Emma Calder's Moody Days

Moody Twenty Nine

2012-01-10T16:51:00.000Z

This is brief as I have been working hard and now have done my back in, so haven't done blog lately. But, more coming soon on my new animation series, which I will be previewing bits from soon.

Tomorrow is my daughters sixteenth birthday. As my back is painful I had to do something very quickly and small, so here's is my old Victorian locket now with watercolours of myself and Coco's father Julian. I hope she likes it. I have been meaning to do it every year since she was born.

Emma Cader and Julian Cripps inside Coco's locket

Moody Twenty Eight

2011-10-10T17:51:00.003+01:00

It is thirty years since I made my first film Ilkla Moor Baht Hat at the Royal College of Art. As I was just reminded, by an organisation researching the films that were shown in The New Contemporaries Exhibition in 1982.

Ilkla Moor Baht Hat 1981 by Emma Calder

They also wanted recollections about the exhibition. Sadly I didn't go to the show, I was too busy working on my next film Madame Potatoe, but, I do have a few bits and pieces connected to the film.

The leaflet I made for the RCA Second Year Show

Half way through my first year there was an opportunity for Graphics and Illustration students to do an animation workshop with the animators (Heros of my childhood) Bob Godfrey (Roobarb, Henry's Cat and many more...) Dick Taylor (Crystal Tips and Alistair and more).

Some drawings I did of Dick Taylor, the day Dick and Bob Godfrey came to introduce their work.

Afterwards, our Graphics tutor said she would tutor us on our storyboards when Bob and Dick weren't around. About eighteen students signed up to do the animation and the plan was to each make a very short film.

Unfortunately this tutor was very hard on the students. She said our ideas wouldn't work for animation, or were a waste of time. She also told me I couldn't draw. I said I was interested in the circular idea of the Yorkshire song and I thought the simple story of the song a good way to start learning animation. I did agree about the bad drawing though, so I drew all the art work really small in the hope that enlarged the drawings would have a more interesting quality.

Here is the original artwork sheet before being blown up on a PMT (Photo Mechanical Transfer) machine, coloured and cut out ready for the paper cut out animation.

Artwork from Ilkla Moor Baht Hat

Bob and Dick were very encouraging to us all but, this tutor was so negative about my work, I decided to stop working on the film and I disappeared from college for three weeks. Visiting my friend in the Lake District with all the artwork and storyboard. She liked my idea, told me I was giving up too easily and I should listen to Bob and Dick, not a tutor, who probably had some other private agenda.

When I arrived back in the studio at the RCA my desk was covered in funny drawings by Bob Godfrey, who had been searching for me to tutor. He was quite desperate as all the other students had given up their films. Thanks to the tutor. What was her name?

Bob Godfrey's funny drawing of my character from Ilkla Moor Baht Hat

So I carried on making the film, luckily for Bob and Dick, as they thought they were going to be sacked.

The head of the film school Dick Ross, let me have the entie budget set aside for the animation workshop, so I was able to make a proper film shot on 16 mm negative stock, not just a little test as had been originally planned for each student.

The artwork and storyboards took about six weeks, We recorded the music in the piano room at the RCA prior to doing the animation, in one take, in one half hour session. The animation and editing took about two weeks. The song was sung and played on the piano by David E Glasson then of Bob Kerr's Whoopee Band (and now playing with Three Bonzos and a Piano).

If I had listened to the tutor, things might have turned out very differently!

Moody Twenty Seven

2011-09-22T17:41:00.003+01:00

All this year I have been mourning, but for nothing or nobody.

Every day I'd wake up with the same feeling. That deep sadness that you feel when someone you love has died. Then I would walk down to the builders yard where I work, look up at the trees over hanging the space and feel much better.

Breathing in the moist damp air from beneath a beautiful small leaf lime, over 20 meters high. Home to a pair of jays, numerous wood pidgeons, squirrels and the lime hawk moths who came to lay their eggs once a year. The tree would give me a wonderful feeling and make me glad to be alive.

The end of the line for the small leaf lime tree

and our lime hawk moths enjoying life to the full last year

Then out of the blue, we were informed by the owners of the garden that the lime tree grew in, that they were having the tree cut down.

