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FEATURED WORK

Seahorse_cropped

White-clawed crayfish on blue

Small Common Octopus, 2016. Handmade papercut.

Small Compass Jellyfish, 2016. Handmade papercut.

Kingfisher in Flag Irises, 2016. Handmade papercut.

Netted Carpet Moth small

Spiny Starfish, 2016. Handmade papercut.

Northern Ceateans blue small

Crab papercut cropped

Viperfish_small

Paper Nautilus small

Giant Squid blue

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STORIES IN PAPER ON INSTAGRAM

2018 was all about waterlife, moths and antiquarian books...all my favourite things 🙂

Coming soon, my first printed book! I’m so excited about seeing this come together and it has been a true labour of love. ‘Tiny Voyages Of Discovery’ illustrates lesser known wildlife from a beck in my town out to the Irish Sea. It also includes an essay about my research process and explorers the theme of women in the early 19th century who used their art as a way of being able to engage with science and the natural world.

#inktober day...something.... Back to drawing one of my favourites, the Lion’s Mane Jellyfish.

Inktober has fallen to the wayside due to the everyday getting in the way and deadline panic setting in. Here’s a portrait of my life right now...

Day three and four, since I’ve worked to the point where the two cross over tonight. A curious collection of cephalopods including a Common Cuttlefish, a Curled Octopus, juvenille forms of each, a Common Octopus and a cuttle bone. I’m off to bed and tackling crabs and lobsters tomorrow (not literally!)

5 layer papercut ‘Vampyrotheuthis infernalis’ all ready for scanning and making in to prints. The question of the evening is, which cephalopod next? 🤔Suggestions welcome!

Tidying up the studio has, as usual, just turned in to looking at my favourite books from my collection. Does anyone else collect books? I’d love to hear about your collections!

Vampyrotheuthis infernalis, which translates to the ‘Vampire squid from Hell’ apparently. Rather unfairly named really as they don’t suck blood, just feed on detritus from above. They also combine features from the octopus family and the squid family, so they may not even be a squid! They are only small, growing to a maximum of around 30cm, but have huge eyes in comparison to their size. While I’m sure this guy isn’t destined to be a huge seller, I like him and I know my four year old who is obsessed with the Midnight Zone will too! 🙂

I’m so excited to be featured on the @paperartistcollective feed this week, and would like to say a big thank you to them! It’s SUCH an honour to have my work shared alongside so many incredible paper artists and I throughly recommend going and following the account if you are passionate about paper art 🙂

There have been so many jellyfish off the North West coast lately, including Moon Jellyfish and Lion’s Mane Jellyfish! They are inspiring me to make a more accurate jellyfish papercut, but for now here’s my large jelly papercut from two years ago 🌊

It’s a bit quiet over here as I’m working on making a book at the moment, illustrating river life. The White-clawed Crayfish is the only native crayfish to the UK, and is endangered.

Following on from the last 'Deep Sea Stories', today looks at the amazing giant squid! - True to their name, the giant squid is a massive member of the cephalopod family. The largest giant squid recorded so far was almost 13 metres long. Their anatomy is similar to other squid with two large eyes, eight arms, and two extremely long tentacles. These feeding tentacles are covered with sharp-toothed suckers which they use to catch prey up to 10 meters away. Their huge eyes help them to see in the dark of the deep sea and aid them in hunting food. - We know very little about these giants of the sea as they live deep in the ocean and are very rarely filmed, seen or washed up on the shore. They are thought to live in the ocean worldwide, but are most often washed up on beaches of the Pacific Islands and New Zealand. They rarely do so in the polar regions, suggesting they prefer warmer waters. - When giant squid specimens are found marine biologists can look at a small calcareous structure called a statolith in the squids brain which helps it to orientate itself. These form 'growth rings' like a tree helping to age the squid, and the oldest giant squid found was estimated to be only five years old. - Giant squid are thought to eat shrimp, other squid, and deep sea fish. As mentioned in the last deep sea story, sucker marks have been found on the skin of sperm whales, suggesting they may be on the whale's menu and have to battle to escape. However although remains of giant squid have been found in the stomach of sperm whales, sperm whale has never been found in the stomach of a squid, so perhaps they do not often win or eat large whales. - There are many sea legends that are thought to have originated from giant squid, such as the Kraken - a huge monster that lives in the ocean near Greenland and sinks ships. - However, amazingly they are not the largest squid, as the colossal squid is thought to reach possibly over 14 metres long!

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