Monday 29 November 2010

Mural Galore!

While on the Drawn blog, I saw an entry on murals, and this took me back to when I was asked to create a jungle mural at a local primary school for the school's library. Just thought I'd reminisce...
http://thedailywh.at/post/1424517000/magnificent-murals-of-the-day-s-rivas-painted-a
I created the wall with the elephant and lion on.


Drawn

Came across this excellent blog the other day. It's called Drawn, and is designed especially for illustrators and 'anyone who likes to draw.' I've found some really great stuff on it, and has introduced me to artists I hadn't come across before.
http://blog.drawn.ca/

Portraiture

Last week, we were drawing each other's portraits. Now this is something I HATE doing, as I can never get the portrait to look like the actual person. I always think they're going to take offence from it!!

Anyway, I found this blog that provides lessons for drawing the human anatomy. It shows you different parts of the anatomy in different positions etc. If you're like me, and really struggle with this, it might be worth a look.

Sunday 28 November 2010

Tale of Three Brothers

So the other weekend, I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 1. Was a great film, but one part in particular stuck out to me. The animated sequence of The Tale of the Three Brothers was just amazing; the flow of the sequences and the colour palette was excellent (in my opinion). The sequence was directed by Ben Hibon.

Would recommend seeing it, even if it's just this part.

Watercolour Beautifulness!



Came across this artist who's work is just BEAUTIFUL. I love the effect watercolour creates and his work demonstrates just how gorgeous watercolour can be.

Check him out!
http://www.hellociaran.com/

He also has created various ink animals, which reminded me of when we were playing with ink, dip pens and water brushes.

Find them here:
http://www.hellociaran.com/inkanimals.html

Saturday 27 November 2010

Hand Drawn Type

So a few weeks ago, we were doing a project on typography and The 10 Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda. I have never really studied typography, so this was new to me. We had to choose one of these laws and produce 20 (yes, 20!) design sheets with this law on, changing the type face etc., to get the message across to an audience. I found this difficult, as once I had completed my first initial ideas, I struggled to come up with new ideas, and started to repeat the same one. I am not looking forward to getting feedback on this project  : (

Another mini-project we did to tie in with typography was hand-drawn type. We were given 4 phrases and had to play around with type to create the effect of the phrase with just the type-face (some of the phrases were bath tub wrinkles, and pink Cadillac).

Found these videos of an artist called Luca Barcellona, who links in really well to hand-drawn type, as these videos are of him hand-drawing type. The fluid movements of his work leaves you hypnotized, while the final piece is just as beautiful and hypnotizing.

My First Blog!! & An Intro to Me

Hi! Thanks for looking at my blog. This is my very first entry, so feel very honoured if you're reading this!


Just to tell you a bit about myself. As you've probably guessed, my name's Laura. I am a first year student at the North Wales School of Art and Design, studying for a degree in Illustration for Children's Publishing. It is very different from the sorts of things I am used to, I think this is due to the fact that I came straight from an A-Level course, whereas a lot of other students on my course have completed an art foundation course, but I am coping. Sure, the work load gets very stressful, but I keep reminding myself that it will be worth it in the end  :)
Apart from this, I am enjoying the course, and have loved some of the things we have been doing, but also hated some briefs. 


We have now finished Module 1, and started Module 2 this week. Just a few of the assignments I was given at the beginning of the course:
An architecture assignment (drawing a list of buildings in Wrexham), which I really liked because I realised just how much goes into making a building, not just bricks and cement; People in Wrexham assignment, which was OK, I don't really like drawing people, especially portraits, but this wasn't that bad; Build a 3D city (based on the architecture assignment), this brought out the technical side to art, and made us think a lot about composition and nicely brought together the last 2 assignments; and getting to grips with Photoshop and Illustrator (both of which I have never used, and not very good with at all :( Another thing that will take time and PATIENCE, I suppose). We were also given an animation brief, and this is the assignment that I really disliked!! We had to create an animation based on the building studies we had completed for the architecture assignment. I ended up completing a zoetrope strip. I don't know why, but I really didn't like it. It didn't agree with me.


ANYWAY, we also made our own sketchbook, which I LOVED making!!! From cutting the pages to size, to binding them together with cotton and needle, and through to making the hardback cover. Even though it was a bit head-frazzling at first with all the instructions, once I got the hang of it, I loved it!! I definitely plan to carry on with this, (that is when I have any spare time!).