re-paint their poppy straight onto the large board.

Children painting their poppy's onto the large scenes - images taken from school website

The development of each board and what it represents

The project commenced late November 2014 and took several sessions to complete during the term time until the Christmas break. I returned in January 2015 in between working on customer orders to complete a forth board.

Board One - Darkness of the War

Board Two - Transition of the War, calmer days ahead

Board Three - The War is over, brighter days ahead

Board Four - Artists own design

The final board contained the words supplied in the brief to commemorate the mural. As I hadn't painted one poppy onto the large mural I decided to write the words around my own poppy design.

I thought the children within the school throughout the years took such care and pride in painting their own poppy's onto the large scale piece and hopefully (after a final varnish) the mural will stand pride of place within the school grounds for many years!

Liza Cole,

Founder and Designer, Liza J design 

July 2015