The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future

First of all – thanks so much everyone for the love regarding my new blog design, I'm really pleased you all like it! I thought today I'd share the piece that inspired the theme and palette of my new design.

Time for a Change

I decided earlier in the week that my blog needed a bit of a facelift, so I sat down today and worked on a new design after piecing together a colour scheme yesterday that I thought would work quite nicely.

A little bit of news...

Just before I flew out to Germany I applied for a Christmas temp position at Lush, and while I was away I was offered an interview that I couldn't attend and worried that I'd missed out on a chance altogether. Luckily for me however, I was offered another interview for when I was home and I excitedly attended it last Thursday. 

Her Royal Highness, Buttercup the Sloth

Another painting process post? Yeah, because why the hell not! This time starring the only queen that I'll ever bow down to (well, except for maybe Marina,) – Buttercup the Sloth!

Process: Painting Ziggy

I've had quite a lot of time on my hands since coming to stay with my dad in Germany, so I thought I'd invest a good chunk of it into having a go at painting my little poodle, Ziggy. As I mentioned in my last post, watercolours are a medium that I struggle with, and animal portraits are a subject I struggle with, so once again I attempted to tackle two weaknesses in one piece by painting Ziggy using watercolour alone.

Pinker than Shepherd's Delight

I sat down with my watercolours today and I had a bloody good time. Throughout my course I never really had the time available to sit and pour hours into getting to grips with the medium, and if you happen to have followed me over the last three years you'll have noticed a trend in me pulling out my paints every summer and attempting a portrait. I find it oddly exciting and relaxing to just sit and paint 'properly', so for me it's kind of cathartic to sit down in the summer at the end of a busy academic year and just pour some time into something that yields no reward, but just brings me a little bit of joy.

Saturday Scribbles

illustrated what i (would've) wore today

over the course of the summer i've taken a position working back at wilkinsons, meaning that most days i miss the chance to make the most of the glorious sunshine we occasionally do get here in britain. today wasn't an exeception to this rule, so i decided to throw together a little something to illustrate how i'd have spent my day if i wouldn't have spent it working, and that would've been to take little ziggy out for a walk in the wonderful denim bleached playsuit i bought last year from topshop and have had the pleasure of wearing a grand total of one time (boo hiss british weather).

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last call to google reader followers!

so, that's it, apparently google reader is to close down on monday, so here am i for a final push to try to move my lovely google reader followers over to bloglovin! bloglovin's a really easy way to keep up with all your favourite blogs and doesn't require you to own your own blog, which is also a plus.

so if you'd like to keep up with my personal work and university work, click here or on the above image to follow me! (i even used cute animals to try and draw you guys in. if that doesn't work, you were probably never going to be too interested in my blog's content anyway haha!)

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zine progress

here are a couple of illustrations that i've been working on today that will feature in my first zine which i hope to have finished within the next month! i don't want to reveal too much too soon, so let your mind ponder these for now :)

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sloth appreciation

just popping by to share with you a sloth inspired little illustration i was working on the other night.
i've found myself quite inspired by sloths as of late (god bless their vacant little faces) and have a couple of ideas i plan to work on regarding them!

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pan

here's a little something i finished off yesterday. it's not often i draw anything more than individual people, creatures or objects, so i wanted to challenge myself to draw out a whole scene of something. this is just a section of what i did, but it's the only section i really liked, so now i know that i need to work on scenes and colours (always colours.)

i'm back in middlesbrough and start uni again this week so i'll probably not be updating my blog much because this last term and module is gonna really consume my life (sob...) but here's to hoping it won't!

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the wind in the willows characters

i just thought i'd upload all the characters i drew for the wind in the willows book cover as most of them ended up just being decorations in the background!

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my favourite ladies

last week i decided to experiment with pencil and watercolour, and after enjoying the results that i achieved, i decided to have a go at creating a set of images within this style. i chose to use some of my favourite ladies as my models, marina diamandis, ellie goulding, zooey deschanel and emma stone, because i have a soft spot for every one of them but also because they're all beautiful, too, and i've found that drawing beautiful people is, for some reason, very enjoyable.

so, there we have it. a 'project' of mine, if you like. hopefully when uni's done with and i'm not a slave to my coursework i'll be able to set myself some more projects and have fun with them!

 please view on flickr for better quality!

