Etching Plate

I have finished my etching plate for the Secret 7' brief, it took me
all weekend but I am happy with the results. I now need to go 
down to Vernon Street and finish it off by putting it into the etching
baths and then I am ready to get printing!
I am still unsure of what colour to print in, I think a more earthy colour
like brown or a deep red. 

Pooki & Co

'The first Pooki was hand stitched in 2001 by Marie Joxe-Colllins,
a French designer/illustrator. Her inspiration being the birth of her first son, Mateo. Over time, and numerous hours of work, other characters appeared; creating the funny gang of Pookiland. After the success of the plushes, made from soft fleece, the Pooki collection was expanded to include bags and room decor. '

The Pookis are a range of soft toys, they are a very simple

design and come in a range of characters with their own back

stories. These are the type of toys I am looking at making

for my Wind in the Willows brief, simple stitched together toys,

possibly screen printed front and back then stuffed and sewn up.

http://www.pookiandco.com/

E-Glue - Design for Kids

e-glue is design studio for babies & kids - 'designers of high quality

decor accessories for baby nursery & kids rooms : wide range of wall 

stickers, wall decals packs for themed rooms, giant kids wall decals,

stickers for children bathrooms, custom wall art for kids room, art prints

for baby rooms, limited edition of silkscreen prints for baby birth gift,

posters, wallpapers, murals, borders, textil accessories, cushions, 

crib bedding, crib skirt, curtains, cases, organizers, lights, mobiles, 

hooks, toy storage boxes, furniture, bookshelves, wardrobes, chairs,

birth packs, toys, decorating objects and more to come... 

for designing a kids room or baby nursery decoration both modern and fun !'

http://www.e-glue.fr/

Sara Fanelli

Sara Fanelli is one of my favourite illustrators, her books are so lovely, The

Onions Great Escape is interactive, asking the readers to save the onion 

from the fry put pushing it out by its perforated edges out of the book.

She uses a mix of illustration and collage within her work, which is something

I want to look into incorporating within my work, as well as interactivity within

a book. In the Onions big fry the reader is also encouraged and asked to write

in the book and answer questions throughout. 

Children's Books- Rumble in the Jungle

Rumble in the Jungle is a children's illustrated book by Giles Andreae and

David Wojtowycz. The illustrations are child like and use bold bright colours,

this is something that I have noticed a lot through out children's designs, colours

are an important part. The format of the book is something I am looking at, 

they seem to be larger rather than smaller, about A4, that is probably

to do with children being able to handle the books themselves, but it something 

I am going to research into. 

Inke Heiland

'The wallpaper silhouettes by Dutch designer Inke Heiland are hand made from actual wallpaper. Choose your favorite animal or wallpaper tree from one of the rare vintage and designer wallpapers to create your own unique mural.'
These are really nice wallpaper murals, you can order different shapes, 
in different patterns, the patterns are lovely and I like that 
they are made to order, this is something I could consider looking
at in some of my briefs.
http://www.inke.nl/

Brief Exploration

After my tutorial with Fred the other day I decided to go over all my briefs
and make sure I know what the main focus is and all the key elements
to each brief are. I also listed all the possible outcomes for each brief to know
what I am doing and how each brief differs from one another so I get the
range of outcomes I want.

Wee Gallery

Wee gallery create products designed for young children,
they consider how children view the world and how to 
engage them in the designs they create, on their website they write,
'Wee Gallery animals are made of high-contrast repeating patterns to stimulate visual
development in infants.' 
They aim to engage young children with their products which is
what I am aiming to do across many of my briefs.
They make a range fo products, including toys, mobiles, wallpapers,
blankets, cards and wall graphics.
http://weegallery.com/

French Bulldog

French Bull Dog are a home ware products company, designing 
products for adults as well as children. I have been looking at their
children's products in relation to my briefs. For the Puffin Wind in the Willows 
brief, I have proposed to expand the range from the books to home ware
items, toys etc. French Bull Dog do a variety of products for kids, including
mealtime accessories, wallpapers and notebooks.
They have a range of characters which they use across the range of
different products. They are bold cartoon style illustrations, working
with bright colours across a range of characters.
http://www.frenchbull.com/

Kitchen Ware

Wallpaper

Paradise Lost....Gustave Dore Engravings

For my Secret 7" brief I have done an etching of my Beast
illustration, whilst doing this I came across some beautiful
etchings by Gustave Dore in an version of John Miltons Paradise Lost,
the engravings are also fittings in relation to what I am doing as
Paradise Lost looks at the Christian story of the Fall from Grace
so looks at themes such as hell and the devil, linking into the idea of the beast.
The engravings are so detailed and precise, I would love to be
able to achieve etchings like this in the future. 

Tutorial With Fred

This is my updated proposal form that I took with me, along with my briefs
to my one on one tutorial with Fred.
The tutorial was so helpful and helped clear up what I wanted to do during 
my FMP and made me see the potential in all my briefs and which briefs
I should get rid of.

