What I've been working on for my weekly challenge.

I've had lots of ideas forming and taking shape over these last few days. My first step was to research the 1970's as this is what the pattern made me think of first.

My search led me to these...

Space hoppers, roller bladed and the Wombles. The 70's seemed to be about sunshine and having fun outside then coming inside with your 1p pick and mix's and watching the Wombles. I have to say I was really drawn to the roller skates. They just held this amazing rose-tinted dream. I was sold. So taking my 1970s print and my inspirational picture of a pair of roller skates I set to work designing my illustration and planning my idea. 

A new weekly feature for my blog

Ok so I thought I might do a new weekly feature on my blog, to get me "illustrating" a bit more often and also set myself a new challenge.  Basically I'm going to try and create a new illustration every week, by choosing something I find whether it be an object, a material or a new texture. I think after graduating I've been focusing a lot of my efforts on contacting people and emailing. But I want to make sure that I keep myself creating new work and exploring new methods, so I think this blog feature will be a good way to be able to do that for myself. Now I just need to decide a name for this weekly feature.

I think I've already decided what my material will be this week. So sorting out under my bed I found this great old photo album with this beautiful pattern on it! It used to be my nanas, so its quite an old one. I think it looks like a pattern from the 60's or 70's, so this will be my inspiration for this weeks post. I'm going to post my working methods through out this week and my ideas so those will be coming up in a few days.

My recent trip to Bath

A few snaps from my recent trip to Bath last week. It is such a lovely place to visit, I think I went at the right time too, the weather was gorgeous!! There's lots of Georgian architecture and vintage style houses like the one above. Its a good place to go shopping as theres lots of great charity shops and little boutiques. 

I thought that I might tell you a few of my favourite places that I visited incase anyone reading this is going to Bath or gets inspired to. We visited a restaurant called Salathai, which was really lovely. The staff where so friendly and even gave us free desert. Whats better than that! Also make sure to visit The Real italian Ice cream co, especially if the weather is nice. They do so many flavours, the 

biscotti one is delicious.

Unfortunately the Bath Tour buses weren't running the day I was visiting but I would be sure to check this out. Its a sure way to see everything Bath has to offer from a comfortable seat! Other must-sees are The Abbey, The Royal Crescent and The Circus. Another great experience to do in Bath is the Bizarre Bath comedy walk, genuinely one of the best things to do in Bath!! If you do one thing in Bath definitely do this. Its such good value for money too. 

 

I think as well for me being an illustrator, it was a great place to get lost and get inspired. Its just a beautiful city and around every corner is something beautiful to look at. 

University degree show - Creative Swatch

A few pictures from my degree show - Creative swatch. Its so strange that Uni has finally come to an end! I'm looking forward to what comes next. 

Getting Ready for my Uni Exhibition

Really happy that my business cards and postcards have arrived in time for my University exhibition!

Response to "The Crones Eyes" by Kate Morton

One of my all time favourite authors in Kate Morton, I really love her style of writing and how you can just loose yourself in her books. At University in my last semester we where aloud to choose what we wanted to Illustrate and set our own briefs so for one of mine I decided to look at Kate Morton's short story within "The forgotten garden", "The Crones eyes". I loved the imagery of the landscape and the beginning paragraph of the princess running away from the palace and stumbling upon a cottage, the crones cottage. This imagery inspired me to create this illustration. I enjoyed creating this illustration especially the trees!

Roman inspired Calendar - The meaning behind the months

Heres another recent project I have been working on for my final semester hand in at Uni. I wanted to depict the meanings behind the Months and which Roman Gods they where named after. The research in to the Months was quite fun to do! I've never created a calendar before, so I really enjoyed  putting it together in InDesign. I'm feeling quite inspired to make another calendar but using my full portfolio on the different months. Have you made a calendar recently? how did you find it.