Playing around

I know I was meant to concentrate solely on my next project which I am, but I couldn't resist having a quick mess around on Photoshop with some of my animal prints. I wanted to make something symmetrical but twisted so this is what I ended up with a kaleidoscopic animal mesh, which kinda works in a weird way.

Continuing where I left off

The beginning of a new month always has a promising feel and I sincerely hope that is the case for me. I've  recently been relocated at work to another store concession, which feels oddly enough given the fact that I was on the brink of redundancy. So I should say thank you to my current employer (to whom some of you may know) for not putting me out of work but I won't because the way they've treated various (ex)members of staff has been so deplorable that I'm surprised people still want to work for them.

The only joys what've found last month was doing my exhibition with fellow course mates, which was a huge success and I would do it all over again. My only regret was not forwarding it in an earlier blog, so I do apologise but it was a huge archive for myself and the rest of my course mates that participated.

The other bout of good news from last month is that I was successful enough to find work experience (at long last!) It was a short memorable experience, which gave me hope that people still want me.

Anyway, enough of that I should really pick up from where I left off which was such a long time ago but I still remember the set projects I intended to do (many months ago).
I would like to think that I could complete my second project within the next week or so but I do need a motivation spell to work it's magic on my weary head atm.
Was also considering on writing another blog which will probably more fashion orientated so that I can have a mixed palette to show my creative thinking in another area.

So much stuff going on right now!!!!!!!!!

I can't believe it's been so long since I wrote my last blog entry! I feel really bad for neglecting my blog in the space of two months but I have been working hard on plenty of things during the course of May and June.
Here are my reasons (excuses) as to why I briefly lost track of my blog.
1) New internships  (one at surgery PR and one at a design concept store called Darkroom)
2) Working on an exhibition in Brick lane
3) Going through an assessment period at work, which had a devastating outcome.
4) Brief day out of the city with a friend (but that doesn't really count)
So there you have the small but tiring reasons as to why I have been away for so long but now that my exhibition is still under way and I may cease to have employment where I'm currently working I do aim to update my blog on a regular bases from now on.
As a small apology I've added pictures of my work at gallery east and some more animals that I've been working on.
Apologies once again for my absence

http://www.artrabbit.com/all/events/event/19376/somewhere_sometime

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Mini side project

I apologise for not updating my blog as promised but I've been some what distracted or should I say fixated on cute Japanese animated creatures....... well Pokémon to be more specific :-p. Yes I'm not ashamed to admit I have an unhealthy obsession with Pokémon I loved it back when I was growing up and I still like them to this day.
So as a sort of mini side project I made a small mock up toy of a rare Pokémon called Jirachi. My craftsmanship in sewing does need a little improvement but so long as you can tell what it is that shouldn't matter. This only took me a day to make given that its size is about 5 and half inch's (height). I hope that the next sewing project will be something other than making images found on the net or in books but I guess it's always good to get some practise in somewhere.

My wild animals

 
It's quite hard deciding what type of wild animals you want do because at the same time you kind of have to like them as well which is precisely why I would NEVER do an image of a tarantula. So I've purposely chosen various animals that I have a fondness for.
I love exotic birds so there's no question as to why I chose to do a peacock because of its beautiful array of feathers and colours.

The reasons as to the specific wild animals I chose were simply down to its distinct appearance. I like the frail appearance of a bush baby, a rhino's hard wrinkly skin, the pose and stealth grace of an ostrich, the smooth pale grey tone of a beluga whale and the fine scaly skin of a chameleon.


One of the other animals i've currently done is a golden tabby tiger. I quite like the name given to to this tiger, they pretty much look like your typical except their stripes are quite faint and they have more white fur around their legs and face.

I'm still working on my wild life poster as we speak so hopeful that will be done this week.

Mr Peacock
*Fact - the actual name for a group of peafowl's is called a party (lol) and male peafowl's are considered the largest flying birds when combined with the length of its train and wingspan.


Little bush baby
*Fact - bush babies grow to about 7 - 8 inches (not including tail) and have a life span of 14 years.

Miss Ostrich
*Fact - Ostrich's grow to about 7 - 9 feet tall and has the largest eye of any land animal at 5cm (2 in) in diameter.

Mr Rhino

*Fact - Rhinos can grow to approximately 60 inches and it's horn is a prized possession for poachers.

A charming chameleon

*Fact - Chameleons vary in sizes and unlike most reptiles chameleons can see in colour.

