New design work

Sooo it's been a while coming, here's what I've been up to recently, and by recently I mean weeks ago because I spent the past 4 weeks on my dissertation (even though I was supposed to have started it back in September, but ohhh well).  Which I am very happy to say is completely finished and some poor sod (my dissertation tutor) has to read it.  After a lot of celebrating with wine/cider/vodka I'm back on track with my design work, which is the last project I have to do before I graduate. 

No exams, no essays left, only sitting watching tv and drawing to my hearts content, ye life is pretty good right now.  Although there is the nagging in the back of my head that I will have to find a job once this project is done, THAT I am not looking forward too.

Without further ado, heres my project so far =)
The theme is antiques and I've used a much looser style of drawing compared to my last project.  Some are continuous line drawings and although they look quite messy, once they are redrawn into Illustrator they will work a lot better on cards and giftwrap which is what I have decided to design for.

At the moment I'm taking patterns from my drawings and working them up into backgrounds (like the drawing above) I'll hopefully have some to show you in a week or so.  I had a little experiment with colour below, although it's a bit garish the line quality has turned out well, the colour needs working on though.

Everyone loves lego!

While having a gander around a craft market I came across a stall from the company 'FramedUp'

They produce framed lego pieces which I thought were quite an original way of using lego, now everyone loves lego, I've not yet met a kid who doesnt, my six year old brother absolutely loves lego! Shame there are no farmer characters framed up (he's into his tractors and machines).

There are however some funny ones who would be perfect as gifts for certain film and tv fanatics, here are some of my favourites.

 Star Trek

 Superman

 Star Wars

 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

 Austin Powers

 Spiderman

Harry Potter

In true Valentines day style

Seeing as though it is officially Valentines day here in the UK I thought I'd do a valentines inspired post, when searching around for unusual valentines gifts and ideas I came across this car, which is a pretty funny story, because my uncle actually bought this car last year!!

Apparently he outbid someone famous for this car (not sure who but I will be sure to find out), I suppose when you've got to have something you've just GOT to have it.
Heres the advert:

Both of these cars were designed and built by Asylum Models and Effects, you can find more information for the heart car and the pea car over on their website!

The car is about 8 foot wide so it's quite a squeeze on our little english country roads, I'm definitely going to have to get my uncle to take me out for a ride in this car!

The same company have also made a pea car!

Happy Valentines day everyone!!!

Uni work update

Well it has been quite a while since my last post!  Uni work just got the better of me last term, so lets start with a quick catch up, last term I did a project on the theme of maps.  I have to say it was one of the most stressful projects I have done, finding inspiration was hard and I came to a stand still several times.  I still ploughed on though!

I'll start with some of my drawings then show you the two collections I put together, both collections were wallpapers and even though the theme drove me nuts and by the end I didnt want to ever see another map again, I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out.

The first four photos are my initial pieces, I took photos from my walk to uni and used patterns I found in the photos to build up the different areas of the maps from Leeds city centre.  You can see this in the first two photos below.  the third photo shows a hand cut map I did, then I folded it back up to produce a layered effect.  Finally a simple line drawing inspired by Jeff Woodbury who uses maps in his work.

I've put some close ups of certain designs so you can see the detail.

I based my first collection on the map drawings I'd done above, with the intricately patterned sections in abstract shapes.  The first collection is in black and white so the pattern would boldly stand out.

 

 The second collection below is from looking at rooftops of different areas and styles of housing from birds eye views.  The colour palette was taken from a wallpaper I liked, although I did tweak the beige colour (it was originally grey, but it just made me feel a bit....well...grey, looking at it on a whole wall, not the best colour for a wallpaper).

Hope you like them, I should be posting again soon with an update of what y next design project is, aswell as some posts about inspirational artists/illustrators =) enjoy

Coldplay album as inspiration?!

Oh yes my favorite band, their new album has recently come out and I wanted to draw your eye to their album art.  Strangely it sort of fits in with my design project for this term.  I've not told you about it yet but I've based it on the theme of maps.  Now you may be wondering why Coldplay links to my design project, well I suppose it does in 2 ways.  First, when your working (you designers/crafters/arty people, because I've been told by friends who are in other lines of work that they can't do this because it's too much of a distraction) doesn't your imagination and passion for your work seem to magnify when your listening to some inspirational music.  We've all got those bands and songs that make us feel we can take on the world, well Coldplay is the band that does that for me.  Secondly, their cover art, the wildly coloured, detailed patterns in the shapes of the letters.  I'll show you some of my work in the next post, but I'm thinking about playing about with wild colours that are shown above on the album cover. 

Does anyone else have music they listen to to inspire them while their working?

Amazing artist I found last year in SAN DIEGO!

Ok so when I went on a spontaneous trip to go and first meet my boyfriend in San Diego, California, I came across this amazing artist at a market.  I love the detail in his drawings, the bold choice of colours and the iconic images he works from.  He really thinks through what he is going to put into his work and how they link in with the theme.  I bought a print of the art work below and it's my favorite because it's based on the famous art work of Hokusai's great wave.

I've done the images extra large so you can see the detail (I know the side bar goes over it but it is a small sacrafice)

Look really closely and you can see images inside the image!
Here is his website, definitely worth a look because I couldn't put all of his work on here!