What was highlighted in my tutorial was that I needed to look 
at what the main focus of each brief is. All my briefs link and agree
with what I am wantint to achieve as stated in my rationale. 
I am not going to do the Over the Hills brief anymore as it seemed
to just be in there as an extra brief which had less focus than the
others.
From this I am now going to go through each of my briefs and discuss
what the main focus is and all the possible outcomes that I can achieve
from each of them and how the outcomes with vary from brief to brief.

Secret 7" Drawings....The Beast

I didn't like the drawings that I was doing for the Secret 7" brief, I
just couldn't seem to get a flow, nothing was coming out how I wanted.
I decided then to just go back to drawing a pattern as that is something I know
I can produce and normal to a good outcome, I started in the center using the
idea of horns to make a pattern,

I then just started to draw outwards from the center horn pattern,
I then realised I had started to create a face, this wasn't at all intentional,
however it seemed to working so I went forward with that ideas and created
a beast like face out of different elements of the pattern.
I then scanned in the drawing and live traced it and edited it
on Illustrator...






















After my tutorial with Fred it was discussed that I use this brief as my MA brief
and do one cover a week and use it to explore print processes. So for this illustration
I have decided to make an etching plate and print it that way. For the competition I will
scan/photograph the etching and work it to the dimensions of the 7".

Laura Marling-Album Artwork

I am designing the artwork for Laura Marling's song The Beast for

the Secret 7" competition brief, I decided to go back and look at 

the style of her previous artwork. It is all hand illustrated and printed

with minimal colour, it looks like some print processes such as lino

have been used, my ideas is to etch my illustration. I think my idea

will be fitting to her style of music and reflect the song.

Secret 7"- Drawings

I started drawing down some ideas for the Secret 7", I am designing artwork

for the Laura Marling song, The Beast. I am trying to take inspiration from the 

lyrics in the song, and working with illustration and collage. I am finding it

harder than I thought I would so at, but I think I just need to get back into

the mind set of drawing. I am going to try out some pattern designing

next, using elements of the song to build up an pattern, possibly one large pattern

or a smaller pattern that could be repeated.

Just Draw Luke..Responses

We have started to get some responses to our Just Draw Luke project, 
when people tweet or e-mail them in we upload them to the website.
Hopefully we will start to receive some in the post soon too! 

Corby Tindersticks

Corby Tindersticks create illustration for children and adults,
they make garments and soft toys for children with a fun
child-like style which is a side of design I really want to focus on 
during my FMP.
They print on interest materials which seem more suited to children,
like posters on felt which would fit well into a child's bedroom.
They have an online store where their products can be purchased.
This is definitely the type of design I need to be looking at for my
FMP briefs, looking at the materials they use and the type of imagery,
colours and how they appeal to children and adults.




http://www.corbytindersticks.com/

My Just Draw Luke Entry

Thought it was only right that I sent in my drawing of
Luke.

Just Draw Luke...Website

http://cargocollective.com/JustDrawLuke

The Just Draw Luke website is now up and running, people can find out
more about the project and how to get involved, there is also and
online gallery for the submitted art works.

Just Draw Luke...Logo

We wanted to keep the logo for the Just Draw Luke project simple, we want
to keep all the branding simple and keep the focus on the drawing of Luke.
Niall had the idea of just using a pencil as the logo, he did a vector illustration 
but we then thought as the focus on the project is on drawing that the logo should
be hand drawn.
I played around with a few different ideas but ultimately it came back to 
a simple line drawing of a typical school pencil.

We tried the logo with the hash tag and without and in the end decided
to go without the text, keeping it clean and simple.

Just Draw Luke....Setting up Twitter

We have set up the Just Draw Luke Twitter account, throughout this
brief Twitter will probably play an important role in connecting with people
and spreading the word.
We have kept the page very simple, like the logo, as we want to branding
not to over power the main part of the project which is to Just Draw Luke.
We have the hash tags, #JustDrawLuke and #LOB, we already had
some replies even though we haven't sent out a brief yet, which is
promising!

Just Draw Luke.....Who We are Going to Contact

We've been trying to write a list of people we want to contact for the 
Just Draw Luke project. Some are very ambitious but after speaking
to Amber she said make sure we contact as many creatives as possible that
would be interested in doing it for creative reasons.

Group Tutorial

We had our first group tutorial about the direction we are going in 

for our FMP. We took our initial briefs and our proposal form to discuss.

The feedback that I good helped me organise myself and know what 

I need to do throughout my FMP. I think the briefs I have picked will 

help me produce the type of work I want to be putting in my portfolio.

Briefs

These are my chosen briefs so far, that I have decided to undertake for my
FMP, I am going to take them into my tutorial to discuss with my peers
and tutors to make sure I am choosing the right briefs to showcase the type 
of work I want to do.

The Beast

To go with her song The Beast, Laura Marling also wrote a poem and
made a multimedia website to go alongside it. The illustrations are by Shynola,
I am going to take inspiration from this as well as the song itself for the
secret 7" design.

http://www.the-bea.st/

Brief 6-Secret 7- Laura Marling, The Beast

For the Secret 7" brief I have decided to go for the song, The Beast by 
Laura Marling,I have started off by listening to the song and noted 
down parts that I heard in the lyrics that could possibly be explored for the
art work for the vinyl sleeve.