A peaceful beluga whale.

They do look a lot like dolphins except their noses are shorter and they're much larger in size.

*Fact - Beluga whales can grow from 13 - 20 feet and unlike most whales they have a flexible neck so they can turn their heads in any direction.

Display title

I feel like haven't been writing anything for months even though it's probably been about a few weeks down the line. I'm still at my desk making images and trying to organise my surroundings which is in total disarray but I'm still holding on to whatever sanity I have left (hehe). I've nearly completed my animals project so I'll be able to make a start on my second project soon even though I've already made a small start on it. Needless to say I'll be writing back soon and showing more new work hopefully by next week.

My only offering to you this time round is my new display title which I managed to conjure up yesterday and it would great to hear feedback on it to those of you who follow me already ;-)

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Re-configuring my blog

Sorry for the short absence but I am still working on my images at the moment so I'll be writing more blogs in the coming week. You would think as a creative person the design layout of my blog should look more interesting, no?
Well my ultimate plan at the end of this month is to retouch the layout so it looks more like an illustrator's blog :-). With that said I should really get a move on with updating my website which hasn't been touched since I left uni (oh dear!) but I am hopeful that this year will revitalize me into taking more action with my future plans whatever they entail.

In the meantime I've just completed this image from my wildlife project but I feel it could do with a bit of a touch up once the other animals are near completion. (yay!!)

The third part of my project

For the third and final part of my project I've decided to look at quirky imagery of models wearing unusual yet imaginative outfits. One model in particular that I've chosen to look at is the stylistic/creative photo's of Raquel Reed. I think what's really nice about her is the fact that she doesn't look like you typical conventional model (her hair is always dyed blue and she has several tattoos in non discreet places over her body).
So I've kinda used her as my muse for this part of my project but I will look at other creative photo shots as well as hers.

The second part of my project

I wish my parents had got me into playing an instrument at an early age but I guess I could still learn now if my expenditure improves this year.
The idea behind the second part of my project was to find a new way of drawing objects and then incorporating my prints as part of the effect. So with my first image I've drawn a guitar as the figure of eight and then drawn circular patterns inside it to emphasise the smoothness of the surface. The dark rimmed lines and guitar strings enhance the guitars shape to give it a more abstract quality.
I plan to make several more instruments in this style and hope the effect works.

The first part of my project

My interest with wild animals extends back my childhood days when my dad use to watch nature programmes. Most of the time I would either leave the room or plead with him to change it, which never worked, so I had to sit and endure an hour or more of nature programmes.

Evidently the effect of this did make me more interested in wildlife and the rarity of some animals that might be bred in captivity so that's why I wanted to look into wild animals as the first part of my set project.

Exotic birds have always fascinated me simply because of the fusion of colours that some of them display and how elegant they look in their natural forms so I chose to do a flamingo for my first image. The collaged image has a mixture of tonal colours to create an effect  that wasn't too flat because I wanted it to look less two - dimensional.

The other animals that I've made so far are: a panda, a koala bear, a chameleon, an ostrich, a beluga whale, a cheetah, a bush baby, an elephant and a sea horse.

I'll show the rest if I get some good comments (hehe).

Additional 3-D models

Ooops! I almost forgot about these pieces and these are slightly more recent ones that I did whilst in uni. One of my first year projects I had to make a contemporary bird box and the design I had in mind was completely different to the finished model. The basis of the structure comprises two wooden circles cut out to make a spherical shape and then I two identical moulded plastic cups that slot nicely inside and all of that is held up by sturdy copper rods. If I had more time I would have liked to make a series of these structures branching out from the original one.  

I remember this was one of the last projects that I did in my first year at uni and we had to make an ad - campaign based around a channel 4 theme entitled 'tea and sympathy'. My initial response was wft?! but when the brief was explained clearer I thought of many things that could depict British culture (namely the depressing weather). So I designed a poster along with making the channel 4 ident but as an old fashioned wrought iron styled lamppost. The inspiration for this came from the existing mirage effect of distorting shapes and then turning it into the channel 4 logo as currently seen before a televised programme. It took me about a week and half to complete the two fragments of the ident and if I had a little more time I would have liked to make a moving screen shot like how the channel 4 idents are made.

