Snap Snap: 24/06/14

Last week in photos:

-Posing with my book at the exhibition

- Feeding the deer at Longleat Safari Park

- <3

- Fun on the rides at Southsea for Jamie's birthday

- It totally forgot to buy banners and balloons, so at 6am on Jamie's birthday I was up making paper balloons and using washi tape to write on the walls.

- A trip to Sprinkles was obviously needed for birthday celebrations.

- I made Jamie pancakes for breakfast

- A potentially exciting meeting happened at the Grand Harbour Hotel on Wednesday. Fingers crossed!

Life: Longleat Safari Park

Last weekend Mum and Dad came down to Southampton for the exhibition at uni. Whilst they were here we went on a trip to Longleat Safari Park (one of my favourite childhood holiday destinations!).

We had a lovely day and the weather was brilliant, and all but one of the animal species made an appearance for us (the wolves were hiding away somewhere)! I had loads of fun feeding the deer through the car windows, and we had a monkey take a ride on the roof whilst we drove around the enclosure.

It was a very last minute trip so I don't have as many photos as I would usually have taken as my camera battery was pretty low, but here are a few snaps form the day:

Pastiche

Hey everyone!

I mentioned in my post earlier today that myself and 2 friends from my illustration course have recently started up a small collective to help us stay creative now that uni has finished.

We've given our collective the name Pastiche, which means:

"An artwork combining materials from various sources"

Pastiche consists of me, Hannah from Doodleheart and Selina Quach (aka the Deer, the Reindeer and the Unicorn!):

We all work in quite different styles but we're all interested in the same 3 subject matters: fairytales, mythical creatures and pretty florals. So expect lots of work along those 3 themes in the future!

If you haven't already, head over to Hannah and Selina's websites and have a little look, they've both got lots of lovely work for you to see!

We haven't got any finished projects to show you just yet, but we've had a few meetings and brainstormed lots of ideas, and something new and exciting its on it way!

Head over to our Facebook Page and give us a "like" to stay up to date with what we get up to, and there's a little sneak peak of our first project as well!

The Exhibition

So after months of hard work and lots of worrying, my final major project at uni is completely over, and last week we all got together for the exhibition.

We spent a few days building and painting walls and turning the studios in a gallery space, and then got on with putting the work up. Myself, Hannah and Selina had a few issues along the way with hanging everything up (note: magnets don't work, and always buy the strongest velcro you can find!) but in the end it all looked great and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

I had my book on display on a slanted shelf so it was easy for people the flick through, and on the wall were a selection of prints. There was one for each story included in the book, and an illustrated map of the world I created for it, as well as a couple of typography pieces. On a smaller shelf I displayed a few of the paper dolls that I made (which will be added to the shop soon!) and a little holder for my business cards!

On the night of the exhibition, the studios were packed with people, and I got a few lovely comments form some of my tutors. It was pretty hot in there so we didn't take many pictures on the night, but we had to go back in the following week to invigilate the show when it was open to the public, so we took some more then. Here a few of my favourites:

To see more images of the work itself, head to my website and look in the gallery.

And finally here's a show of me, Selina and Hannah in front of the paper bags we illustrated for the group photo (mine is the deer that you can just about see on the left hand side):

The three of us have just started up a little illustration collective, and I'll be sharing more on that very soon!

Snap Snap: 06/06/14

My week in photos:

- On the day of our hand-in we celebrated by having a colouring-in afternoon. After a stressful few weeks it was nice to do something so effortless and fun!

- We also went to Tooti's Gelato Bar for a little treat.

- "Luck will be on your side this week"

- I went to visit mum and dad for the weekend and had some morning cuddles with this cutie everyday.

- For mum's birthday we went on a day trip to the zoo.

- And this guy was just as fascinated by us as we were by him!

- A spontaneous trip to London yesterday included a visit to my favourite art shop, L. Cornellisen & Son. Those jars full of pigments are so beautiful!

- We also spent a little while in Hamley's and had lots of fun playing with remote control cars and Giraffe puppets.

My final exhibition at uni is now only a week away! If you're in the area its open to the public from the 14th til the 19th of June, and you can find all the information here.

Life: I'm back!

Yesterday I finished hanging my work for my degree show, and tomorrow morning I drop off the back up work to be marked, and then I'm pretty much finished! Its feeling pretty strange at the moment that its all coming to an end and pretty soon I'll be out of education, but its also very exciting!

I'm pretty pleased with how everything turned out and I'm looking forward to the exhibition in 2 weeks time! 

