Hasta La Ideas

In UPPERCASE magazine, we encourage you to get your hands dirty with inks and paints. To become intimately involved in the act of making. To experiment with a new medium or craft. To look at the world from a difference perspective and perhaps to think and dream a little more freely.

Through our readers’ submissions, I’m a gatherer of these experiences. My inbox is full of images of amazing craft, wonderful messes, beautiful products and smart designs made by UPPERCASE readers. I love going through all the submissions and getting to know you. Alas, my only regret is that this requires an awful lot of screen time and is actually quite an intensive mental sorting exercise. The majority of the creative process for putting together an issue of UPPERCASE magazine is a digital one.

Today, I’m working on the page layout for the summer issue and sorting through readers’ submissions for the open call “What does colour mean to you?” These images are by illustrator Tracey English. “I live in London which everyone imagines is always grey, but really it is filled with colours—you just need to look.” One need not look farther than Tracey’s own desktop that is covered with inks, paints and a spectrum of tissue paper bits. “I have always loved colour; it brightens up even a dull day. I try to find it all around me.”

Feeling disconnected from her creativity, Tracey tried approaching her work with a fresh perspective and new technique. “I was stuck in a rut after looking after my family for many years, and somehow I needed to bring new life into my work and do something different.” Through experiments and trial and error, she started working with tissue paper collage. “Now I am hooked!” Tracey exclaims. “I work with inks and liquid acrylics, they give luminous colours and lovely textures, either mono printing them on to the tissue paper or painting directly with brushes. I love the rainbow coloured papers that you can create, everyone is slightly different. I then have the inspiration to create an image, which I do by cutting and collaging.” Once she is satisfied with the collage, she tidies up the image and assembles the design in Photoshop.

Tracey’s is just one of many excellent submissions that I look forward to sharing with you in the summer issue. And I can’t wait to reveal the cover! I’m putting the final touches on it and will share it soon…

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