Howkapow!

With our new brief (which is awesome!) we have to design merchandise for an online shop called Howkapow, which includes tea towels, mugs, and a circular tray. We were given a choice of themes we could base our merchandise off, which were:

• Scandinavian fairytales
• Food

I chose scandinavian fairytales because I like working with things where i feel there are less limitations to go crazy and do whatever :) And plus I really like the story of 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff'! I know I want to illustrate goats, I just need to figure out how! Ka pow?

I started off by taking a trip to the farm to go and see some goats! 

I also did some landscape painting whilst I was there, I had a great view of the Derbyshire hills, which inspired me. It was a nice day towards the end!

Here is some progress of my goats :)

I should have worked in a bigger sketch book as this was only A5 but i feel safe when I work small!

Goat horns are so cool, i don't know why but i've been obsessed with horns since childhood!

A tundra!

That's it so far but im so impressed with how it's going so far!

Ben Jones

So Ben Jones, a stockport college graduate has been in over the past few weeks to learn about teaching and during his time here he's helped us all. He gave our class a really nice talk about the industry and what it's like out there once you've graduated from University. Ben is currently a freelance illustrator and has done many kinds of work after he graduated, like editorials for newspaper and magazines,which he is required to do in a really short space of time as they go to print as soon as the story is ready so that the paper can keep up with the news headline. It also needs to be eye-catching so that the article can grab your attention amongst many others. He's also done Book cover designs, and explained about those too. With book covers you are given a relatively long time to complete them in, from weeks to months. You stay in contact through e-mails and phone calls and the commissioners can choose to have your work changed if they do not like something or it is not ideal.

Another very good point that ben raised it to do with your roughs, he showed us some really poorly sketched roughs and explained as long as you can explain and the commissioner can see what you're trying to do, it doesn't matter how basic / bad the rough is. It's very useful to know this!

Ben gained recognition through competitions and urged us to take part in them, because they can really set a career off. He also explained that as well as his freelance job, he also had to keep another job on the side as freelance work can be unreliable.

Image from:

http://illustrationbenjones.blogspot.co.uk/2010_03_01_archive.html

Final Swan!

Sooo I've left it a little while now and I've managed to complete my swan.. I'll throw in a few details about how I got to the finals along the way :)

Templates

Printed and cut ready for sewing and stuffing!

And heres my swan hat, It's turned out not as good as i'd hoped it to be only because i literally ran out of time again. The hat did not fit properly on her head, the opening was too small so I had to balance it on top, it turned out alright on the final photos but i thought it was a bit silly to look at to begin with.

(sorry it's sideways!)

Aaaaand here come the Photographs!

This was my first choice, but when I had it photographed i thought the shots would be more from the exact front, when i looked through them they were all facing a bit side ways and kind of ruined some of the good images. We had to be careful placing the swan so it didn't just look like a bundle of cloth too.

And here is my final, I zoomed in to edit something on Photoshop and saw that it looks a lot better from  this angle and distance, i'm a bit disappointed because i really wanted to see the hat but I guess it's alright. 

Album Covers & Ed Sheeran

Not so long ago we had a special typographer come in from Poland (and I can't for the love of god remember her name! I'm embarrassed as she was so lovely and helpful). We were told to do a few tasks during the day. We had a limited amount of time to draw the first thing that came into our head when she said a word, for example, one was 'Stop' and I drew a traffic light. Another was 'Love' and I drew a heart with type in it. After that we were told we'd have to come up with a type face. So i made this wonderful typeface using a pattern i'd found in my paper collection.  The letters were all uppercase and quickly cut out. After that we were old this was going to be the type face for an album cover that we were going to make, I actually jumped at the thought of doing that - i LOVE making album covers, they're fun, easy, and open - and you get to indulge yourself in great music... so I decided to do Ed Sheeran as I looove his music so much. I worked with black & white collage, pattern to create an album to my favourite song of his called 'A Team'. It had not been released long ago. I didn't use the song title on the cover but I used the first words he used in that song saying 'White lips, pale face' and if i'd have had more time I'd honestly have written the whole song. It's beautiful.

My final work is really one of my favourite things i've made this year, or ever actually. I'm surprised what I could do in so little time...

First attempt

My Final, it looks so good against the wood, it was supposed to be part of the album cover. The Typographer was very helpful, I don't think i'd have done something so impressive without her help.

Thank you!

Nails Art!

Doing nail art is a personal hobby of mine, though i'm only an amateur I hope to get better and better. I look to nail forums online and art around me to inspire what I do to my nails. Most of the designs are based on the fashion industry and what's hot right now. My designs range from simple to more complex designs, some even humorous. I'd be delighted to start doing this perhaps professionally as a hobby to do on the side. I've received compliments regularly asking about my nails. I have done nails at a young girls birthday party and received an overall good feedback!

Take a look:

Space Nails

Aztec Nails

Floral Nails (My favourite)

Aztec

Aztec

Skulls :P

Aztec again

Picture from:

http://weheartit.com/entry/10878156

 Aztec designs are really big in fashion and personally it's one of my favouite themes that has been popular in fashion. I love ethnic prints, especially when they're colourful!

Picture from:

http://vasare.wordpress.com/tag/aztec/

Theres some really great stuff on that site!