Here's a few snippets of how everything's looking at the moment:

- My new business cards featuring little snippets of my work.

- All of the book pages trimmed up and ready to be bound into the book.

- Paper dolls coming off the printer ready to be made up for the display (I'll also be adding some of these little paper doll kits to the shop very soon!)

- My final display!

Here's a few little snaps of some of the other things I've been doing lately:

- For our course catalog, we all illustrated a paper bag to where on our heads for a group photo! Me, Hannah and Selina decide to all go as various hoofed animals facing in different directions and stand in a Charlie's Angels pose. A pretty good look for us don't you think?

- Printing images for my Illustration portfolio.

- This little cutie came to visit with mum and dad and gave me lots of cuddles!

- We spent the day last friday transforming the illustration studio into a gallery; building walls and painting everything white!

If you'd like to see more snaps of my work and what I'm up to then you can follow me on Instagram or Twitter.

Finishing uni means I now have some time to work on all things I've been wanting to do for the last couple of months. First up, I'll be updating my website with the new work and giving this blog a little makeover. Over the next couple of weeks the shop will also receive a makeover as well as some new products, so look out for updates on that!

Snap Snap: 13/05/14

So when I wrote that "Updates" post the other week, I wasn't intending to be away form the blog for quite this long. But uni work has been the priority lately and certain things have taken longer than expected. I caught up on everything over the weekend, and yesterday I got the pages printed out, ready to bind later this week!

Here's a few snaps from the last couple of weeks:

- I went on a little day trip to London and visited a lovely shop selling supplies for book binding. Unfortunately I didn't need any of these pretty end papers as I'm printing my own, but they were displayed so beautifully along all the walls.

- Whilst in London we visited Pick Me Up, the graphic design and illustration festival. These were a few of my favourite pieces.

- I especially likes these hand printed cards and sketch books by Catherine McGinnis.

- A last minute little addition to the book characters.

- Sketching out some larger images to go on the wall at the exhibition.

- Inking up.

- My uni blog was "due in" last Friday, so I've stopped posting there too for now until its marked. But in the mean time there's plenty there to read about my project if you're interested.

- Working on a repeat pattern for the book cover.

I've only got just over 2 weeks until everything is finished, and I plan on getting straight back to the blog after that, as well as adding new things to the shop!

Life: Updates

Hi everyone!

I haven't been posting much lately as my Final Major Project at Uni has been taking up most of my time, but I thought I'd stop by quickly to share a bit about what I've been up to.

These are a few snapshots of how my project is looking:

I've just completed page 1 and moved on to finish the rest of the pages (putting all the elements together, adding colour & texture etc). As you can see in the trees in the above images, its autumn in fairytale land on page one, but by page four the leaves will be bright pink and green and spring comes around. In my fairytale land, the seasons change from autumn, to winter, spring and summer all in one day.

I have lots of plans for updates to my shop and website once this project is over (think colouring books and paper dolls) and thats going to mean a little sale of some of my current stock. I'll be reducing the price of some items on Etsy, and selling some of my older stock and samples on Instagram and Facebook so look out for that at the beginning of June!

I did take a day off from my own work yesterday to help Jamie make a website for his TV & Film editing work. If you fancy taking a look, its jamiewebbeditor.com (made using moonfruit.com).

Hopefully I'll be back to regular posting soon, but in the mean time you can keep up with what I'm doing over on Instagram.

Snap snap: 26/04/14

My last 3 weeks in photos.

- Drawing tree-houses for the final book images

- Hansel & Gretel sketches

- More character drawings (there were over 200 in total!)

- Making patterns

- Preparing stock for a little craft fair

- Pretty flowers on my desk

- Designing logos for my CV

- All set up at the Vintage Parade in Winchester on Easter Sunday

- Made myself a Coffee Vanilla Frappe

- We visited my family for a couple of days. When she's not staring out the window, Beabea likes to watch the television

- <3

- A little walk around Leybourne Lakes with Jamie, Mum, Dad and Beabea.

In my sketchbook: 10/04/14

I've spent the majority of the past week working on all the illustrations of the characters for my final book. There are 12 double-pages in the book, and around 25 characters that all appear in each image, so that equals a LOT of characters illustrations! Its been a long few days and my brain and hand need a bit of rest today, but I've got them all done and I'm now ready to start putting everything together and working with colour, which is the part I've been looking forward to.

Here's a little snippet of what I've been drawing:

To see more head over to my other blog, documenting the entire process of my project.

