MMU Collaborative: One For All! & Amelie Hegardt

So the past few day's i've been focusing on a very intriguing story that a student from MMU has written, our job is to illustrate a book cover for the book and maintain communication with our authors and letting them know what our plans are and if they'd like any changes to it and just have an outside opinion on it. I've been working with Jamie Walsh, who is the author of One for All, it's a story about some friends who end up on a desert jungle island and resort to dirty tactics and violence to get a 'prize' they were promised, even though it was only promised on a flimsy piece of paper, and they have no clue what it is! After having read teh fost part, two of the team get attacked (and murdered), I wanted to focus on a certain aspect of the story, a quote from it saying 'her eyes secreting liquid fear leaving burning tracks down her face'. I brainstormed my ideas. From the beginning i knew i wanted to use water colour, and so i began to look at different kinds of art, I found myself even stumbling upon anime, something of which i'm not overly interested in, but something I do think of as good art. I also stumbled upon a fashion illustrator called Amelie Hegardt and instantly fell in love with her work. I like how she only outlines certain parts of body parts and enhances them with colour, she uses bold outlines and I love her style of drawing, maybe I can mix anime style with hers? I'm excited! 
If I go to the USA when year 3 starts i am going to see her work! 

All pictures from: http://ameliehegardt.com/

This one is my favourite!

PICK ME UP! My favourite Artist

Although I didn't attend the Pick Me Up event, I did however look into some artists exhibitions, and stumbled across someones work who i was totally wowed at! Her name is Kristjana Williams and her work is made by vintage textures and photos mixed with her own illustrative drawing to create these amazing colourful works. If it's birdy it's brilliant! I just wish i'd have had enough money to go and see some more. Maybe I can get there another time! But in the mean time I did go to the Manchester Museum and also the Museum of Bolton. 

Pictures from http://www.kristjanaswilliams.com/

Tatton Park! & Deers

Tatton Park is one of the places I would visit anytime. It is located in Knutsford and it is a home of one of my favorite animals: the deer. There are quite a few species freely roaming the vast plains of the park and visitors can go incredibly near to them. It is fascinating to see wild life from such a close distance, also which is one of the few places left out there to with such a natural environment. Going to the park helps me build an archive of image references of the deer, improve my knowledge and further expand my artistic skills. 

Sadly after my last visit, there were quite a lot of posters advertising Tatton Park becoming a theme park which upset me a lot. I have signed a petition online to stop that from happening. Places like this should not even be considered to be changed. We should leave the few untouched by human hand locations alone.

For more info on the Petition: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2012/apr/27/tatton-park-plans-residents-traffic

And some pictures I took at Tatton :)

Advice to Self

There are probably quite a lot of advices that I could give to myself if I start looking for every little detail in my work. However there are a few really important ones.

First of all, I think I should manage my time better. A lot of the time I end up finishing my assignments a day or two before the deadline and handing in everything at the last second. It creates unnecessary pressure and stress which can be so easily avoided. Also doing so doesn’t give me a chance of editing and retouching my project. I have noticed that after a fair period of time since I complete a certain piece of work, I get to see what needs to be fixed, added or removed. It offers me the chance of improving myself and of course getting better results.

Secondly I believe I need to spend more time doing details in my work. This is important as the quality improves and the overall satisfaction of what I have created increases. I tend to appreciate something, that I have spent a fair amount of time into and additional focus, a lot more rather than a piece which I couldn’t be bothered with as much.

Last but not least would be doing a lot more research. Looking up artists and mainly browsing the internet for inspirational talent, because it only comes with experience and experience comes with knowledge and research. Before every assignment I should study its area and type of art a lot deeper than I have been doing with most of my work except for the Martin Haake brief I did in year one, where I feel like I honest researched an artist in every way possible. That is a great example of how good I can be if I put my mind into it. 
As a conclusion, I feel like I should mention something which touched me. I got a gift from my step father not long ago containing a book of inspirational quotes. Since having received this present and having read it, I feel as if I have taken a fair few good bits of advice.

Gaga for Gaga!

Lady Gaga, where do I begin, not only is she one of my role models, she's perhaps one of my favourite musicians today. I mostly like her because of her love and devotion to her fans, and also because she comes across as a true, honest person. I love how open she is about her fashion, how she cares what no one thinks, shes actually really arty and all the time I see her continuously reblogging peoples art work of her over Twitter and Facebook. I've seen lady gaga live in Manchester and it was one of the best concerts I've been to, i'd go again for sure!

I look up to Lady Gaga as more of a fashion icon than a musical influence, because although I do like her music, i love how different and slightly gothic her appearance can be. Although, as I'm certain you aren't, I'm also not a fan of that horrific meat dress she wore, how could that feel nice? It certainly looked awful! And that is really the only bad thing I can say about Gaga, and it's not even about her personality!

I've got some pictures that Gaga posted on her Facebook profile, these are my favourite ones! 

Facebook.com/LadyGaga

I also created my own Gaga-corn, I just saw the original and wanted to give it a bit of colour, i regularly do things like this in my free time. I like to improve on my digital skills. The Gaga-corn I created is the one above this writing.