How Galleries Decide Which Artists to Represent
Submissions, scouting and the quiet economics behind the artists a gallery takes on.
Little Birdie Studio
Latest
Newspaper Crafts for Adults Turn Weekend Recycling Into Elegant Decor
Layered with paste and finished well, yesterday’s newspaper becomes trays, bowls and vases with a Victorian pedigree — elegant home decor that costs nothing but drying time.
How to Draw Faces: Proportions and Features, Step by Step
Most beginner faces fail for the same handful of reasons. Fix the proportions first, then build features on top.
Why Digital Brushes Behave Like Real Ones: A Plain Guide to Procreate and Photoshop Brush Settings
Pressure, tilt, spacing and texture do the work a bristle does by hand — here is how the settings map to the physics.
Illustration
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How to Build an Illustration Portfolio That Gets You Hired
What art directors actually look for, what to cut, and how to shape a portfolio around the work you want more of.
Illustration Meaning: What the Word Actually Covers, and Where It Stops
A plain-English guide to what illustration is, how it differs from fine art and graphic design, and why the borders between them are blurrier than job titles suggest.
Autumn Illustration: How to Capture Fall Light and Harvest Colour Palettes
Shorter days, a lower sun and leaves that turn for a reason — what the season actually does to light and colour, and how to build it into your illustrations.
Illustration Jobs: A Field Guide to Who Pays Artists and How
From picture books to packaging labels, here is who commissions illustration, what each kind of job asks of the artist, and how the money arrives.
Design
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Design Within Reach? Buying Quality Furniture Without the Markup
What actually makes a chair well made, and how to judge it in the showroom before the price tag decides for you.
How Does Risograph Printing Actually Work?
A layered, one-colour-at-a-time process that turns a stencil and a spinning drum into the grainy, glowing prints illustrators can't stop making.
How textile motifs travel: paisley's long route to Britain
The paisley teardrop began as a Persian boteh, crossed the mountains into Kashmiri weaving and reached Scottish looms via fashionable Europe — a motif that migrated for centuries before it settled on ties and scarves.
The invisible grid: how book pages are actually designed
A book page looks like a neutral container, but every margin, line spacing and running head answers to a grid — one of the oldest and quietest pieces of design there is.
Spotlight
Why Glazes Crackle and Crack: A Plain Ceramic Primer
Glaze is melted glass bonded to clay, and it cracks when glass and clay shrink at different rates — a materials story of silica, flux, and thermal expansion every potter meets early.
Newspaper Crafts for Preschoolers Turn Yesterday's News Into Tomorrow's Fine Motor Skills
Safe, simple paper projects that build little hands with almost no preparation — and almost no cost.
The Bayeux Tapestry Comes to London for Its First UK Display in Over 900 Years
The 11th-century embroidery — some 70 metres of stitched narrative — has been confirmed for display at the British Museum from September 2026, the first time it has returned to Britain since it was made.
Harvard's Free Museum Night Puts Empanadas Beside an Exhibit About Conformity — and the Pairing Is Worth a Second Look
A festive open evening and a show about postwar photographic fantasy make odd companions. That tension may be the point — or it may be a problem.
Tutorials
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Risograph Printing Layers Bold Colour Through a Spinning Ink Drum
A duplicator built for offices in 1950s Japan has become the print studio of choice for illustrators chasing texture, cost and glorious imperfection.
Weaving on a frame loom begins with a well-spaced warp
Warping a frame loom with even tension and the right thread spacing, then building a first piece of plain weave row by patient row.
Cut-paper collage techniques begin with Matisse's late cut-outs
Cut-paper techniques drawn from Matisse's late cut-outs, from painting sheets of colour to composing with positive and negative shapes.
Paper marbling for beginners starts with a carrageenan bath
The carrageenan bath method for floating colour, raking patterns and lifting them cleanly onto paper at a kitchen table.
Crafts News
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How Risograph Printing Layers One Vivid Colour at a Time
Laura Boswell Carves Her Print Blocks Away to Capture Scotland's Wild Coastline
Crafts Council Calls For Bold Craft Installations At Collect Open 2027
Independent makers and collectives are invited to pitch ambitious, craft-led proposals for the next edition of Somerset House's celebrated showcase.
Cyanotype Turns Two Iron Salts and an Afternoon of Sunlight Into Unfading Prussian Blue
Art News
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Britain's £90,000 VAT Threshold Draws a Line for Growing Craft Businesses
The rule that decides when a maker's turnover tips them from hobbyist into VAT-registered trader, and what the deadlines actually require.
When a Craft Hobby Becomes a Business: The UK Tax Basics Makers Ask About
The £1,000 trading allowance, the October registration deadline and the records that save an evening of panic — a plain-language map of the moment making starts counting as trading.
The Box, Plymouth Wins Art Fund Museum of the Year 2026
Plymouth's museum, gallery and archive took the £120,000 prize at a ceremony aboard the Cutty Sark, seeing off a shortlist that included the National Gallery and the Fitzwilliam.
Selling Print Editions: How Numbering, Sizes and Prices Hold Hands
A limited edition is a promise printed in pencil — the numbers on the left, the edition size on the right, and a price ladder that only works if both stay honest.