They hated the lack of light in their flat and couldn't be bothered with having it cut back regularly to resolve the problem. Nothing we could say would change their mind, even offering to pay for it to be trimmed was no good, they just wanted to get rid of the tree. It was their right and they could.

Why are people so obsessed with light and hate trees so much. Ironic when I sometimes feel the world is descending into darkness, maybe that is why?

Two weeks later our other neighbours on the other side of our yard cut down all their trees too. Now we just have to stare at all their dull houses.

The saddest thing of all was the wood pidgeon. After they chopped the last of the trees down, he was flying around searching wildly for his nest and chicks, then he picked up a single twig in his beak, all that was left of the last tree and sat on our fence bewildered.

From Emma Calder's note book 2011

Then I thought I knew what all my grief had been leading up to.

But, I was wrong!

Moody Twenty Six

2011-08-09T13:25:00.000+01:00

I feel really bad walking round my area today and so sad that things have come to this.

Moody Twenty Five

2011-07-18T19:14:00.000+01:00

Just a few snaps from my sticker event at Lambeth County Fair last Saturday. The weather was horrendous but it didn't stop the constant flow of keen sticker makers.

In 5 hours we produced over 3000 individual stickers.

The kids and adults were brilliant, some producing whole books.

To be honest I did very little, except tidy up and make a few very small suggestions.

It was great to see how inspiring my stickers were to others and I am feeling back in the mood to do some more myself.

Actually, I did just do a new set but, I haven't quite finished them. When they are ready I'll be selling them through my new on line shop http://emmacalder.bigcartel.com.

Moody Twenty Four

2011-07-16T08:44:00.002+01:00

If you fancy it, head down to Lambeth County Fair at Brockwell Park today.

I will be doing a sticker stand and workshops, showing work from my sticker books, including Emma Calder's Moody Days. The illustration above, was done a few years ago by my kids and me. Hope to see you down there it's quite a good fair with lots to do.

Moody Twenty Three

2011-07-04T12:55:00.001+01:00

The year is slipping by without doing the blog for Emma Calder's Moody Days. As I have been focusing on new work and cannot be distracted.

Except the other day my friend Gill asked me if I would accompany her on a Mud Larking adventure on the banks of the River Thames. We were quickly hooked.

As I lover of Car Boots on a Sunday, this felt like the next best thing but free. Although you do need a licence and if you find anything of value, you must report your find to the Museum of London.

The first time we went, I spotted a shark swimming and the next time.. we saw a massive bird's footprints in the mud. Each footprint spanned ten inches, with a four foot apart gait. Wild times down on the mud!

It was Gill's birthday this weekend, so I thought I would take some of my finds and turn them into her present.

Moody Twenty One

2011-04-15T15:52:00.000+01:00

Think Big

Act Small

Think Small

Act Big

This morning I could not get these two sentences out of my head. The more I thought about which one was best the more confused I got. Then they seemed to merge in my brain. Which one had I said first, which one was I on now. In the end I was saying to myself. Think Big, Think Small, Act Small, Act Big.

Moody Twenty

2011-03-22T09:14:00.000Z

It's a year since the publication of Emma Calder's Moody days Sticker Book. And I still have tons of related work, that I have not yet put on this blog.

Here is Sticker Sheet Number Three.

This sticker was purely practical and was inspired by the famous seventies conjurer Uri Geller who used psychokinesis and telepathy to bend forks live on television. Apparantly!

Moody Nineteen

2010-12-06T19:05:00.001Z

It's good to get ones work in shops locally and so I thought I let you know that Emma Calder's Moody Day Sticker Book, plus some of my small sticker books and my new childrens book Paper Angels are all selling in Circus, in Brixton Village. London.

Circus sells a mixture of vintage and artist driven products. It was their attractive decor that brought me into the shop and made me think that they could sell my stuff.

Brixton Village is in the old Granville Arcade, which recently had lots of empty shops transformed by artists and performers in an attempt to regenerate the market area. In fact I suggested this idea on some consultation form from Lambeth and they did it, but I am sure lots of people must have said the same thing. The artists all had a rent free period although not many could stay on after it was over. New cafes and shops have opened now. so it's still quite buzzy. It's a pity they couldn't have let the artists stay longer. But the vintage shops and Cafes are doing OK. Luckily for the Arcade it has recently been listed which is a relief, as we thought they were going to turn it into flats.