4 Etsy shops I'm loving right now...

I'm back again this week another 4 lovely Etsy shops to share with you!

1Canoe2

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1Canoe2 is a great shop selling letterpress cards, prints and other stationery items. Amongst their huge range of products, they've got some great art prints featuring some lovely inspirational quotes such as "I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship". Inspired by the owners' rural lives, all of their items have a lovely natural feel, and I love the loose lettering that they use in their designs. 

Appa Loosa

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Run by artist Emma Louthan, Appa Loosa sells some lovely fun and bright stationery items such as cards, prints and the odd comic book. There's a strong colour scheme in this shop of corals, turquoise and navy blue, which all work beautifully together with her pretty illustrations.

Emily Taylor

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I discovered Emily Taylor's work through her Instagram account where she shares work in progress shots of her beautiful patterns illustrations. I spent quite a while looking through her feed and getting really inspired by all the close-up shots of the hand-painted line work and patterns details in her illustrations. In her Etsy shop she sells a lovely range of products featuring her artwork, including a great Wallflower Girls colouring book.

Pai & Pear

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I really struggled to pick just 4 items form this shop, as there's such a wide range of beautifully illustrated goods available. Isabel Reyes Feeney has put her colourful illustrations onto all sorts of products such as brooches, stickers, cushions, postcards and zines. I love the pretty pastel colours she uses in her work and the cute animal characters such as that reading fox. Definitely go and have a browse through the pages of Isabel's shop as there's a whole lot more to see.

Snap Snap: 04/04/14

Today's instalment of "Snap snap" covers the last 2 weeks, as my uni work has been pretty much taking over everything so I haven't had a whole lot to photograph!

I did have a lovely day last sunday though when mum, dad and Beabea came for a visit for mother's day:

- This is probably my new favourite picture of me and beabea.

- There are so many pretty flowers in the park at the moment

- I made a few little cakes for Mother's day, including mum's favourite: lemon drizzle.

- Beabea had fun on her walk in the park.

Apart from that though I've mainly been working hard on my uni project, drawing lots of buildings, birds and trees at the moment. I'm getting to the point now where I'm starting to see more of a finished thing, and today I'm making a start on the final images of the characters.

- Doodling butterflies

- Drawing all the cross-sections of the castle

- I used my Granddad's old Dymo label maker to get all my sketchbooks organised (there's a lot of them for this project!)

- My desk during the castle drawing part of the project.

4 Etsy shops I'm loving right now...

Hey everyone! I've got another 4 Etsy shops to share with you today. I keep stumbling across so many great ones its hard to choose which ones to share! Here are today's 4 choices...

By Loumi

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I discovered this lovely jewellery shop a little while ago when it was one of the featured shops on the Etsy blog, and I spent quite a while looking at all of her products and the behind the scenes photos of her studio. Everything that Kahina Loumi sells is beautifully elegant and simple, with all of her products featuring a limited colour palette of just off-white and gold. 

La Petite Jungle

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This colourful little shop features a great range of products made from screen printed textiles, all of which are designed and hand made by the owner, Laura Kientzler. The name of this shop is definitely reflected in all of the designs, with the imagery and patterns all reminding me very much of a jungle. The colours used in these items are all really fun and vibrant and really stand out.

Arminho

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The various notebooks and list pads in this great little shop are all inspired by vintage paper ephemera. I love the feel of this work and the great range of designs they have available, from organic seaweed patterns, to graphic text based designs. My favourite items in this shop are the "Cooking Secrets" notebooks which come in a lovely range of pastel colours.

Studio Meez

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I found Studio Meez on Etsy a little while ago and instantly loved the pretty pastel coloured designs they had to offer, and I went back to have another look recently and found there were lots more lovely items to look at! These products have a really sweet and girly feel to them and I think they're great for both children and adults. That goodnight cushions is particularly adorable and they also sell a selection of cloud and apple cushions too.

In my sketchbook: 27/03/14

Its been yet another week of working on the fairy tale project. I've now actually started to produce some of the illustrations that will be in the final outcome. Drawing the final images of the characters and houses etc. has seemed a little daunting to begin with so I've started small, working on the trees, flowers, birds etc. 

Here's a little bit of what I've been doing:

The trees in the last couple of images are just a small example of what I've been drawing: I've been illustrating each tree with no leaves, full leaves, half leaves, falling leaves, blossom and snow to fit all the seasons. There's an example of one of them over on my uni blog.

Next up, making a start on the houses and the castle!