Illustration Advice

Good Morning!

I realise recently my blogging posts have been few and far between, I’m hoping to get back on top of this! Sometimes I feel there’s no point in blogging unless I have any solid work to show, but I know that’s just my own rubbish excuse. There are so many interesting things I come across that I could blog about, and I have been working on my own little projects but I’m just not ready to share them yet....soon though.

One of my recent finds I want to share is Andy J. Miller’s blog. I think it is the most interesting and insightful blog I have found in a long time.

Andy J.Miller is an American graphic designer/illustrator who has worked for clients such as Sony, Nickelodeon, Converse and Google! He came across the pond to the UK in 2005 to complete a BA Graphic Design course at The University of Huddersfield.

Andy is now based back in Mid West America creating his amazingly colourful and fun characters for clients across the globe.

I came across his blog when I found some Creative Pep Talk Podcasts on iTunes that he makes to talk about the ups and downs of being an illustrator/designer. He is really open about the troubles he’s faced and how he’s dealt with problems like creative block.

Andy’s blog is full of useful advice, and it resonates with a wide audience. Whether you are just starting out in the design world or you are an established designer, Andy’s blog is refreshingly honest and helpful for all.

I hope you find it as useful as I have!

http://www.andy-j-miller.com/blog/

StrawberryToo

So for the past three Fridays the lovely team at Strawberrytoo in Hull let me come in for some work experience. The purpose of this work experience for me was to see what it would be like working in a design company, because coming from an illustration background it's not something I've ever had opportunity to do so far.
The team set me up some pretty cool briefs to try my hand at, there's a few examples below of the bits I did.
It was a really good experience and I learnt a few new tricks from my time there and I met some pretty talented and interesting people!

Illustrative Arts Exhibition

I am part of an illustration show this coming Friday in the old T K Maxx shop at the bottom of Princess Quay. How exciting you say? Heck yeah it is!
It's going to be really cool having so many talented illustrators, painters, and designers all in one place, nothing of this scale happens very often in Hull.

Some of the people showing are:

Gareth Sleightholme  http://apopheniainc.wordpress.com/
Dominic Li http://domanicli.blogspot.co.uk/
James Fenwick http://jamesfenwickill.blogspot.co.uk/

MR. Bo-Jangles

This is Mr. Bo-Jangles the most bad-ass cat in town.
Last year my beloved, stinky, often quite stupid, but totally cool cat Reggie died :( I was totally devastated as he was the first proper pet me and James have ever had (excluding Nebula the impulse bought hamster).
So this image is in loving memory of Reggie the original Mr. Bo-Jangles.

Black Widow

Here's one sexy cowgirl for you! I started this a while back and only recently finished colouring it. 

I've put both coloured and black & white up because I'm undecided as to which I like best!

I hope you enjoy this black widow, she's gonna take you for all you've got!

A long long time ago...

Why has it been so long Blogger you say, well I have been all consumed in a PGCE course and now it is over! (Well it was over about a month ago now but all the days are merging into one now I have so much down time!)
Here are some Victorian ladies I did at the end of last year, as you can see good old Queen Vic is in the middle there. I have a slight obsession with Queen Vic and her  holiday home Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, I have to go there every year when I'm down on holiday (as you can see below).

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Here is my print for today's screening of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas at Cult Cinema Sunday! I've focused on some of the weird and wonderful characters you see in Fear and Loathing to create this this very bright and funky poster that will be for sale tonight! There are 50 signed prints to get your hands on tonight but if you miss out or can't make it you can get your copy after the night at http://www.cultcinemasunday.bigcartel.com/

Music go Music Vinyl cover

Music go Music is one of my all time favourite bands, they sound like a fusion of 1970s ABBA meets electric space pop! They may not be to everyone's taste but being a big ABBA fan myself their sound is right up my street. They only have one album out at the minute called 'Expressions' and the cover for that it great but I felt I could bring a bit more 1970's groove to it. So here's my version of what a vinyl cover for them should look like. If you want to check out Music go Music for yourself they are on myspace: http://www.myspace.com/musicgomusic

Ripley's believe it or not!