Moody Eighteen

2010-11-18T14:44:00.006Z

I thought I let you know that my original hand made, Long Thin Sticker Books are now back in stock at Other Criteria in London's Marylebone. Several of the designs in the shop are not in Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker Book, so if you want to collect more here's your chance, It's a lovely shop too, if you are in the area.

Emma Calder's Hand

These books are great for going out and sticking up stickers and this one of the reasons I designed them this shape. Here is a picture of me just before a sticker outing.

One of the Other Criteria's favourites are my XXXmas Stickers which are getting very seasonal again. Here are a couple of Photos from a sticker outing last year.

XXXmas Sticker's Brixton 2009

Emma Calder's Santa Sticker Oxford Street 2009

Photos are welcome of my stickers, stuck up, if you find any in interesting places.

Moody Seventeen

2010-10-12T19:09:00.000+01:00

When Jamie Camplin managing Director of Thames and Hudson, publisher of Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker Book first discussed the book with me. He tentatively enquired if I could add another section to the themes I had already planned, one just a tiny bit more up beat, a set of happy stickers and illustrations.

He was by no means forceful, it was just a suggestion. I liked the idea, it seemed a real challenge. I had already done the Bad Day Stickers, Stuck and Love and all were a reflection of difficult times. It seemed a good idea for the balance of the book to cover a more optimistic frame of mind.

The Funday title was a photograph of art on a balloon by Oliver aged six

But Happy......? Actually, I ended up calling the section Funday, well that was hard for me to get my head around. Mainly because, my personal work exists partly to cheer myself up through the process of writing, drawing, exploring all the thoughts and feelings that make me and others I know feel bad. So the end result is often tinged with sadness.

Maybe it's just me, maybe I am a very negative person most of my childhood memories in particular reflect this. Just because unfortunate things have happened, it doesn't mean that everything need always be bad. That is the great thing about having the confidence in oneself as a creative being. Because in that world you can make anything happen.

So taking Jamie's suggestion on board I racked my brain for moments of happiness. All my happy memories of recent years have been with my own children and partner, ironically.

Luckily, for one of the illustrations for the book, I found the perfect collage already done, on a page in one of my current sketchbooks.

So for the accompanying writing I wrote down the true story that had inspired me to do the collage in the first place. For those of you who haven't seen the book here it is.

The first lollies Oli ever had, he carried
around with him all day unopened. He'd never
had a lolly before, because his mum was very
strict, usually. But today she had relented,
when the shop keeper offered them, for free.

He held them tight all day, not once asking
if he could open them, his mum was surprised.

When his big sister came home from
school, he went and sat down next to her on
the sofa. He told her quietly that he had
something for her and he gave her one of the
lollies. She helped him unwrap his, before she
unwrapped hers and then they sucked them
silently and happily together.

As silently as it was possible to suck a lolly.

Also included in this blog is the photo of Oliver trying to touch stickers that I had just stuck up in the street and holding the very same lollies mentioned in the text.

Oliver Elephant and Castle 2004

Moody Sixteen

2010-09-16T12:23:00.001+01:00

The day I started to design the bad day stickers that ended up in Emma Calder's Moody Days sticker book, I was feeling really fed up. Also I was thinking about my father who had died some seven years earlier.

Bad Day Stickers

This is the piece of writing that triggered the stickers off.

On Bad Days

On bad days I think of the saddest things like the day my father died for instance. (I also think of my own mortality.)

I had been sitting in the hospital for about four hours my father had very bad pneumonia and couldn't breath without an oxygen mask. He hadn't spoken once but, then he said, “I feel so sad.” Those were almost his last words.

Then the nurse came and asked me if I wanted the priest to come. I didn't know what to do, so I said: “Yes” even though we were not religious.

The priest stood by my father and my father opened his eyes and said, “Oh fuck.”

And those really were his last words. I knew then that getting the priest had been wrong.

Two hours later he was dead it was exactly 9.20pm.

Later I slept.