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the wind in the willows book cover: your opinion?

so since making some minor character adjustments to my book cover, i've come to realise that i'm actually pretty happy with the design overall, meaning i won't be making any further changes to composition/colour/type etc. and just sticking with what i've got (because you can overdo it, right?)

since slightly reillustrating my characters to give them each a little bit more personality by highlighting their general feelings towards toad, i've been told that although the personalities shine through more, the overall vibe that the book gives off is fairly negative because of the expressions of badger and ratty, and may therefore put a reader off.

so, my question for you guys is which book cover do you feel is the most effective? the back page from the top spread will be the one used on whichever front cover i decide to go with, i'm just too lazy right now to create another image for the spread below (sorry!)

it'd be really nice to get some audience feedback on this, because ultimately, it's people like you that i'm targeting while you're walking around a book shop! feel free to comment below or tweet me, i try my best to reply to all comments and tweets that i receive!

thank you!

late night experiments

lately it seems that i'm at my most active late at night, so tonight i set myself the challenge of painting something using only two colours. i decided to paint myself, for no good reason, just because, and i'm really quite pleased with how this little experiment turned out. definitely a technique i'll revist at some point or another!

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the wind in the willows: draft 1

so as i mentioned, this year i wanted to enter the puffin children's book competition just for fun, experience and to prove to myself that i can manage other projects alongside my university projects, and here is (finally) my first draft of the book cover!

i still want to tweak the back page and i'm considering reillustrating the main characters so that they interact better with the entire front cover (this design isn't how i initially planned it to be, but while arranging all my characters/text in photoshop i realised that my original plan wasn't really going to work,) but other than that i'm pretty content with the colour scheme, background and type (which is a first!)

here's the background pattern i created, it simply features some of the characters that the main four characters bump into along the way and i felt it was important to include them in the book cover design because they help influence how the story moves along.

any feedback on how to improve this design would be really appreciated, so if you've any comments at all i'd love to hear them!

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something a little different, ft. zoe ldn

today i had a day off from working after spending all day yesterday getting one of my uni projects finished (hurrah for completion!) and went to visit some family with my mum, help her out with the shopping and we ended up going out for a meal spontaneously, too, which was nice. prior to that, i'd been watching a lot of zoe's youtube videos since watching her and lily do one another's make up blindfolded, mainly because i generally find her quite amusing to watch but also because she has such a lovely voice! not something i usually pick out about a person but just go and have a listen and you'll understand. probably. maybe. i don't know, she's just nice to listen to.

anyway, all this watching of zoe's youtube videos made me realise just how vibrant her hair colour is, it stands out from everything, and although i'm not personally a fan of really brightly coloured hair, i couldn't help but feel a bit mesmerised by it because i just couldn't take my eyes off it (mainly because it just wouldn't let me.) all this watching of the mermaid coloured locks inspired me to dig out my watercolours and look at mixing pencil and watercolour to create a contrast similar to zoe's hair and the rest of the (apparently very dull) world.

here was my outcome, it was something a bit different and fun to have a go at and something i might visit again because i think the bright colours against the softness of the pencil works really nicely when trying to create some kind of statement piece that reinforces one part of the image.

motel rocks illustrations

at some point last week i became aware of the competition that motel rocks are currently holding, where entrants are asked to illustrate their favourite motel rocks pieces for the chance to win money to spend online and some arty goodies. i thought "what the hell?" and drew up a few sketches before finalising them into what i've got displayed above.

this isn't a style i've drawn in before, and is probably one i won't revisit again, but it was something different to have a go at and i felt it was appropriate for what it was i was illustrating. i've seen a couple of brilliant entries so far - and although i drew these up for more of 'something to do' rather than because i was interested in entering in an attempt to win - and they've left me feeling a little nervous about entering! i've ten days left to enter, so in that time i think i'm going to decide whether or not i want to enter; half of me says "why not? you've nothing to lose!" and the other half says "if you do enter, it means a few judges might have a few cheap giggles if they don't like what you've done." probably a nasty mindset to possess, but it's one i'm struggling to let go of at the minute.

in other news, i'm now back in barnsley for my 3 week spring break and in that time i intend to finalise some ideas i've had for the wind in the willows book cover, finish my outstanding university project that i should've finished a LONG time ago (oops...) and make a start on my new university project, which sounds very interesting but also scary because we have a measly 4 weeks to get it all done in. 

busy as ever, being a graphic design student is a lot of hard work.

how me and the pea feel about the snow

view in flickr for a better quality image

i'm just quickly popping by to say a: my mothers' day gift and card went down a treat, and b: it's snowing again here in 'boro (and i'm assuming in most other places of the uk, too) and this time, it's really, really not welcome. at all. by anyone (but especially me.)

so, in celebration of my hatred for the snow, have an illustration depicting how me and the pea feel about the snow: pretty ticked off.