Since the Opening Night of the Exhibition, life has been extraordinarily busy. I think I was expecting a 'calm after the storm', but I was surprisingly mistaken. It was an excellent and very busy night, so most of the photographs I took were before it opened. I am so grateful to everyone involved and hope this is the first of more exhibitions to come sometime in the future.
Business Cards, Greetings Cards & Magnets
Well, it’s finally here, this evening is the Opening Night of our exhibition ‘Metamorphosis’. I remember watching in awe as all the student work went up on the walls this time last year, and thinking that I could never imagine being ready to exhibit anything. If I’m totally honest, I still don’t feel ready but I wonder how many artists really do when they are at this stage of their career.
So, with the exhibition hung, I began to turn my attention to promotional material and here is what I’ve designed fresh from the printers today… just in time. Blank greetings cards, small round magnets, bottle opener magnets and of course my double sided business cards from https://www.moo.com/uk/
When the magnets arrived I popped them into little bags and attached a cardboard label I’ve also designed and printed, there’s a matching logo design on the back of my greetings cards. You might recognise the icons from my previous post http://www.illustratorsimaginarium.co.uk/the-emperors-new-crown/
I’ve also just begun another course in photography with the Makelight community, this time I'm studying 'Makelight Essentials' which teaches some basics in photography: https://makelight.com
So hopefully, I’ll start getting to grips with my new birthday camera. Photographs of tonight’s exhibition will follow so for now… wish me luck!
Exhibition Postcards II
The last couple of weeks have been a buzz of activity at college, as we prepare for our Summer Exhibition 'Metamorphosis'. It's a culmination of the last 4 years of work studying Fine Art & Illustration. Yesterday, we hung most of our pieces and the catalogue went off to the printers. I had no idea just how labour intensive the organising of an exhibition is, nor how time consuming. Just sticking velcro on to the back of all my images took half the day. In the Illustration Department we have to print everything and then mount it onto foam board, since most of our work will be seen commercially in a printed format. As I've previously mentioned in an earlier post http://www.illustratorsimaginarium.co.uk/exhibition-postcards/ part of my exhibition will include a wall of postcard sized images which are mostly a collection of sketch book pieces, so I thought I'd show you some more of those. This is the only wall I have yet to hang now and will probably take the most consideration as I have to decide how to arrange them. Just over 2 weeks to go now until our opening night and our assessment is next Thursday and yet, I'm feeling strangely relaxed about the whole thing.
Preparing for Print
It's hard to believe that I've spent the whole weekend playing in Photoshop, preparing my images for the printer. I rather naively thought it would only take a morning. I'm sure I've been missing a trick and there are far more efficient ways to achieve my desired outcome. Anyway, here's a selection of some older portrait drawings which I've re-invented onto pastel backgrounds, rather than their original graphite. I'm going to add them to my gallery so you can view them here too: http://www.illustratorsimaginarium.co.uk/gallery-2/
Exhibition Postcards
In preparation for our exhibition, I've found myself confronted with a personally formidable challenge... Photoshop!! It's something I've been meaning to explore for years, but somehow, my good old pencil and trusty brushes always seem infinitely more appealing. I always knew Photoshop was an amazingly powerful tool, I just developed a strong aversion to it and found it quite baffling. At last however, I've been slowly discovering its wonders for myself by breathing fresh life into old (and new) work. These first 3 images are studies from my sketch book that I made towards my 'Anthropomorphic Tudor Court' series towards the end of last year, you can see the post here: http://www.illustratorsimaginarium.co.uk/things-to-come/
There's more to come since I shall be using them as postcard sized images in my exhibition. This week, I've also created a new 'Sketchbook' page http://www.illustratorsimaginarium.co.uk/sketchbook/ feel free to check it out if you want.
The tale of the birthday tea...
The brazen fox had slipped away, but for his crimes he'd have to pay.
For this time he'd been caught red handed. A sneaky thief he was now branded.
He knew that he could not remain, and no-one saw that Fox again... ...
Sometimes, a project I'm working on becomes a journey of artistic challenges and discovery. Ventures like these seem to require an endless amount of motivation and determination to complete. This has been one of those projects; it has pushed my boundaries and challenged me to confront feelings of self doubt, while working on six images at once for the first time, has been intense. It has also been a labour of love and given me great joy. Would I do it differently if I started all over again? Yes definitely! But, I am happy to finally put my paint brushes down (for now at least), even with all my perceived imperfections. So here after more than a month in the making is my Woodland Animal Series. You can see how these paintings developed here: http://www.illustratorsimaginarium.co.uk/woodland-animal-paintings-experiments-in-colour-palettes/