I began to fall

and fall.

Then a dull thud.

He had landed somewhere.

When I woke up, I went out to the shopping centre.

Somehow I did what I did.

But it was odd, my feet didn't touch the ground and my head was up to the roof.

Floating home out of my body.

Then to the hospital to pick up his things.

The grey plastic bag with his shoes, wrist watch and old clothes.

I know it's still down the garage somewhere.

Orginally the bad day stickers were cut up to make a long thin book, that is partly why the woman featured was so long and thin, but it was also to reflect the strange feeling of tallness I felt after my father died.

Bad Day Woman

Moody Fifteen

2010-09-10T14:36:00.004+01:00

It's been a long Summer Holiday and I am just getting back into work, even though one child is not even back at school yet (due to the rebuild of the once iconic Pimlico School) and the other is ill and off school.

As I try to pick up the threads of what I was working on before the holidays, I have been going through my notes and ideas for stories. Flicking through my file, I came across the piece of writing that inspired the cover of Emma Calder's Moody Day Sticker Book and also one of the other illustrations featured in the book.

Emma Calder's Moody Days in Foyles April 2010

Black Paper

A large piece of black paper dropped in front of her face.

The tears pushed towards her eyes.

A pain spread down her throat.

She felt sick and desperate.

Her head buzzed and buzzed.

The room became smaller.

The windows had gone.

She walked from wall to wall, up and down.

A trickle of brightness came from nowhere.

Dust particles danced in the light.

Now I am grown up I google myself all day long

Moody Fourteen

2010-07-22T09:59:00.003+01:00

I have been bad at adding to this blog recently since finishing Emma Calder's Moody Days and have been so busy working on new stuff, that I have had no spare time. But yesterday morning, I was so distracted that I went and stood by my fourteen year old daughter, as she sprayed her first graffiti stencil in the Skatepark in Stockwell.

Coco spraying in Stockwell Skatepark

Her work is so good already but, what is the future for the young creative artist now, even less opportunties now, than before. Less places at colleges high fees, student loans etc...no jobs!

Tree Kiss by Coco Cripps

I do have a new book coming out soon, so I shouldn't be gloomy, Paper Angels published by Bloomsbury, 4th October 2010. There are always ways to get work out there if you don't get too fed up with the effort. Doing the stickers were one way for me and now Coco with her graffiti.

The opening page from Paper Angels by Emma Calder

Moody Twelve

2010-06-16T12:37:00.002+01:00

Emily The Inventor by Emma Calder

When I was digging through old stuff, I found my first ever attempt at a children's book 'Emily the Inventor', which I wrote when I was thirteen. It was a story about a little girl, who hated doing things and was very lazy. She invented loads of gadgets to save her the bother, unfortunately she got very fat, so she chucked them all away and wrote a book instead. It was very before it's time, or maybe not. People were very aware in the sixties and seventies about environmental/ consumerist issues.

They just forgot it all in the eighties.

I never did anything about getting it published, I suppose I thought it was too scrappy looking. Or I had just moved onto other things and thought I could do better. The story of my life...

So before I forget, if you haven't seen a copy of Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker Book yet, please check it out.

Moody Eleven

2010-05-24T17:52:00.004+01:00

It was my birthday recently and one of my best friends the day before. His party was on my actual birthday and I wanted to make him a card, I never buy cards, ever. But, that day I was feeling birthday moody and lazy. I spoke to a friend about doing the card and she said. 'Just do it, enjoy it and forget about all the other stuff you should be doing. By the end of the afternoon you will have invented a new style for a book or something.' The day before as my birthday treat, I had sneaked off to Spitialfields Market in the East End of London and bought two fantastic vintage stencil kits, so I put them to good use. Here is Jon's card.

Moody Ten

2010-05-01T17:55:00.012+01:00

When I was fourteen, the age daughter is now, I decided I would become a Graphic Designer, mainly because I liked the idea of doing art that was out there, visible in the world.

