Red Nose Day 2017

or: how to save lives without even leaving home.

Comic Relief is a stonkingly wonderful charity which helps people overcome problems most of us will never have to face because of our sheer good luck in being born in an affluent, temperate country which has plenty of food,water and health care and is not being torn apart by war. Meanwhile, some folk here in the UK, having won that bit of life's lottery, still have to cope with poverty and other horribly unfair social disadvantages; Comic Relief helps with those too.

Once every two years Comic Relief stages Red Nose Day which is a time for people to raise money by doing anything which raises a smile. This is why I love and support Comic Relief; it doesn't nag or browbeat or send you on a guilt trip. It just makes people feel good and happy and join together, and once you've sown that seed of love and community, then generosity, empathy and compassion are not far behind.

In 2015 I produced a special limited edition print of a hare wearing a red nose which raised £400 for Red Nose Day. (I've written about how this came about in my blog before). It had been such a success I wanted to do another one but by November 2016 I still hadn't had a good idea for a subject. I wanted it to be another animal wearing a red nose and I wanted it to work as a single plate print in dark grey so it would match the original hare print.

Now it so happens that my amazing friend Emma Mitchell (aka silverpebble) is one of the co-editors of Mollie Make's special Red Nose Day Crafternoon edition which is in itself an utterly brilliant collaboration of talented craft folk and just keeps on giving; the sale of the magazine raises money initially and then the fantastic ideas and projects contained within help people raise even more (and HAVE FUN). It also happens that in November I was at Emma's house being taught silverclay modelling as part of her inaugural Making Winter retreat. (These amazing weekends involve spending two whole days learning new skills, creating lovely things, making friends, eating delicious food and finding the good stuff in our cold dark winter. Emma has even written an accompanying book which will be out this autumn). But I digress and this rambling story is going somewhere I promise. That morning at Emma's house the post arrived with a padded bag which got Emma very excited. She opened it and revealed the top secret prototype for Peggy the Felt Dachshund.

Peggy as she appeared in the Crafternoon magazine three months later.

Instantly the decision was made.

• A dachshund would look lovely in a red nose.
• He would tie in with other Comic Relief projects.
• There is a lot of dachshund love in my Twitter feed. 
• He would look good in grey.
• He could be made the same height as my hare print so people can hang them next to each other.

It was so obvious I really didn't know why I hadn't thought of it before.

So here he* is, proudly 'Cutting a Dash' in his smart red rose.

'Cutting a Dash' findraising linoprint
 image size 18 x 10 cm

A limited edition of just 50 handpulled linoprints costing £15 each including free UK delivery, every penny of which will go to Comic Relief. He is available until 31 March 2017 or until he sells out, whichever comes first. For £15 you can (for example) pay for six anti-malaria nets and save the lives of six children AND you get a limited edition print delivered free to your door. I can't see any downsides. Can you?

IF YOU'D LIKE TO FIND OUT MORE OR ORDER PLEASE CLICK HERE.

*it has been tactfully pointed out to me by a reader of this blog that my dachshund looks suspiciously like a girl. This is a good point. I am going to have to come to terms with this and get used to her new gender identity....

Comic Relief, registered charity 326568 (England/Wales)

SC039730 (Scotland)

A Flick of Hares

There are several collective nouns for hares, but I like 'flick' the most for the way it evokes the fleeting glimpse which is often all we get.

This post is about how one small 10 cm x 10 cm hare ended up saving lives almost by accident.

It started last autumn when I decided to make a small collagraph print of a perky little hare peeping at the world. Once I'd cut the plate it had to be varnished with several coats of shellac, so while I waited for that to dry I was at a loose end.

There was a small piece of scrap lino on my workbench, just a bit bigger than the collagraph plate. I cut this down to the same 10 cm x 10 cm size and sketched on the outline of another hare - similar to the collagraph but not the same, more a memory of the drawing I had done earlier. I then carved it out with my lino tools almost freehand, pretty much making it up as I went along.

I inked it up and printed a first proof - and I laughed out loud. Instead of the 'Curious Hare' I had planned (and I think achieved) for the collagraph, this chap looked slightly crazy. He was definitely a March Hare.

Collagraph 'Curious Hare' (left) and linocut 'March Hare' (right)

I produced prints from both the collagraph plate and the lino block, and in fact printed the lino version in several different colours. Both were a hit when they debuted at a Christmas fair in December 2014.

A couple of months later I was mulling on what I could do for Comic Relief's 2015 Red Nose Day. I thought of the Parable of the Talents; I could either just give £100 to Comic Relief, or I could spend that amount on materials, packaging, postage and PayPal fees and quadruple it before passing it to Comic Relief. The theme in 2015 was 'Make your face funny for money', so I looked at my hare.... and wondered what he'd look like with a red nose. The answer was he would look like this.....

'Mad March Hare'

Behold, my March Hare was now even more bonkers, and had become a Mad March Hare. I contacted Comic Relief to get the necessary approval and paperwork. (If your fundraising is connected to your business it has to be authorised, for obvious reasons). Fortunately they loved the idea and gave me full permission. I announced on social media that there would be an edition of 40 and that they would be £10 each. I printed only a few in advance as I really wasn't sure they would sell....

The entire edition sold out in under six days *screams* and thanks to the enthusiasm and generosity of the wonderful people who bought one (or two, or three) I was able to send a fantastic £400 to Comic Relief.

Packaging up and mailing the prints

And all because I had had nothing to do while I waited for some varnish to dry.


Footnote:
My Mad March Hares have of course all gone - never to be repeated (such is the nature of limited editions!). The original collagraph 'Curious Hare' and linocut 'March Hare', in various colours, can still be purchased on my website, as well as greetings cards with the Mad March Hare image.