people

Since completing my information project, I have been home to research for a new project that started this week. In that week I had the pleasure of surprising my best friend on her eighteenth birthday with a visit, which was an absolute delight. She had been begging me to come home and I managed to convince her that I couldn't come no matter what happened, so to see her face when I appeared standing behind her was a wonderful thing - I even made her burst into tears! Her appreciation at the mere fact I was there made me realise how much I appreciate her and miss her while I am here, and made me think about friends. I'm the kind of person who doesn't need hundreds of friends and cherishes the ones that are closest to me, and they are all so different that I feel lucky to know them all. Oh, cheese, please.

Moving on. For the past two weeks I have been scanning fashion magazines and it is safe to say I am quite obsessed with floral patterns at the moment, particularly roses and big colours. It is the only trend I will be following however, as I can't see myself in yellow or sportswear or modern army gear somehow! Since learning of the tragic death of one of my favourite designers, Alexander McQueen, a couple of weeks ago, it has made me question what is going on in fashion and I hope there are people like him graduating so that we have fresh and unusual pieces coming back into the world soon.

Finally, some pictures, yipeee. I have scanned a couple of spreads from my reportage sketchbook that I keep for my course at uni, I admit I am not very good at keeping it so these are some of the better spreads. Enjoy!

complete

Finally handed in my information project, which I have been working on ridiculously for the past few weeks. That's why I haven't been posting in a while, but now that I have a little more time on my hands I'll be able to come back with some more probably not very interesting stuff to talk about.

First off, I saw this link on facebook and think it is fantastic, a great resource for any illustrators or freelance graphic designers out there - http://www.escapefromillustrationisland.com/

it covers many topics and has a large community of fully fledged and just starting out illustrators, discussing important topics. I've only read a few so far, but even from there I can see it's going to be a great source of useful information.

Next I thought I would share a little of my drawing with you, just a smidgen, seeing as it's been a while since I actually post something on here. In the next week I'll be working on something as a birthday present, so after the big reveal I'll be able to share that one with you as well. This image is an information piece that didn't quite make it into the final artworks, it's simply showing a step from a recipe I wrote for the book.

Over the next week I'll be doing some brainstorming and things to get my head together for the next project, which is based on my study visit. Looking forward to getting out there and finding some new inspiration!

lapse

so you can probably tell I'm no good at sticking to things. The only thing I've really managed to stick at is drawing and my relationship, both of which I have a soulful of passion for, and even then my passion for drawing sometimes wanes.

But I have seen a fair few awesome blogs again recently and it's given me another jolt to start writing this again. Plus the fact that I have to fulfil the cliché of having a new year's resolution - hey it's a bit late coming but I did it.

New year, new projects, new horizons. Currently embarking on an informational illustration project revolving around cakes (shockingly) and it's getting me involved with photography more. I recently purchased a Nikon D40 and I am rather in love with it, I'm still learning the subtlety of controlling the settings but I think I'm getting there.

also, I've been reading a lot of film magazines recently and I have become very excited about a number of films that will be hitting screens in 2010, namely -

• Up In The Air
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows I
• Eclipse
• Food, Inc.
• Alice in Wonderland
• The Prince of Persia
• Precious

and there are loads of others. If I get to see all of them I'll let you know how good they are. But for now, here I am back on blogger, and hopefully won't lapse for three months again. enjoy

wolf

I am an official teeny bopper. I went to see New Moon on the day it came out. Then I went to see it again on the following evening.

I have to say, it really did not dissappoint, it was a beautifully made and brilliantly edited movie, with a perfect soundtrack and great direction, I am glad Chris Weitz got it right with this one. It was also pretty faithful to the story by Stephenie Meyer despite a few minor edits. The best part of the film for me was Taylor Lautner's portrayal of Jacob Black, which I thought was really true to how Jacob acts in the book, and made his part of the story more important. It made the wolves look pretty good, even though there were all the cool vampires. It was good to have Lautner to look at rather than just Rob Pattinson, because as much as I love him those amber eyes are pretty creepy.

But less of my I-want-to-review-films attitude, back to the point. Back to a lovely apostrophe I saw the other day. Recipes in a newspaper, font really rather big.


Pie's

(pie's what?)

reminiscent

I recently purchased the greatest hits album by Will Young. It made me feel pretty old! I forgot how much I loved him as a teenager and having all these hits has made me feel better, it's pretty perfect for cheering you up on a rainy horrible day.

Had my mum and her friend over for the weekend, and her daughter who is one of my best friends. I love seeing people from home because it really makes me appreciate the change in accent that occurs depending on who is around, and listening to phrases like "her was reeasty" and "ooh he were fusty" really makes me miss the black country.

Not got a lot of new work to show at the minute, but my friend from uni created a lovely spelling error the other day - her campaign for her advertising project became french camping when she spelt it "campagne"on the presentation sheets. It did make my day just a little.

Because I haven't got much new stuff going on as I am in the brainstorming stage of a children's narrative fiction project, I've decided to put up a bit of typography I did in my summer sketchbook that made the motto of the last owner of Snowshill Manor - Let Nothing Perish.

book

Just finished reading a book called "Nightlight"; a Harvard Lampoon take on the ever popular Twilight novels. It was brilliant - it encapsulated Bella's character completely - if you're not afraid to take the mick out of something you love (you lovely twihards out there) then give it a read, it's worth it.

Started to read a nice new copy of an old favourite as well today that I got from the bookseller in Fal, which is "To kill a Mockingbird". I adore this book, I have done since I studied it in school and I thought it was about time I got a nice new copy of it, and I happened to pick one up that had a really nice cover illustration on it. Not sure who it's by, I'll find out, I think it's a Penguin version of the book though.

As I have been reading so much recently I decided to make myself a little bookmark with the stamp that Jenna got for me and my new cutting and sticking skills from visual studies, hoorah. the wierd shape in the middle is supposed to be an open book, if you were wondering.

face

Haven't blogged in a short while, because I haven't had much work to be posting on here, but soon I'm going to start looking into making christmas cards for people so I might just have a few exciting things to look at!

It's also been a while since I spotted a really good spelling mistake, so for now all I have to show is a painting of a face I did. Enjoy.

stamps

I've just been into town today to buy some ink blocks for the fab stamps that Jenna bought for me from Portobello when she visited London at the end of October. As I was feeling christmassy, I picked up some Gold ink and some black.

I also managed to pick up some really good value fairy lights for my bedroom from Trago Mills in Falmouth, the best shop in Fal! I'm looking forward to start making some christmas related things - cards, decorations,paper chains. It's gonna be a good one this year, I can feel it!

week

it's been a while since I posted something because I've been under deadline and my internet has died.. AND it was Hallowe'en :) had a really epic night dressed up as a wierdo zombie girl, and I still have stains on my wrists from my greasepaint "stitchmarks". Good night!

Did some adult narrative work last week for my project, illustrating a piece by Margaret Atwood about the Female Body. Did some work wil gouache and collage, really enjoyed myself working with the strong line too. This week we've been given an advertising task, but I have to wait til Thursday to get the full brief. Got to do lots of reportage illustration soon, really have to get cracking with my location drawing sketchbook cause it's an important part of my course.

Getting really excited about Christmas now, looking forward to making lots of christmas decorations for my house and I really want to get us the most amazing christmas tree ever! Getting ideas for gifts for my friends too, getting very excited. :)