 'Frenchwomen in the 17th Century created elaborate hairdos with scenes from literature, models of the city of Paris, windmills and waterfalls.'

'Edward Bovington of Burnham England, had three tongues.'



For my latest editorial work I decided to illustrate some facts from the 'Ripley's believe it' or not book. I'm always interested in the unusual and bizarre and this book is rich with great tales of extraordinary people and things so it was good fun looking through the book and deciding which quotes to illustrate, I still have one more I want to do so keep checking back!

Creature Stamps!

I realise I haven't blogged since Christmas time more or less! Time for some new work! I've just finished a set of stamps I've been working on for the past week, I'm pretty happy with the end result and all the colours go really well together!

UN Declaration of Human Rights Illustrations

The UN Declaration of Human Rights is something I've always known of but never read until this project. Initially I thought it would be a hard project to create images for but once I got my head around it and found things I could relate into the images it was quite fun! All the UN quotes are incorporated into the images fully apart from two; the heart in hands is; 


Article 3. Everyone has the right to life liberty and security of person. 


And the school child with the lunch box is;

Article 26. (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

New Scientist cover and spot illustrations

' drinkers learn to like the taste of alcohol because they associate it with pleasure, so they could gradually re-educate their palates to appreciate substitutes too.'

'The big problem with alcohol is that it kills people. And while there's an obvious way to stop this happening - drink less or not at all - for some reason, humans find this advice nigh on impossible to follow.'

For this project we had to create a cover and two black and white spot illustrations for New Scientist. I found a great article in one magazine called 'Taking the Demons out of drink' looking at whether you can replace alcohol with a pill or whether you can solve hang overs with a pill.

Text Me Up

This project was to illustrate texts from Tracey Moberly's new book 'Text Me Up'. The book is a collection of text messages she has kept since 1999! I picked out three out the 100,000 she has! Here's a link to the book if you are interested- http://www.sanderswood.com/text-me-up!/

'Kill kill kill'

'Where's my sugar puffs'

'KY jelly £3.00 Nicole love doll £84.95 Penis enlarger £39.95. Porno Paul'

The images will be displayed in The Museum of Club Culture on Wednesday 23rd when Tracey Moberly is also doing a talk about her book, so get yourself down to that! There will be lots of other illustrators displaying their interpretations of the texts too! http://www.facebook.com/groups/378470125091/

Bruce Mau Quotes

Take Field Trips - The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered. object-oriented, real-time graphic-simulated computer environment.

Imitate - Don't be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You'll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable.

Go Deep - The deeper you go, the more likely you will discover something of value.

Drift - Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgement. Postpone criticism.


Slow Down - Desynchronize with typical time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.

Stay up late - Strange things happen when you've gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you're separated from the rest of the world.

Return of the Editorial Work

'The age of reason' is an article by Julie Burchill who comments on the change of progress between boys and girls at school, that girls are over taking boys educationally and boys are taking a back seat. She also comments on the differences between men and women and how women are progressing in the work place and men seem to be the ones buying the aprons now.

'Puss in Books' is an article that discusses the origin of the Cheshire cat in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. I have played around here by trying to combine all the different theories- A Cheshire pub-sign painter whose lions looked more like cheerful moggies. Cheshire cheese makers used to mould one end of the cheese into the shape of a grinning cat. And Cheshire was a county Palatine (under royal rule) which apparently cats find amusing.

'Seven ways to boost your brainpower' this article focuses on certain things studies have shown to boost your brain power - Strawberries, juggling, broccoli, iron, not skipping breakfast, exercising and a bit of what you fancy.

Famous Quote Editorials

'I see this strange tool, my brain' John Fowles.

'The Bark is the song of the Dog' Anon.

'A person without imagination is like a teabag without hot water' Anon.

'Invention or discovery takes place by combining ideas' Jacques Hada Mard.

'Beware of Artists they mix with all classes of society and are therefore most dangerous' Queen Victoria.

'Colour is the place where our Brain and the Universe meet' Paul Klee.


These are my new editorial pieces for illustration.