I’ve decided to release a few flute pieces (and a short harp cover) on bandcamp! You can download them all for free or, if you really like them, can name your price! Just click below to have a listen and download!
Devon Hour cartoon from Sterry Cartoons. Illustrated by Hannah Sterry. Created for the #DevonHour business and networking chat on twitter.
I had a little bit of spare time today and decided to create this for the #DevonHour community. It was a good chance to play with some of the textures in Inkscape and create something colourful and fun.
The sketch above was drawn by a very smiley, happy, Jazz Greenhill when I bumped in to her one evening at a gig in Kingsbridge. You can usually find her sketching something (which explains why her illustrations are so good!) and she’s just released her first full-length comic “The Festival”, which you can read about and buy here: The Festival by Jazz Greenhill
She’s a wonderful person and a talented illustrator and having seen her work so far, I’m sure she’ll create some brilliant things in the future so she’s definitely worth a follow!
Hello and thank you to all of the the people who suggested cartoons for my mini competition. There were quite a few good ones, both on Sterry Cartoons facebook page and on twitter (@HannahSterry).
TOP 3 FACEBOOK SUGGESTIONS:
“It’s PC gone mad!” ~ Bilgeboy Bob
“The iphone” ~ Pete Foreman
“Isambard Kingdom Brunel trying to construct Ikea furniture.” ~ Mitch Mitchell
I have already drawn two of these (and a bonus Rabbit Pi), just for fun:
The iphone! Requested by Peter Foreman.
“It’s PC gone mad, I tell you!” by Sterry Cartoons. Cartoon requested by Bilgeboy Bob.
Rabbit Pi by Hannah Sterry (Sterry Cartoons)
Tonight’s project is going to be drawing Isambard Kingdom Brunel and possibly Miss Von Trapp (she’s got a little mini competition going on).
Friendly Tweeting
I was chatting to a few lovely people on twitter and asked whether they’d like some cartoons too. Here’s what they came up with:
@HannahSterry a guitar with a broken string looking annoyed 🙂 I’m always breaking mine, usually in the middle if a live performance 😦
I’ll be drawing and posting these throughout the week and have already started sketching them! I might draw a few more, because some of the suggestions were so good!
Hope you’ve all had a good week and keep creating! 😀
Feel free to print this and use it for cards, wall pictures and general personal use! If you really like it and want to show your appreciation you can make me incredibly happy by sending a little donation via PayPal or sharing this post on facebook and twitter. Either of these things makes me happier than anyone could think possible and will make me smile crazily (you can demand photos if you don’t believe me)!
This is an illustration I did for fun a few years ago. At the time I was at a certain well-known university studying Mathematics and battling with depression and it was just nice to create something again. Usually I’d use music to combat depression, but I discovered that playing music in halls of residence gets you hated pretty quickly by the hall wardens and there were only 8 practice rooms on campus between over 20,000 students so there were never any free (no wonder the waiting list for counselling there was about 3 months long). One of the guys in my halls resorted to practicing his saxophone in a field, because he was threatened by the hall warden for playing in his room. I’m glad that I left.
NOTE: There might be a depression post coming up soon, because I’ve recovered enough to feel strong enough to speak about it and because I think it’s good to tell people about these things for solidarity and to reduce stigma (because stigma against an illness that affects over 25% of the population at one point or another is ridiculous).
I am now “Plymouth’s top jazz flautist” according to twitter. I know this because I am probably the only jazz flautist in the whole of South Devon (with the exception of my dad, who often prefers to play saxophone).
This post is a bit of everything – music I’ve recorded, pictures from the past year’s worth of gigs and news of gigs to come and some lovely testimonials from people I’ve played for – I hope you’ll enjoy it and feel free to ask me anything you like in the comments!
Logo by Hannah Sterry.
Over the past year I’ve been lucky enough to play lots of gigs with a great little gypsy swing band called Hamer & Isaacs. I met them, by chance, at a blues night at a pub where a mutual friend had invited us both along. I thought they were pretty cool and took a particular liking to one of them (that’s a different story) and since then I’ve stood in whenever one of the others can’t make it!
After playing with the band a fair bit, a few of them spotted my Sterry Cartoons creations on facebook and asked whether I’d like to design them an ‘art deco’ logo. I thought it’d be good fun to have a go (having not attempted logo design before) and this is what I came up with (see right).