Self Portrait age 14

From my second attempt at book illustration. My 1st Alphabet book. B is for Bird about age 14

I was reminded of one of my first proper Graphic Design jobs, by a friend, who came along to my Moody Launch. He had commissioned me to do a series of posters and leaflets in 1984 when he was working for Camden Tribunal and Rights, an organisation set up to help people who had lost their jobs unfairly. He hadn't seen any of my graphic work for a long time and he was struck by my use of collage cropping up again, after so many years, in Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker Book.

The first poster for Camden Tribunal and Rights

Camden Tribunal also commissioned me to make a Christmas card for them, to send to Margaret Thatcher. Unfortunately I never got round to developing the pictures of the card being delivered. I do have the film some where though. Margaret Thatcher was out, funnily enough but, we gave it to a nice policeman, in those days you could go right up to the front door of number ten. I thought I'd put this in the blog, not because it is a great piece but, more as a salute to the good old days. In case people have forgotton.

The card said:

'Merry Christmas and thanks for nothing from the people of Camden.'

Emma Calder holding the Christmas Card to Margaret Thatcher

The inside of the card signed by the people of Camden

Moody Nine

2010-04-08T19:43:00.002+01:00

Two weeks has past since the launch of Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker Book.

Emma Calder signing books

The evening went really well, all a bit of a whirl and it was great that so many old friends turned up.

For the event at Beaconsfield, I put a lot of effort into framing up some of the original artwork from the book and a selection of work that started me off on the whole sticker thing.

Some of the work on display at the launch

One person has offered to swop an original Banksy for one of my pictures, of course I said, “depends which one”, my daughter said “you are joking, didn't you think, swop yours and sell the Banksy,” of course not, that hadn't occurred to me, Oh well, that's why we have children.

Collage made from stuff I dug out of our back garden

As I said in an earlier blog, it was doing the button pictures, that began it all and then trying to find a vehicle to somehow show the world what I had done. The stickers were my mini gallery and luckily for me, it came off as a way of getting my work seen. Resulting in Thames and Hudson asking me to do a book, which I never expected.

One of the long thin sticker books on display at Beaconsfield

Having ones work in shops all over the world means, that plan A worked (The work is out there), the outcome of plan B is yet unknown, will any one actually buy it, or take it down from the shelf!

Emma Calder proudly holding book at launch, photo needed a little help

Moody Eight

2010-03-11T14:21:00.014Z

My book is finally out in the shops and I am sorry that I have neglected this blog for a few weeks but, I have been busy finishing off a children's book. Paper Angels for Bloomsberry which will be published on October 4th 2010.

Also I have been writing a proposal for a film submission, which I so hope to get funded, but I have to keep that numb feeling going in my head when it comes to expectations and concentrate again on Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker book. As this Friday 19th March 6.30 - 8.00pm is my London book launch and signing at Beaconsfield art space in Vauxhall. If you are interested in attending please email Maudie Gunzi at Thames & Hudson to be put on the RSVP list.

Moody Days is dedicated To all the friends I never see any more...

And today, one of them rang me up from Australia, because he had just been walking down the street in Melbourne and in the window of a trendy little bookshop was my book. He was very impressed, went inside the shop and asked to see the book. It was shrinked wrapped, so as he is a very shy person he didn't dare ask the shop to unwrap it and as he hasn't sufficient funds at present to buy the book, he was unable to look inside and see that the book is actually dedicated to him. I was so pleased to chat to him on the phone, I forgot to tell him.

And here is the illustration that ironically inspired me to to do the dedication, which just goes to show how different days and different moods can transform ones attitude totally.

I know I was feeling very bad about one old friend the day I did this.

Moody Seven

2010-02-05T13:43:00.001Z

Today I woke up and my daughter came into my bedroom and exclaimed. “You know most of my friends can't even sew a button on!”

And I thought of this button picture that I did back in 2005. It just made me think of her friends. The lost generation (at least when it comes to buttons), the result of their parents success.

At least my daughter can sew buttons on really well. And mine too.

another button picture from 2005

What is it with people, too lazy to cook, or even sew, or mend stuff. The throw away culture.

Two stickers from my 2008 XXXmas Sticker Book. On the theme of toooo to much.

Here is an illustration that nearly made Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker Book, but didn't.

Don't forget it's valentines day next week. As if you could.

