Me and Ani make a pro team.

Brave New World

Images for 'Brave New World' brief which was our first 'proper' project linked with House of Illustration x Folio Society competition. I'm pretty pleased with how they've turned out although obviously my Photoshop skills are pretty much non-existent. It was nice to be able to draw freely and also to come up with an idea that wasn't such an obvious take on the novel. 

I don't really have anything to post about so here is a glove that was adult sized last year.

Location Drawing 3: Natural History

For Friday's location drawing session, we were told to choose our own place of interest. I didn't want to go to somewhere that I already knew I liked drawing in, rather the opposite. After a previously disastrous drawing trip to the Natural History Museum, I decided to go there after Viv had already decided to go there to finish up her self-directed project, specifically for the fish/ sea life sections. This led me to look at a subject that has previously not crossed my mind which made it a lot easier to actually look at what I was drawing. Not everything was successful but I'm pleased with the sketchbook as a whole. Now I'm just desperately worried about life drawing and animation this week! 

Location Drawing 2

Last week's location was Borough Market, I've been before but it was great to look at it from the perspective of needing to draw things. Here are (some of) more successful pages from the day, I'm most pleased with the first and last pages featured below. Hand bound sketchbooks are great for drawing in locations where you aren't quite sure what you're going to want to include and offer a more flexible drawing space than my usual A3 Seawhite sketchbooks. I forgot how fun layered drawings are so I'll definitely be stocking up on tracing paper ready for next week.

Modern Publicity 39, 1969-70

'Modern Publicity' is a series that I came across recently in the university library. It chronicles a selection of 'the best' packaging, posters, trademarks, television titles etc from across the globe in a given year. I randomly picked out the 1969-70 edition to see what it contained and was pleasantly surprised. Many of the designs and layouts still feel very modern and there is an overall feeling of freshness to each image. Below are a few of my favourite bits from the book, I'll definitely be looking at more issues when I've finally worked my way through the massive pile of books that I brought with me and have not quite started reading yet.

Location Drawing 1

Some (very badly photographed) drawings from the British Museum on Friday. I've missed location drawing and it was nice to not have a specific time frame to work within. 

Some Work

Portrait of Viv from fancy dress life drawing on Wednesday

A small selection of things that I've done this week, none are particularly good but it's not a bad start. I really need to have more conviction with line and not rely on oil pastels and a chisel posca because although they feel right at the moment, my drawing is not really improving. I really enjoyed the films that we watched in the Thursday "Secret Cinema" drawing session (Virgil Widrich's 'Copy Shop' (2001) was particularly impressive) although I struggled to draw super quickly especially when challenged with a longer and very narrow piece of paper. On Monday I'll have to get photos of the rest of what I've done so far as there's no point in doing the work unless I can easily track what is and isn't working, practicing drawing hands is a biggie for me at the moment, just look at the bottom image and you'll see what I mean.

Drawing from 'The Girl Chewing Gum' directed by John Smith in 1976

Drawing from Viv posing pre-costume on Wednesday

Tsunami Appeal at Designers Block Opening

3 of 6 Screen Printed Cards by Benjamin Phillips and Soju Tanaka

Some things that I picked up as part of a 7 for £5 super deal (in addition to the two issues of Okido). I'm struggling to find who the two prints are by but I will have another look soon. I particularly like the above postcards, the contrast in drawing technique works excellently.

Benjamin Phillips Postcard

Soju Tanaka Zine (and business cards)

Rose Blake x Nobrow Small Press

As someone who is both terrified of and despises pigeons, it was nice to see them reduced to silliness in the screen printed (I think) book. Rose Blake is somebody who I constantly find myself going back to, her use of colour and selective detail will never be unappealing to me.

I've been wanting to have a look at this pretty much since it was first released however I couldn't afford to buy it and then it disappear due to it being a limited run of 50 so naturally I was thrilled to find it hidden away in the library, slipped between some anthologies. 

Below are some more pages from the book. Please excuse the darkness of the photos, they were taken just as I woke up this morning.

Okido/ Rachel Ortas

At the Designers Block opening, there was a stall raising money for the Japan Tsunami appeal. The stall was ridiculously good in that it was selling a wide variety of prints, postcards, back issues of magazines and other things like totes and badges under the offer of £1 per item or £5 for 7. The first thing that I am going to show are two issues of Okido that I picked up within this. I've always wanted to pick this magazine up but soemthing has stopped me, maybe the thought of being a 20 year old "woman" (I say that with a pinch of salt I am very childish) buying a children's magazine has put me off. ANYWAY, seeing as this was such a good deal I couldn't not do it, especially with the prevalence of Rachel Ortas within Okido who has been somebody that I've gone back to again and again with her printed goods; mainly for cards but also with zines which are beautifully crafted and very playful. There are more posts coming up on what I managed to grab from the charity stall so keep your eyes peeled.

Below are two pages from issues 13 and 18.

Wrap #5

Bit of a picture heavy post but I thought I'd share some spreads from the Summer 2012 issue of Wrap that I picked up at the Southbank Centre shop the other day. The basic premise is that it features double sided wrapping paper sheets within the magazine, designed by those who have been featured within the issue. Whilst I've nosed through it before, I've never actually bought it but this time my clammy mitts couldn't resist. Below are some more pictures of the contents. It features some old favourites including Sophie Alda, Charlotte Trounce and Paul Blow with a couple that had slipped past me previously such as cover artist, Katie Scott. It's so encouraging to see young illustrators working on such well formed projects. I fear it'll be difficult not to want to use the wrapping paper as posters but the fear of ruining the magazine is too great.