Guache portrait

Of Sunshine for Miss Stacey's summer school project 1. Almost didn't make it ... having been feeling ill since Friday ... but painting was actually a good way to distract myself from being ill. Not as happy with this as with my skin tone experiments, but hey ... onwards for the next project!

Post 200! Photo 100! and Summer School!

Exclamation Marks!!!

Yes, its post number 200!!!

And to celebrate you get 100 days of project 365!!!

Time has flown by this year - my 100th post (also the blog's 1st Birthday) was just after we moved to Bristol so that I could start on my new life, and here we are, 10 months later, having finished a whole academic year of being an illustration student; having gotten engaged; having started a 365 photography project; and having thoroughly enjoyed life :)

Today too it finally feels like summer - after the last few weeks being mad busy doing stuff, and all of last week spring/summer cleaning of the house, I finally managed to sit myself down and get on with some summer projects; namely Miss Stacey's Summer School. The first project involves playing round with paint, and then painting a portrait. Well, one of my aims for this summer has been to learn how to paint skin tones, so I've been practicing by doing paintings of my foot and hand :



Guache in Moleskine Sketchbook

Hopefully by the end of the week I'll have done a portrait too ... yay :)

Happy Summer everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!

UWE Illustration '08 graduating class

As promised, some links to this year's graduating class (this is not an exhaustive list - I've tried to put in people who actually have some internet presence, ie active blogs/websites, and especially those I've made friends with in the last year). If you want to see the show (and trust me its FAB!) above is the college show details although Illustration are also exhibiting at the D&AD New Blood (23rd to 25th June 2008, London) and the Coningsby Gallery ( 8th to 11th July 2008,London).

ZARA PICKEN Blog Website
JOSH ATACK Blog Website
SAM USHER Blog Website
GEORGE SANDER-JACKSON Blog Website
FEMKE DE JUNG Blog Website
HATTIE NEWMAN Website
AMY BUTLER Blog
NADIA CHALABI Blog
EMMA LEVEY Blog
MIKE O'SHEA Blog Website
HOLLY CLIFTON BROWN Blog
RICHARD COLLINGRIDGE Website
SARAH DENNIS Blog
RUSS HENRY Website
LOU BLACKSHAW Blog
VICTORIA TOPPING Blog Website
KA FAI MAK Website
HELEN BOOTE Blog
CARLY OLIVER Website
ADAM FOSTER-FAHY Blog
ELLIE FOREMAN-PECK Website

I can't even BEGIN to express how overwhelmed I felt by the quality of the show ... and they expect US to get this good in the next 2 years??? You gotta be joking!

Missed ...

Just tidying up this last semester's work when I realised that there's a few bits I hadn't managed to upload to the blog:

Did another one of these (so theres five in the set)

Also, as some homework for the life painting sessions, we had to take a photo, and using a black and white version of it as tonal reference, do a high key and low key version of it.

Low key

High key

The idea being that after that we could black and white photocopy the two paintings to see if we managed to get the tones right - I didn't get them exactly (especially the background area) but did better on the hands. This is what the two look like (left low key, right high key):

I think this is the last of this year's work (apart from some random sketches)... Phew! What a year of learning ... and my 198th post! Maybe I should do something special for the 200th .... hmmm....

Look out for a feature on this year's graduating class from UWE illustration in the next few days :)

Summer here already???

... and where's LittleMithi gone???

Just to say, I'm still here - awfully busy (since the last hand ins). I handed in the last of the Image and Obs stuff on Monday the 2nd and since then have:

Been to London
1 Doing Pulse with my sister-in-law (blog here)
2 Seeing several degree shows
3 Done a day long AOI symposium

And since I've been back
1 Clearing out all my stuff for the year from the studios
2 Helping the 3rd years putting on their degree show (starts Friday!) [event details on facebook]
3 Visited Sunshine's students' degree show

And will be in the next couple of days
1 Doing student ambassadoring at the college open day
2 Doing student ambassadoring at my college degree show - COME COME!
3 Possibly helping out at the Bristol Design Festival (as its run by some of Sunshine's students)

Haven't been doing much art - but have got a summer brief, and also looking forward to taking part in this: Miss Stacey's Summer School by lovely Milla ... JOIN UP IF YOU'RE INTERESTED!!!

