Something a little special...

I'm in the middle of creating something small, for some very special friends of mine. But I don't want to spoil the surprise so you're going to have to wait for the finished result!

I've moved to the big city

So this was probably more scary than when I moved away to Uni! But this was an opportunity I definitely couldn't pass on. After 2 years of applying, emailing and interviewing for countless amounts of jobs, I was finally lucky enough to get offered a job as Social Media and Sales Assistant with Olive&Moss, the company I did a 2 week placement for in May. 

So in July, I packed up my life, squeezed it into my Dad's car (just) and moved to South East London. Talk about scary! 

See, I said it was a squeeze!

And here's my new room...

What can I say, I like floral print!

The Months of May & June

A month after I did my Fat Face Work Experience, I was lucky enough to get another placement (it's true what they say, you wait ages and nothing...then everything happens at once!) 

I worked 2 weeks at Olive&Moss, a baby and toddler clothing company based in West Dulwich, London. I helped them with some Graphic Design work for their Autumn/Winter catalogue. Check out their website, if you've got a little one, you'll love their stuff! http://www.oliveandmoss.com/

JUNE

We went to Glastonburrrrrryyyyy! This was my third year going, and as usual, we had an absolutely brilliant time. Who cares that you don't get to shower for 5 days? Embrace the babywipes I say! The fact that you get to spend 5 days, with some of your closest friends, having a few ciders in the sun (if you're lucky) watching your favourite bands, is my idea of heaven. 

It's been a while...

OK, so it's been an extremely long time since I've blogged. 5 months to be exact-eek! However, I feel I have a very good excuse...I got a new job! :D Wheeeey! And it's in London, so have had to pick up my life in Cardiff, and move it 3 hours across the M4...that's a pretty good excuse I feel. OK maybe not 5 months worth of an excuse, but I'll be good from now on!

So instead of boring you with 5 months worth of blogs, I'll quickly give you some highlights in photo form...

April

Sooo, I used to work in a Fat Face store in Cardiff and, thanks to my awesome Manager, Stacey, she managed to get me work experience in the Women's Design Department at their Head Offices. Was only for a week but was definitely beneficial and pretty cool to see how the clothes are all designed and produced. Plus everyone was lovely! This little fella was just casually hanging out by reception.

Also...we got a dog!! :D

And here's the little beaut herself. Her names Roxy, and she's a 22 month old Chocolate labrador from Dogs Trust. And she is GORGEOUS!

Here's a quick post to show you the Valentines card I made my boyfriend the other week. He's not really a soppy person, so I thought I'd keep the lovey doveyness to a minimal, but also wanted to make it personal to us. We've always liked going for coastal walks, so I drew an image of me and him on one of our walks, watching the sun set over the sea. Now that I've written that, it does actually sound a little soppy, but once you see the picture you'll see it's not too bad!

Obviously if I were to be selling an image like this on a card, I'd edit it on Photoshop to get rid of the paper lines, like the ones on her hair from the collage etc.

Anyway, hope you like! :)

Let it snow...

Soooo, since I last wrote, we've had snow...snow...and more snow! And even though it's lovely to have a bit of the white stuff, I have to admit, I'm glad it's gone! Now I'm not being a scrooge, it's simply because I was snowed in for 3 days, which you would think meant I had plenty of time to do work (which was true), however it did make me a little stir crazy!

This was my street...

...and this was my back garden. Very pretty I have to admit.

So anyway, whilst snowed in, I did a bit of doddling and painting. There are lots of rough sketches, some have potential...some not so much!

 Here is the main character Sophie-May, painted.

Emma wanted her in a pair of dungarees, so here she is!

Sophie-May in her onesie, with her teddy.

Possible ideas for the mum and dad...

Rough sketches for the dog...think the bottom left one works best.

Rough sketches for her sister.

Rough sketch of the possible first scene?

On a completely different note, after struggling for years to trace larger images on my A4 lightbox, I decided to bite the bullet and buy a larger one. Quite a bit larger...A2! Thought I may as well skip past A3 and go the whole hog! 

And here it is!

Of course I didn't take in to consideration where exactly it was going to fit in my bedroom, which is already full all my paints, papers, books, my A3 scanner (no room for this either, it lives under my bed). Although it sits very nicely on my desk in the picture, I kind of need that space to draw and paint! Ah well-a worth while investment I feel. 

On a side note, I procrastinated today by sorting through some of my paint brushes and finding a nice new home for them...

My hero...

So today I was sent a link for a video on my all time favourite illustrator, Oliver Jeffers....http://vimeo.com/57472271 (Check it out).