All of this led to some really wonderful testimonials from people I’ve met through the band:
“As a professional musician for nearly four decades, I have been very impressed by Hannah Sterry’s contribution to our gypsy swing band as a deputy flautist over the last few months. She has deputised at short notice for both our lead guitarist and swing violinist, not easy roles to fill, and I have been awed by her levels of competence and creativity. Her improvisational techniques display an intuitive flair and inspiration well beyond her years, and she exhibits the stage presence expected in a seasoned veteran. I would heartily endorse her as a flautist to any potential employers, whether in the fields of jazz, rock or classical music.” ~ Julian Isaacs of Hamer & Isaacs Gypsy Swing Band
“[Hannah] is a brilliant musician and I love working with her in the gypsy swing band. Her flute solos inspire me to up my game!” ~ Melanie Scullion B.A Hons.P.G Cert. P.G Dip.Perf. Professional violinist, violist and peripatetic music teacher.
I’ve haven’t been playing jazz and designing logos the entire time though. Whenever I’ve had a few hours free, I’ve been working on a few of my own musical side projects! Most recently I’ve been doing a bit of recording with my little sister (she’s ridiculously cool, but you can’t take her anywhere). 😛
If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you might have heard it before, but here’s a little bit of chilled out flute music I recorded as an earlier side project (it’s not jazz, but it’s cool and floaty)!
P.S. If you like any of my music, you can download it for FREE on bandcamp. Just click the link above. If you really like it and want me to make more music, you can donate however much or little as you like with the “name-your-price” button and you’ll get a gigantic smile and thanks from me!
Anyway, I’ve just been told that dinner’s on the table, so I’d better go, but I hope you’re enjoying the story so far and I’ll leave you with a few pictures from the last year and adates of my upcoming gigs! Hope to meet some of you at some point and as always, if you want to ask me anything, or have any great music recommendations, I’d love to hear from you in the comments! 😀
Flautist Hannah Sterry performing jazz flute for The Cottage Hotel’s Summer Music Nights in Hope Cove, Devon.
The Sterrys
Ansa Back playing at Morleigh Village Hall
Hamer & Isaacs live at the Millbrook Inn, South Pool. Photo Credit: timhirstphotography.com
BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY (27th May) Ansa Back will be playing at Bigbury Golf Club from 4pm.
JUNE-SEPTEMBER The Sterrys will be playing every Tuesday evening at The Cottage Hotel, Hope Cove for their Summer Music Nights. Feel free to come and join us, enjoy a cocktail on the terrace and take in one of the most Mediterranean views that the South Hams can offer!
Art image by freeimageslive / creator is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
This might get me a whole lot of hate, but it’s a handy chart that I feel I should share with every musician, artist, photographer, writer or other creative who has ever been asked and even sometimes expected, by complete strangers, to work for free.
I am not saying that you shouldn’t work for free, but stressing that it should be your choice, that you shouldn’t be pressured in to it and do not need to feel guilty if you refuse. Would you ever expect a builder or lawyer to work for you for free?
Example: I have been asked before (by people I do not know) to play 15 minute slots on the harp (not an easy instrument to transport) for absolutely nothing, for profiting festivals and offered only a 5% discount on the cost of a ticket in return. Obviously, my answer was no.
Music is a skilled job and those choosing the profession should be paid accordingly and not exploited.
I don’t really understand why there’s so much pressure for women to shave off various areas of body hair. You only have to leave it for a few days and the the hair is back… your legs feeling like they’re covered in hundreds of tiny cactus spikes. Might as well save the money on razors and use the time to draw silly cartoons of cacti instead!
I don’t really celebrate Valentine’s Day. I don’t know if I’m the only one, but I just think it’s nice to spoil your best friends and family all year round, not just for one or two days of the year. Even when it comes to Christmas and birthdays, my gifts are often “IOU”s handwritten on pieces of paper (with a little doodle for good measure). On the odd occasion that I do think of something inspired (giftwise), I’ll tend to be so impatient that I want to give it to the person straight away, wanting them to get as much use and happiness out of whatever-it-is (and wanting to see a huge smile). Friends seem to be the same.
The idea of Valentines Day is nice, but spontaneity seems like much more fun!