My music inspired project is the only piece I don't have on me due to an absent-minded ceramics student who forgot to turn off an oven and practically burnt a good portion of the harrow campus site (summer 2007). The other main things I lost was a sketchbook that I worked an entire summer on and an entire draw filled with most of my second year work, so you could imagine how annoyed I was to know that they couldn't retrieve it (>_<).
The inspiration behind this project stems form my love of listening to various types of music. So my way of interpreting that was to make a relief piece (I forget the dimensions but it was probably bigger than A1) of a tree that had branches with speakers on the end. I called this 'Branched sound' because I wanted it to represent the different types of music that i listen to.
The piece was on exhibition in my uni gallery and submitted to the mercury music prize.

My sculptures and 3-D models

Wow! It's been so long since i looked at any of my 3-D pieces since I left college. This shell box was made in my last year of college as part of my exam and I had to complete it in 3 days. I don't know how I did it but I managed to finish it in time (phew!) The exam brief was to construct new storage ideas so I wanted to make a box, which wasn't your standard box shape although it does have the basic principle.

This was one of my first year projects that I had to do in college and I chose to depict all the seasons in a Russian doll concept except I made it into an egg shaped format. So all four seasons descend from winter as the outer layer, autumn the second inner layer, spring as the third inner layer and the summer as the core.

For one of my second year projects in college I had to make a shrine and I wanted to make it authentic style with a slight modern twist. So the main components were the base and the pyramid and then the spiral structure, which branches out into four arms to hold up the pyramid.

 

Whilst doing my foundation course I was asked to visit a park and then somehow interpret it as a map in 3-D form. So the concept I had in mind was to look at a specific tree, which had an unusual formation of branches and sketched it out. Using the sketched image I then simplified it and reflected it to get the shape that you see in this image. Inspired by  Russian sculptor Naum Gabo I wanted to show a network of thin metal rods joining two of the shapes together and then titling it on a funny angle.

 

This was the only project that I managed to accomplish in my first year (and college). I basically designed a camera for an extreme outdoor sport so I quite like the idea of snowboarding and wanted to construct a camera shape in the shape of a snowboard. The back detail design has two cut thumb grips for you to hold the camera whilst wearing gloves and of course no camera would be a camera without a camera strap :-) and this was my final touch. I'm quite proud of this model as it took me a long time to make.

When I first left school my mother was so determined for me to study chemistry, Biology and physics but I protested and said that i wanted to do something more design based and we constantly fought over the courses I should do. So we eventually met halfway and I agreed to do chemistry, biology and design technology, which is a weird combination of courses to be studying, and I did get simular responses from friends and family when I told them what I was studying.

Themed illustration projects (series 1)

I've been trying to set myself a realistic goal to come up with a series of projects to keep my mind  creatively active and knowing that I can work in my own time is great, but ideally it would be better to have a time limit so I don't spend too long on one project. (This is probably the only good thing that I was taught at uni)
For the past few weeks now I've concentrating all my efforts into making illustrations of wild animals. I'm aiming to do at least 20 or more and then collage them into a poster. Fast-forwarding from this project I then want to look at musical instruments and illustrate them in my own abstract style and for that I aim to do about 10 instruments. The last project in this series that I'll look at is stylistic photos of models that depict various elements of coolness along with sexy (just like the pic for this blog) and for this one I aim to do about 10 images. That probably all sounds a bit vague but it should all make sense eventually, I promise. Yikes!! My bedroom floor is gonna look so messy by the time i'm finished.

Mitzy and Friends

Ever since I left uni I've been trying to find new hobbies to keep myself busy and I came across this book called 'Let's make cute stuff by Aranzi Aronzo!' with the main book tile called 'Cute dolls' because they actually make a series of books with same sub headed title. I've always had an interest in sewing so I found this book quite inspiring and as a result I've been making variations of some of their dolls as you can see from the pics.
Making a multitude of dolls has given me the incentive to start making them as gifts for people, which does effectively work out cheaper in the long run because most people nowadays would spend more money on toys in shops. So in some small way this is a great saving tip for those of you who want to save up like me.
One of my latest creations that I made for a friend was called Mitzy the tiger (this was inspired for Chinese new year) and I effectively combined two doll templates and then added my own small touches. The end result turned out well and I was quite pleased that everyone liked it.
Just like cooking a meal it always feels rewarding making something from scratch and that you've put your heart and soul into.
I think for now I will continue using the book as a much-guided reference but I predict that I will soon be designing my own doll templates so that it has my own character input rather than someone else's.