Moody Six

2010-01-20T18:00:00.006Z

Carrying on from the last Emma Calder's Moody Days Blog on the subject of collages. Here is one I did for Moody Days.

Now back to the history bit, on how the style has developed and changed over the years.

And one from about 1968.

I set up my first studio with college friends in November 1983, in an old de-lousing centre at the Elephant and Castle. I can remember the first week sitting in the freezing cold studio with no commercial work and we had to think of ideas for projects to do.

Emma Calder and Ged Haney South London Press September 14th 1984

As we really didn't know where to start, another studio member suggested that Ged Haney and I start making a picture library for the studio. We brought in hundreds of old Sunday supplements, started to cut out all the pictures and filing them. After a few days I'd had enough of this activity full time, so I started making lots and lots of little collages out of the remaining pictures in the magazines. I wasn't exactly sure where the pictures would lead but, as I was planning to get work as an illustrator, I used the collages to build a new portfolio.

Detail of scrap/recycled letterhead the other side had a collage on it

One character produced in those first few weeks was a fish lady, it ended up being used for our company Pearly Oyster's logo, six years later and I still use it today. Don't know what happened to her friend though.

Some of the other collages I produced in those first weeks, were these hoover women, which triggered the idea for my animated film Springfield.

Matt Forest a pop video director from “Big Features”, had seen some of my line tests for Springfield and he asked me to put her in a pop video for the Art of noise, “Close to the Edit” that he was doing. I didn't want to use Springfield for a commercial job, so I suggested that he let me do a sequence based on some of my collage illustrations.

Still from Springfield 1986

Luckily for me I was the first animator to have their stuff ready to shoot and Matt told me to begin filming immediately, do as much as I could and what ever I fancied. Those were the days, I did cut out animation (moving paper cut-outs under a rostrum camera) and all I had to do was make sure that what ever I did, fitted with the soundtrack. As you can see my bit used knives, forks and spoons, but why? I can't remember now.

Close to The Edit Pop Promo. Band The Art of Noise. Sequence by Emma Calder

It was a really well paid footage rate and they used twenty five seconds of my stuff and I shot it all in about six hours, I was very pleased, as I orginally had been only asked to do ten seconds. It was a excellent pop video, lots of talented designers and animators worked on it and it had a cinema release too. You can watch it on you tube. Everyone else was pissed off though, as they all worked solidily for two weeks night and day and most ended up getting paid less than me. I think the money was running out towards the end and not everybody's work got used. Something like that.

Moody Five

2010-01-19T15:15:00.001Z

Collage is the medium for Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker Book. The illustrations are a mixture of small stickers stuck on, or bits of pencil drawing, watercolour, photographs, scanned images, rubber stamp printing etc...

Like this image for the Stuck section of Moody Days, which was made with rubber stamps and drawings on tiny stickers.

And this one from the title page. (Every sticker is a different face but it didn't take long too do, just mad sticker frenzy!)

When I was searching through old portfollios for this blog, I came across this drawing I did at five or six years old and I thought it was strickingly similar to the Spots above. Even though I hadn't seen it for over thirty years.

Over my career I have used many different artforms for my animation, instillations and graphic work, from motorised sculptures to jewellery design but, my favourite has always been collage.

Grandma's knitted tie and hangman earings 1978

So for this week and the next few weeks blog, I am going to show you some of my old collage illustrations from the days before Photoshop was invented. These designs show partly the evolution of the sticker style in Moody Days.

One example of my student montage work is this poster for the Royal College of Art M.A Degree show in 1983.

Each character included in the poster was a collage of different students work, from different departments in the college.

I was quite naughty because, before checking with anyone, I found the technician who was printing up photographs of student work for the degree show catalogue, asked him for all the reject prints and also got others out of the bin.

Back in the graphics studio, I cut them up, drew into them, photocopied and then coloured them.

Emma Calder in the Graphics Studio at the R.C.A 1983.

After I had done the artwork, I tracked down students whose work I had used and got their permission. I accidentally forgot to tell one person and when he saw the printed poster he got very annoyed. I had used a piece of his product design, for the head of one of my characters. He did forgive me luckily. Trouble is, if I had asked everyone in advance, people might have said no, or grumbled if their work was not included. You have to take chances in life sometimes.