I love, love, looooove his children's books and this video has made me love him even more-he's just so cool!! I'd definitely recommend checking out his work, especially if you love illustration. http://www.oliverjeffers.com/ (Link to his website...warning-you'll fall in love with him too). They're so simple, yet so quirky...

Incredible Book Eating Boy

And Santa Claus must know me very well, as he very kindly brought me his book, Neither Here Nor There for Christmas...

 It's a collection of his paintings rather than his Children's Illustrations, but I still love it!  He really is my hero.

New Year, new start...

Right, 2013 WILL be my year, It WILL be the year I get a full time job doing something I love and it WILL be the year that I actually start doing something productive with my illustrations.

Back a few posts ago, I mentioned a children's book a friend of mine, Emma, has written. Like a lot of things at the end of last year, it got put on hold. But now, its time for me to get my bum in gear and actually get this ball rolling! 

I showed you some VERY rough sketches I did last year for the main character, Sophie-May. Here are some more rough doodles I've been doing of Sophie-May and some of the other characters. 

I actually met up with Emma the other day to show her some ideas I'd had so far. She loved what I'd done for Sophie-May, but wants her to be wearing dungarees and wellies. So that's what I'll do! It is Emma's story after all, so I want it to be exactly as she'd imagined it would be.

.

Again, this was a rough idea for Sophie-May's dad. Em wants the Dad character to be slightly taller, so that's what I'll do. Even though Emma's given me quite a lot of freedom with this book, I want her input for every step of the way.

My next job is to get all of the characters finalised and to get them painted.

Abacus Cards brief

So as I said, I was lucky enough to get an interview for a Greeting Card company called Abacus Cards. My first interview seemed to go well, and obviously didn't go too badly, as I was called back for a second one (woooo!) This time they wanted me to complete a brief for them. The first part was to select an existing Abacus card range and suggest ways in which to develop/improve it, along with a mock up card and mood board. The second part was to identify a gap in their product offering i.e. a style or genre they are not offering or a market they are not catering for and suggest an idea for a new range of cards. And again, to present my ideas on a mood  board and create two mock up prototype cards. (You can see how I got distracted from creating my own Christmas cards!) I did really enjoy doing this brief for them, and felt very lucky to have been given the opportunity, however, as I was working full time, trying to get this finished in a week proved a bit of a strain.

Buuuuuut, I did it.....

The cupcake in this card was actually made and taken by my good friend Mickey, who, as you can see, is a very talented baker, amongst other things. Here's a link to her blog: http://www.mickeyrichards.blogspot.co.uk/

They're probably not the best I could have produced, but given the short time in which I had to do it, along with working, they didn't turn out too bad. I got down to the final 2 people (which I was very chuffed about), however, as you've probably guessed, due to my lack of previous studio experience, I unfortunately didn't get the job. Never mind, as I said, I was grateful for the opportunity, especially at such an established company. Hopefully one day someone will look past the fact I have no studio experience, see the potential, and give me some studio experience...!

Happy New Year!

Hellooooo!

OK, I may be a bit late saying Happy New Year as it is almost half way through January, but as they say, better late than never!

I have to admit, I have been terrible at blogging over the last few months. I know it's no excuse, but as you can imagine, Christmas takes over your life! Especially when you work in retail (which I do). I ended up working all hours under the sun and it is only just now going back to normal.

Anywho, enough of my rabbiting, back onto the important stuff. My last post was me showing you one of my Christmas card designs, with the intention of doing between 4 and 5 designs in total. And it started going well...

Here I am sprawled out with all my papers taking over my friends house!

...And the four were nearly finished...

However, this unfortunately didn't go much further. I planned to sell these at market stalls, as I did with my cards last year, but various things got in way. One of these things however, happened to be a job interview (which I am definitely NOT complaining about!). It was for a Greeting Card company in Suffolk called Abacus Cards. I was so chuffed to even have the opportunity of an interview, so was even more excited to be given a call back for a second interview. The second interview involved me doing a brief for them, but I'll get to that in a mo. I was also lucky enough to have another job interview, but for something slightly different. This interview was for a placement at Constructive Media, which was more of a Graphic based placement than an Illustration one. I will get to that in a bit as well. Anyway, I know it's no excuse, but these interviews and the work involved, as well as my retail work, ended up with me not quite finishing my cards in time for the Christmas markets. I didn't want to rush them and finish them half heartedly. It was probably my own fault for starting them so late in the year, especially when card companies are designing their Christmas cards in the Summer! Ah well, there's always next year.