Check out my new online portfolio!

Open publication - Free publishing - More art

Fish-eye lens!

Just thought I'd post some of the photos that I took of my whole exhibtion piece today using a fish-eye lens:

Sweeeet.

Exhibition Day!

Shattered, all this drinking of wine and talking about your concepts and ideas with family and friends (who I'm very grateful to for coming along!) - it's a hard life being an art student, I just want to sleep. But I also wanted to stick some photos up that I took after I completely finished setting up at about 11am today - it's taken long enough!
And I know pride is sometimes frowned upon but I'm pretty chuffed, it looks almost exactly how I envisioned..

Real leaves and bunting (can't go far wrong with bunting!) - Unfortunately the poor bush that I picked to hack at and pin up for my exhibition is now looking considerably worse for wear.

Close-up's of Max's treehouse, it was kinda sweet to hear someone look at my work and say "Oh look, a treehouse! I want to live in there!".

Grass - Way way back at the start of the building process of this final piece I made a rag-rug out of different shades of green fabric, this made a lovely lush carpet for my tree to sit on, I only wish I'd limited the range of colours as I made it - it'd be nicer if it was more grass coloured.

My mini-me/avatar on my Artist Statement, she's holding onto the top of my statement which states where I'm headed next year and what my ideas were about in making this project, I thought I'd make a version of me that matched the rest of my work rather than just a photo of my mug.

And that's it! So close to finishing college now it's scary, the exhibition'll be up until the end of the week, anyone want a tree?

Exhibition Building, Day 3

Exhibition building weeeeek! Finally everything I (and the rest of my group) have worked on is going up around our classroom ready for next week. This is what I left it looking like yesterday afternoon, after working on it and also helping other people out all of the day before and yesterday:

And then I've spent all day stapling greenery up at the top and gluing the treehouses to the tree:

And hanging my 'logo': 

So I left it looking like this when I went home today:

Such fun, such fun. Just got bits to add on Monday and then that's almost it college-wise.

'Max & Jasper' Logo Creation

As part of my final project brief I wrote that I wanted to experiment with some graphic design, I'd decided on my name, just a simple 'Max & Jasper' - named after my characters, so I started quickly sketching out ideas. This is the origin of the design that has practically stuck from the start:

I then designed it properly in Illustrator and starting playing around with colours, tilts and the widths of each letter:

However, given that my final piece designs (for illustrations and models) are much more bright in colour, I spent an hour yesterday re-choosing each letter colour and then printed them onto nice thick, slightly textured paper:

 And then I have spent this evening cutting them out and sticking them together with 1-2mm pads to create some depth and shadow. 

I now intend to pierce some tiny holes the the corners of the A, ampersand and S/P and hang them from each other. The whole design will be hung from a fishing rod, held by a model of the main character,  'Max', at the top of my exhibition boards falling in place next to my set design :)

Drawing things

I love drawing, I love the satisfaction I get when I draw something that I feel was better than the day before, I love seeing the improvement. The main subject matter for my drawings seems to be my own body, mainly my hands and feet, this is probably because I'm too shy to sit and stare at a stranger on a train for too long and I worry that when a family member says "Let's see then!" they'll get offended when it looks nothing like them.
So instead I frequently find myself sat up, facing a mirror, drawing 'til 3am.

- Turns out charcoal is "my" medium recently, I love how free my work gets when I use charcoal.

For the illustration I created of Max fishing I just couldn't get the proportions and foreshortening right, so out came the mirror and I sat with my legs hanging from my bed drawing them.

Final FMP Push

I haven't updated this blog in ages, so I figured I'd post pictures of the two illustrations that will be going on display in my college's FMP show in less than two weeks. I finished them today and I'm pretty happy with them :)

(Max)

(Jasper)

Sketching out my illustrations

All of these drawings are straight from my head, just quick sketches to get a sense of what I want to create:

  

 

Jubilee Monday

Spent the day creating this head out of paper mache - after some totally unsuccessful attempts using terracotta clay.

He's going to eventually have a body and curly hair, and he'll sit among some real greenery at the top of my boards in my FMP exhibition - fingers crossed it all works!

Designing Max

 

Arty and Crafty

Pinterest  has turned out to be my creative best friend, throughout my sketchbook I'm trying to create little fabric illustrations as experiments for props and pieces for my final set-design.. I just think the owl is cute!

Character Designing Stuff

Since I haven't updated this blog in a while I figured I'd upload some of the stuff that I've been drawing/making in the last week or two. 

My FMP idea involves a lead male character (and his dog), so above are two of my initial drawings for what I wanted him to look like - they came out alarmingly similar to what I envisioned in my head!

This, however, is my first design for my dog character, not being a doggy sort of person is meaning this is proving to be the most difficult part of my work to design and I'm heavily looking to Disney's style to help me out on this one, I knew from the start that I wanted him to be a Scottish Terrier - 'the monopoly dog' was how I first described it to anyone who could suggest what breed I should base him on. I can't decide whether it will be a male or female - I love the idea of it having a floral tummy but I also kinda want it to be male so I'm somehow going to have to compromise with myself! 

Pop-up Sketchbook

Big rush rush now to get our final project for college started (and consequently finished for our June exhibition), so I figured I'd post one of my early experiments and then continue to post my work as and when I do it. It does actually kind of pop out of my sketchbook, so I'm quite chuffed with that :)