Tuesday, 13 December 2011

A Christmas Story (finally!)

So, I posted a couple of weeks back about the new brief we were given entitled "A Christmas Story". So, I finally, have my final idea; I am not doing a alphabet book anymore, because I was struggling to come up with words for every letter, and some didn't make much sense. Now, I am designing a collection of Christmas books, similar to the picture below:
The books in this set will be a Christmas Word Book; a Christmas Colour Book; a Christmas Number Book and a Christmas Colour-by-Number book, which will tie in the previous 3 books. Now I've got the idea sorted and okayed, I can now start to plan out the page designs for inside the book... I know what I'll be doing over Christmas!

Monday, 5 December 2011

An Evening in the Cotswolds

So, I went to see the lights be switched on at Bourton-on-the-Water, in the Cotswolds. It was a lovely village, and looked just like a toy town, with the river running through it, and the 5 bridges. They even had a tree in the middle of the river!

Some pictures:













It was snowing! (Not real snow though)


Saturday, 26 November 2011

A Christmas Story...

So, after finishing the Pinocchio brief (finally!), we were given a new brief, which was titled 'A Christmas Story'. We can literally do anything we want for this, which I like the sound of. I'm working with ideas now, so should have it nailed down to what I'm doing by sometime next week.
Anyway, while I've been researching for this brief, I've been looking at what's in the market now, and illustrators/artists who use Christmas as one of their themes in their work. I've really started to look forward to Christmas now, so I can't wait Christmas to get here! (I've even got a countdown on the wall of our living room!).


Theses are some of the illustrators I have been looking at:

 Above: Betsy LePlatt "Joyful Elves"

 Above: Kerry Meyer "Letters to Santa"
Above: Chloe Inkpen "Zoe and Beans: Zoe's Christmas List"


Above: Emily McCann 'Angels'

Friday, 18 November 2011

Silhouetting Pinocchio final scenes

These scenes illustrate what is happening in chapters 33 to 34.

Pinocchio, having turned into a full donkey, is sold to the director of a company of buffoons and is taught to dance, and to jump through hoops. One night he lames himself, and is then sold to a man, who plans to make a drum skin out of him. The man ties a rock to Pinocchio and throws him in the water to drown him, but the a swell of fish turn up, and eat him, going down the 'bone' but it's the wood of his body, and swims back up to the surface. While swimming away from the man, Pinocchio is swallowed by the whale.


Thursday, 10 November 2011

The Adventures of Pinocchio - line drawings

These are the line drawings for my illustrations for the Silhouetting Pinocchio brief. Remember, they will all be in silhouette.

Pinocchio lames himself at the circus...


Pinocchio is thrown underwater to make a drum skin, and the fish eat him, turning him back into a puppet...














Pinocchio is eaten by the whale...


Wednesday, 2 November 2011

A Weekend in The Lakes

So, this past weekend (29th to 31st October) I went up to The Lake District. We stayed in this gorgeous cottage/barn conversion in this REALLY out-of-way village called Kirkland. The cottage had a log burner and a balcony! (You can't get much better than that, right?!) Some pictures (you'll have to excuse the bad quality, I only had my phone on me):




The fire lit:

And, of course, being a Illustration for Children's Publishing student, you can't not go to The Lakes, and not visit The World of Beatrix Potter attraction. So, of course I had to go. (I've been many times, but it's always nice to go again).





We also went to visit the Beatrix Potter Gallery on the Monday, but get this right! It closed the day before and isn't open again until February 2012!! So I was quite annoyed at that! Anyway, after visiting The World of Beatrix Potter on the Saturday, and spending the weekend up The Lakes, what better film was there to come on television, but Miss Potter! So that was how I spent my Sunday night, watching Miss Potter, and falling in love with her drawings all over again.

Wednesday, 19 October 2011

Silhouetting Pinocchio

Here's some design's for the new brief, Silhouetting Pinocchio.



Side profile of Pinocchio character



Pinocchio running

Photoshopped baby

Photoshopped version of my baby design I did for the Summer Brief:

Monday, 10 October 2011

An interview with... Illustrators and Authors

Found this great website with a bunch of interviews with a bunch of illustrators and authors. I found some great illustrators from here to go in my reference file, so just thought I would share the link with you.
Visit: here

Sunday, 9 October 2011

Summer Brief work

So, if you've read a couple of my last posts, I have mentioned about the summer brief we got set, to research and come up with a bunch of characters, and place them in a narrative. Anyway, these are the characters I came up with:


The baby (8-10 months old): Not yet walking, but crawling; always has to have her hair in a high ponytail; very mischievous (likes crawling off by herself)

The eldest daughter: 5 years old; loves motorcycles; scared of dog's (neighbour has a dog, and she can't go outside when the dog is out); a real daddy's girl; gets annoyed when people assume she's a tomboy, because of her love of motorbikes.

The husband/father: 38 years old; works as a diving instructor; born in Italy; lives in St. Ives; stuck in the 70s; got a close bond with eldest daughter.

The wife/mother: 42 years old; works as captain from boat husband works on; doesn't like how her husband is stuck in the 70s, and tries to change some of the house decor etc.

Wednesday, 5 October 2011

Uni + Pinocchio = start of second year!

So, yesterday, I started back at uni, entering the second year. It went alight, for a first day back. We were given a brief to silhouette Pinocchio. We have to choose a section of the story, and then illustrate it only using silhouettes. But the worse thing is, it has to be done digitally! Now, I have been thinking over the summer of what media I'm going to use in my work and photoshop and illustrator have made list as a quite possibly yes, because I like the way that you can get a flat colour on your work. Saying this though, it doesn't mean that I am completely happy working digitally yet, it's going to take some practice, but this brief will be a big help, I think.

Saturday, 10 September 2011

Some more artists...

So, previously I posted some illustrators that are related to this summer brief. However, I haven't updated them since, so I thought I would now.

Tonic Zonjic





















Paul Bennett
















Louise Limb











Kathryn Elyse




















David Byars















Malcolm Bowmer




















Rebecca Morledge

Sunday, 4 September 2011

Snapshots from a Cornish adventure (well, almost)

So, as promised, here are just a few of my holiday photos I took.

The place where we stayed was called Kenegie Manor, so this is the manor. We didn't actually stay inside the manor, but at one of the cottages in the grounds.













The cottage:













St Michael's Mount















Mousehole















Falmouth















Rick Stein's Fish and Chip's















Fireworks at Flambards















St Michael's Mount again















St Ives















St Ives again















Lizards Point















Pirate Shop on a Ship in Penzance!