Emma Calder with Paul Javis and Stuart Jane in the Graphics Studio at the R.C.A 1983

Moody Four

2009-12-31T14:30:00.000Z

After I had made the first two of my small sticker sheets, into The Long Thin Sticker Books and was selling them in various shops, I started to think about my audience more, what they would like, rather than anything that just popped into my head.

I decided in January 2006 that I would do some love stickers for Valentines day, but not the usual soppy stuff, more of a mixture of feelings. Unrequited love and desperate desire. The result was some quite attractive if slightly unnerving stickers.

These sticker's did end up in Emma Calder's Moody Day's and became the centre piece of the Love Day section. These stickers differ from the first two sets, as they were not designed to be stuck up in the street, but, were conceived as embellishments, for letters between lovers, for people to stick in their diaries, or on the back of their mobile phones. They were also designed to work in the long thin book format and have a more narrative feel.

The artwork for the Love stickers was mainly created with a rubber stamp heart, that I stole from my son, then scanned into Photoshop, where I drew into the printed and collaged artwork. The various bits of text were sourced from miserable note book entries, from my personal collection of letters and poems never posted. I just took lines out of the poems and put them with the pictures. I also was reading a library book on hip hop at the time and I wrote down the odd word/phase that seemed apt from that. Like “broken windows”, although I can't remember what the book was called now.

For the love section in Moody Days I did actually include one short poem, it is incorporated into the main illustration for the chapter so you can read that when you get to see the book.

The letter never sent, that some of the love stickers were based on was written in 1993. I didn't include it in the book but, I do here. It's now seventeen years later again, talk about being STUCK:

Greedy hungry dying

Hot Hot Hot

Tanned Golden alone

Do you remember how we kissed?

Have you forgotten?

Do you remember the summer of '76

That hot hot summer almost 17 years ago.

Do you remember me?

Just 17.

Tanned, golden, alone.

Do you remember that night?

Do you remember how

I stole thought the fence

Uninvited?

Do you remember you?

On the grass cross legged.

Playing your guitar?

Do you remember how I came and sat with you?

How we disappeared into your parents garden.

How we kissed

Do you?

Memory is very selective and funny sometimes. When I wrote Hot Hot Hot, I could clearly remember the steel band at the party, playing a song by the same name. But according to Wikipedia, it wasn't recorded until 1982, although the man that wrote it Alphonsus Celestine Edmund Cassell (Arrow) could, have written it, before it was officially recorded. Or maybe, it was his band playing that night at this trendy Notting Hill communal garden party. Who knows, it might be my mind playing tricks, it was a hot night and a great steel band.

By turning the internal fantasy into something that others can share in the form of stickers, is turning the dream of passion, into a tiny aesthetic sticker experience.

That is what lies at the heart of Emma Calder's Moody days. Making fun, attractive work, from quite tricky feelings and ideas.

Moody Three

2009-12-29T12:01:00.000Z

When I started making and designing stickers after my second child was born, I wasn't working as much as I had formally and I found it quite hard to concentrate on developing film ideas.

The second small sheet of stickers that I designed and a set that did end up in “Emma Calder's Moody Days” was a sheet based on the idea of being stuck and was a silly little pun too.

I remember sticking all these stickers all over the page and scribbling and rubber stamping quite aggressively. I did most of the sheet at home with my baby on my lap, while his sister worked on a sticker sheet for herself.

Sticker Art became an after school activity. Soon I had done several sheets and before long, I was out sticking them up and photographing them. But, I was quite shy and felt a bit funny sticking them all over the place myself. So I decided to make them into these little long thin hand made books and sell them, so other people could take over the process.

Sticker books in their purpose built racks

Later the Tate Modern Shop bought them to go on sale along side their street art exhibition and then kept ordering them. But making them up by hand and sticking different stickers on each of the covers was time consuming and getting very tedious, so my agent showed them to Thames and Hudson, in the hope that we could do a more mass market version. The last of the current long thin books are still selling, now in Damien Hirst's shop, Other Criteria.

Sticker books on display in Other Criteria

I did a total of around 800 of the books in six different designs. Every book has a different hand stuck cover and so soon complete books will become a rarity.

For Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker Book I also created wrap around illustrations, these were mainly taken from notes and drawings in my sketch books that I have kept since I was a teenager.

My Biba 1974 Diary age 14

Although these sketch books and diary's were created when I was very young, I liked the spindly hand writing, written with a Rotring pen, so I based the hand writing style font, that I designed for the book on this kind of script.

Note book 1979-1980

Some of the stuff from my old books is quite personal but, I remembered people queuing up at my degree show to read my sketch books. So I lifted quite a bit from this source. As I thought people do like that sort of heart wrenching stuff, because it reminds them of things they think and feel themselves.

Small part of a Moody days illustration page. Font is Emma Hand

Moody Two

2009-12-17T17:43:00.000Z

This is the second week of my blog and today was quite a good one, as I just got the preview copy of Emma Calder's Moody Days. It looks just as I planned and the printing is pretty good. I was so lucky, to be able to design and draw every single element of my book including the type faces and the bar code. (Except I did steal one or two drawings from my children and popped them in here and there). It is rare these days to have the creative say on things, without the money people stepping in and trying to interfere. I have to thank all the people I was involved with at Thames and Hudson, for being so good to work with and professional.

Apart from being excited, I am also a bit scared, as soon the book will be out there, exposed and ready to be taken home. But, back to the events and work leading up to Moody Days.

After I had my second child and both my parents had died, I became very ill and unable to work for a while. Having spent years making short animated films for people like the BBC and Channel Four and yet still struggling to get funding. I found myself in an impossible position, no time, no money to make films but, tons of ideas. I was deeply frustrated. I wanted my work out there, being seen, making a difference.

Southwark Street London 2005

One morning on the way to work, I was overcome by one idea, it just popped into my brain. “STICKERS”.

I was suddenly over come with all the possibilities.

Emma and Ged 1994. Photographs by Richard Keith Wolff

When I got to my old studio in Sly St, East London, I found some old address labels and I got started immediately. This was the studio that I used to share with fellow animator and co Pearly Oyster Productions founder Ged Haney.

These were the first sticker sheets that I did before I had really worked out what I was doing or why I was doing it. They used some of the button/sewing stuff pictures, that I had been making after my mothers best friend died and I'd inherited her button collection.

Button Pictures 2004

Initially I had made the button pictures because, I had wanted to use up all the buttons, to dispose of them in an artistic fashion, but then I just started buying more and more lovely buttons. So that plan failed along with the film idea, which I never completed.

These button pictures are not in Moody Days, but I did end up using three of my original pictures in the book. I won't show you those now as I don't want to spoil the surprize.

This little picture was made as a present for my partner, from an old regency buckle I bought on Bermondsey Market. It's a terrible joke!

More next week.

Moody One

2009-12-12T13:42:00.001Z

Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker Book, is the reason for starting this blog.The blog is dedicated to the book and how it came about.

Crossing the boundaries of art and commercial art in one. The book is about reconstructing narrative and visual threads, in a modern urban environment. It's about fragmented story telling and audience participation.

Emma Calder's Moody Days is a sticker book for anyone. It features four moods. Bad, Fun, Stuck and Love, each section has it's own hand drawn, removable stickers.

The combination of art and ephemera is an interesting mix and appropriate in these days of throw away culture, multi tasking and channel hoping. Drawn and written by myself, an animator which makes the idea of stickers and multiples even more interesting I think.

To be honest Moody Days was a bit like an accident that was meant to happen, one day I started it and the next it was finished. Things rarely happen like that, but... compared to animation, books are fast.

I used a range of my previous work as a basis for the book, including writing and letters going back to when I was at college. I also incuded some of my original sticker sheets from my long thin hand made books.

Fingerprints 2004

This is the first of the small sticker sheets that I designed, each sticker is one of my fingerprints. I liked the idea of sticking these little stickers up and putting my mark on things literally. Although I didn't include them in Moody Days, I did use the print idea for the cover and for the animated trailer.

Tate Modern Toliets 2005

Over the next few weeks I plan to show you some of my sketch books, collages and things that got me started with this whole sticker project, and events leading up to Emma Calder's Moody Days Sticker Book.

old college note book