Friday 20 September 2013

Nothing like a talk from Oliver Jeffers to boost motivation!

 

I visited the Southbank centre on Wednesday evening to go to 'An evening with Oliver Jeffers'.
Was fantastic! I love listening to him talking about his work and how he has got to this point. His talk was even in the form of a story.
One of the major pieces of advice I took from the talk and also had a chat about it with him quickly after, is confidence. He said you need to be confident and believe in yourself and your work, because if you don't, no one else will. Even if you need to fake the confidence to start with, as long as you believe in your work, the confidence will soon come. You put yourself out there and go for it.
Was so lovely to hear him tell me this, face to face, and even though other people have told me to believe in myself for most of my life, it sunk in this time. (helps that it came from my most favourite illustrator)

So I am using my new found inspiration and motivation, I have picked up my pens and pencils, and paint and various pieces of found paper and started creating more illustrations with some confidence. 

Oliver Jeffers: Nothing To See HereI am going up to London next week to visit Oliver's solo exhibition at the Lazarides Gallery, will also be taking a trip to Cass Art to get some new art supplies to feed my new found motivation.


I recently did an illustration for Aquila Magazine, a lovely children's magazine. I will post when it gets published. Exciting!

Thursday 13 June 2013

Kyle McQueen

The other day I saw this illustration by Kyle McQueen pop up on my Pinterest.







I love it. I love how massive the whale looks compared to the tiny boat. What a great use of scale and layout.


I went to his website and have a good ol' nosey and really love his work. I like his textured backgrounds and is use of light is very thoughtful. 


I like that he sometimes includes his work in progress on his website along side the final piece. I find it really interesting to see how people work and get from an initial thought to a final illustration compared to my own process of working.



Wednesday 22 May 2013

Bake - Sugar Figures

 A little while ago, actually I think it was back in the summer, a friend asked me if I could make figures of their friends out of sugar for their wedding cake. I said, yes..... I had never tried it before, but worth giving it a go!

They wanted them to look like their friends, and the guy had to be wearing a kilt with the cornish tartan, and he loves Ramstein, so they wanted the band logo on his t-shirt. He also has a ponytail. 

Getting the hair right was difficult, and the woman started off a bit plump, so there was a lot of tweaking! but I was so happy with the end result! 

They got dropped within 10 minutes of them being delivered, but luckily I zoomed back with my piping bags to fix any damages, which typically was the guys kilt and pony tail!

But they made their way down to Cornwall safe and sound and sat on the wedding cake proudly. 


 oh I made their dog also, for an added personal touch.


This was the end result, after a re-style for the womans hair and a bit of a diet!

New Childrens Cards

I have been playing with some new childrens birthday card designs, as I don't have many of them, especially boys cards.
I am quite fond of this little monster.