Will be back soon with a feature on the graduating students, so you can get a sense of the quality of the course (and the kind of stuff I might be producing in two years!) ... See you all soon!

Image and Obs update 2

I also did a set of embroidery hoops as my 'body of work' for this module:













I contemplated some sewn text and also cutting the fabric so only the bit IN the hoop was there - but was advised against it by a couple of people who saw them ... I still think there's something missing, but I'm handing them in this way - and will think about how to make them better over summer ...

Edit July 08 - Hello to everyone who's come here via Whip up and Craft Mag's Blog and have been leaving lovely comments :) If you follow the "embroidery" label, you'll get to see a couple more sewing based things...
Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!

Images and Obs update 1

Remember these hands? I redid all the blue ones in thread, on the sewing machine (hand cranking!), on some organza. Wish they had been a bit sheer-er ... but this was the best I could get. I quite like how 'loop-y' the sewing is.

Old Friends New Friends

I've just had the best weekend ... Spent hanging round Bristol with the lovely Xtina Lamb (seen above taking photos of Bristol, and who gave me a copy of her beautiful Gocco printed book "Swept Away" as a present) whom I met on the internets whilst looking for people to teach me how to use my Gocco kit; and then this evening meeting David and Jodie of Peskimo at their housewarming (they live down the road from us) who we were put in touch with via the gorgeous Milla - someone else I met via the interfishyweb; we also met Ben and Gianfranco from Here at Jodie and David's.

What a smashing weekend... and what wonderful people :) I love Bristol ...

Flickr links: Xtina, Peskimo, Milla, Here Gallery.

I'm also spending this weekend putting the final touches on on my Stitch'n'Bitch Image and Obs module project work. Hand in is on Monday and there should be lots of updates after ... so watch this space!

Abbu

Spent the weekend in London visiting my dad who was in the country ... I showed him the portrait and he said, "it doesn't look anything like me!"...

I beg to differ ... Mum, I know you read this ... what do YOU think? ;)

Tying it all up

Today was the last of our life painting classes and a chance to amalgamate everything we had learnt in the last few weeks. I was mostly just playing with colours still and getting to grips with working tonally. I did move up a gear and worked at a larger scale - apart from the bottom portrait, everything else is A3 size - and the paintings you've seen up to now have been A4.

The end has come round much too soon :(

Knit Green Purl Red

Just playing from some of my stitch'n'bitch refernce photos ...

Postbox

Full set of 24 images plus original pencil drawings here.

These last two days we've been doing another location drawing workshop based around the theme of an object. We were given a list (that included door, window, gate, tree, traffic light, boat, and a bunch of others I can't quite remember) from which I chose "postbox" (or "pillar box" - although there was some post-themed deviation). We went about town drawing our item of choice, in A6 landscape format (at least 24pieces). Most of the exercise was about looking at a mundane object, and seeing how you can draw it in different sizes (zoomed in, whole thing, far away), contexts (whats around it, is anyone or anything interacting with it? Negative space, composition) and not get bored! Also, A6 being quite small, and having to make at least 24 pieces, it was about practicing speed and gestural drawing, over too much detail (oh man did I have difficulty with that!).

Although mine are still quite detailed, I started to get much looser towards the end, especially as I moved on from a B to a 4B pencil. I then photocopied all my pieces (makes it all look uniform), and coloured in the photocopies with coloured pencils. Full set of pictures here. If anyone has advice on how to scan/photograph pencil drawings, can they please give me a shout, as I'm having no joy ...

Really enjoyed this and am enthused about doing more observational location drawing. Heres' what the drawings (originals on top, coloured photocopies on the bottom) looked like arranged in a group:

Embrace the colour ...

I think I'm finally beginning to get to grips with painting and colour ... well at least I've begun to see what combinations I actually like to work with. This has been such a steep learning curve.