The brief states that the artists and title of the song should not be shown anywhere
on the actual vinyl sleeve, so it is just an image based brief.
I am going to research more into some of these initial ideas and then
get drawing.

Inpress Meeting

We had a brief Inpress meeting yesterday just to discuss what we are
going to do this year. We all agreed we are going to have a lot of work
on during in our FMP so we are not going to host another event, we are
just going to concentrate on the end of year shows and do a shop like we did
last year, but this year just focus it on our course and our year to tie in with 
the end of year shows.

FMP Proposal Form-First Draft

This is my first draft of my FMP proposal form to bring to my group
tutorial on Wednesday. I am still unsure about a few bits of it so hopefully
I will get some feedback in my tutorial to help me re-fine it down more, 
and make sure my briefs are suitable for what I need to do.

Creative Review-Riso Printing Article

Creative Review-Clifford Richards Article

Martin Haake

Martin Haakes work reminds me of Sara Fanelli, who is one of my 

favourite illustrators, however I have only just discovered Martin Haakes work,

and so far I am really enjoying it. 

His work is a mixture of collage and illustration, he also uses a lot

of hand rendered type in his designs which is something I want to 

work on more during my FMP, his type and drawing work flows

really well together and gives his work a more personal

and approachable feel.

http://martinhaake.de/

Oliver Jeffers

Oliver Jeffers picture books and amongst on of my favourite illustrations,

he is also a painter but works across a range of mediums. Using watercolours

is something I started working with in one of my previous briefs and want to 

carry through to my FMP.

His work is also used for editorial and advertisements, they is something

child like and innocent about his illustrations, which is what I think draws me

to them.

This is one of his designs for The Guardian, 1000 things for kids to do,

a lot of his work is aimed at children or at least envolves children in his

main audience, even be it through their parents, this is an area of design 

I want to focus on during my FMP.

http://www.oliverjeffers.com/

Helen Musselwhite

Helen Musselwhite studied as an graphic designer and illustrator and over her

career she has worked in many different medias, however it is her love of paper

that lead to the work she designs today.

A lot of her work is inspired by the countryside, and nature, her work has been 

used by big agencies ad campaigns, magazines, album covers and in retail, in shop fronts.

Her work is so clean and crisp and explores image making in a less conventional 

way than other illustrators.

Even though her work is designed and produced in 3D it has been used in 2D 

products, showing how design can work across 3D and 2D.

http://www.helenmusselwhite.com/

FMP Organisation

I want to keep on top of my organisation and time management during my FMP so I
am making sure I keep myself organised from the start.
I have a new project file to keep all my paper work throughout the FMP, I also
have a to do list notebook and a contextual references notebook to keep track
of all the sources I am looking at.

Anke Weckmann

Anke Weckmann is an illustrator who's work has appeared

in magazines, books, adverts, greeting cards and on packaging

and products.

I really like her style of drawing, as well as character, 

and animal illustrations she also designs surface pattern

from her illustrations which is something I am working with in 

my design work. The colour palate she uses across her work, always

seems well considered and works well with the illustrations, colour

is something I want to give more thought to throughout my FMP

as its something I haven't given much time too in the past.

http://www.linotte.net/

Ana Albero

Ana Albero is a Spanish illustrator who currently lives and works as
a freelance illustrator in Berlin ( which is my dream life after I graduate).
She has clients such as the New York Times and Computer Arts Magazine,
she has had her work published many publications and also up in exhibitions
around the world.

Her work is very distinctive and is many focused on human characters,
character design is something I want to look at more during my FMP, as at
the moment my main illustrations are objects or patterns.
Her work is produced in many ways,  screen printed, in publications, 
advertisements,maps and in comics to name a few.
Her work for clients like the New York Times put her illustrations into context,
pieces to go alongside debates on Education and on the opinion pages.



http://www.ana-albero.com/

FMP Briefing

These are my notes from todays FMP briefing, I have a clearer of
idea of how to organise myself during my FMP and where to begin.
As Fred said this is our last chance to get it right, I want to make
sure I put in as much time as I possibly can, I want to look back 
over my FMP and think I tried my hardest.

Mark Hearld

 Mark Hearld studied illustration at Glasgow College of Art and

then completed an MA in Natural History Illustration at the Royal College of Art.

Taking his inspiration from the flora and fauna of the British countryside,Mark works across a number of mediums, producing limited edition lithographic and linocut prints, unique paintings, collages and hand-painted ceramics.

He has illustrated a book called A First Book of Nature, written by Nicola Davies, this is his first bit of work I saw and I was immediately drawn to it. He works across a range of mixed media, illustration, prints, collage, he also applies his work to a range of products including wallpaper, ceramics and even tape.

He is holding and artist talk in February in York to co inside with his current
show at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. If I have no prior college commitments
I am going to attend the talk.

http://www.stjudesprints.co.uk/collections/mark-hearld

Brief 11-Tigerprint

I would like to do one or more Tigerprint competition briefs
during my FMP, if I enjoy it I may take them further and develop
a range of products from the initial brief.
This is this months current brief...