Work in progress...

...as promised I'm posting my current project which is some promotional pieces to let the agents out there know what I do - they're dummies and not necessarily going to make the final cut - but here are some dodgy scans, from my sketchbook, of the beginning stages...  (sadly after adding the watermark the images have gone grainy, I'll be asking my more technical friends how to improve on this for the next posts!). J.

And while I'm at it...

... here's a little (very little) animation I did back in the first year, the soundtrack is the wondrous 60's folk singer Melanie Safka (to make it larger you can click on the icon in the bottom right hand corner of the animation screen):

Rolling Rosie

"Isn't it a pity that I'm not the prettiest girl in the world but sometimes I feel, when I kick up my heels in the sun, I'm the loveliest one..." J.

Folk Tales and Fairy Tales...

...one of my most recent projects was looking at folktales and fairytales which was a joyous trip through some of the stranger books my mother used to read us when we were little, Strewelpeter was one of them (which I can't recommend enough, seriously scary but we never got tired of it) and the tales of Baba Yaga was another.  Baba Yaga was a russian folktale featuring, I think, the original terrifying, murderous witch that most of the fairytales and folktales use as a basis today.  She had gnashing iron teeth and a house in the depths of the forest which sat on Chicken legs enabling it to move stealthily through the trees.  She would invite little children in to her house, bathe them then eat them...

My brief was to modernise the tale and so instead of having the house on chicken legs I gave her a mobility scooter which was propelled by them instead.  I went for the look of a serial killer instead of the traditional huge crooked nose and wiry frame - the result of the project wasn't entirely satisfactory to my mind but it was a very interesting experiment and here are some of the images...

Papercut

Frustratingly the last images are a bit washed out and fuzzy but hopefully you get the idea... J.

Experiments in portraiture...

Back to the 1st year archives for this post - quite simply these are some of my experiments in portraiture...

Colour pencil sketch

My snoozing Uncle, Pilot pen

Pencil sketch

Pencil sketch

Pencil sketch

Pen and ink sketch, life drawing

Blue biro sketch

They were all done for various projects and just for the pleasure of drawing so a bit of a random selection, but I did think they're an interesting contrast to the Tina Berning inspired experiments from previous posts... J.

Sabotage...

...I am now effectively going to show my last two post's work for what it is - in comparison to the inspirational source - a mere insect in the Illustrator chain.  Tina Berning really is one of my (many) heros - born in Germany in 1969 and now based in Berlin, she worked as a graphic designer until 2000 when she switched tracks and joined the world of Illustration exclusively.  She's won countless awards worldwide and has featured in Vogue, The New York Times etc. as well as a number of Illustration led anthologies - her work literally takes my breath away and I thoroughly recommend checking her out...


http://www.tinaberning.de


... and she's produced an incredibly beautiful book which I also seriously recommend:

                            

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/100-Girls-Cheap-Paper-Drawings

Stunning... J.

Tina Berning, you're my hero...

...a few more from the first year experiments batch, these first two are a direct copy of the amazing illustrator Tina Berning and the last is my own image 'borrowing' from her style - I did really love doing these and it felt like they were really going somewhere... but then I got sidetracked with other projects.  Next year we get a lot more time and room to focus more on our own projects, subject matter and style so I'll definitely be coming back here and trying to take on some of her technique without straight thievery... (apologies for the less than sharp quality of the scanning!).

Back to the 1st Year...

...as I had meant to start a blog when I first got to University (but never did), I thought I'd post some work from way back then - a lot of the work from last year is really only fit to stay in the sketchbooks of course - very useful work so that I could learn all I needed to learn, but not fit for Blog eyes.  So here is a small selection of my favourite images from last year:

These ones were an experimentation with fashion illustration (without it being about the fashion) and I was also looking a lot at the work of the exceptional Tina Berning, who I'm an enormous fan of (http://www.tinaberning.de/) - I loved experimenting with the inks and want to have another go at it - these images are a little bit generic  but not bad for a first attempt, I particularly like the drip effect - it would be great to get a bit looser and put some of my own character into the work - so, I'll have to get my inks out again soon.

Anthropomorphic...

...here are 2 sketches still in progress, they both need the human side of them worked on to give the child part a bit more character but I'm looking forward to seeing the finished articles...

In the meantime, I'm working on some promotional material to send out to agents and potential clients - it's a Uni project but nonetheless something I'll most likely use.  I'll post something up once I've got enough to show... till then, J.

Ugly...

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/3571081/piccola-jo?claim=axy34gv9xn4">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

The incredibly ugly link above is somehow supposed to enable my friends to view my blog through Facebook, quite how I can't imagine but my faith in technology is now enormous - so apologies for the lack of aesthetic value, here's hoping it works... in the meantime to compensate for the lack of beauty, how about a bit of my most favourite Fashion photographer, Melvin Sokolsky... J.

The Sign...

With thanks to the ever brilliant website Flavorwire for this little gem.  Never has such a joyous version of a terrible pop song been sung - the anecdote and dance moves has made me see Ace of Base’s 1993 megahit in a whole new light, enjoy... J.

Birth of a Blog...

One of mine from September 2011, it's a theme I think I'm going to carry on with, 
so there'll be more a'comin...

Welcome to my long-promised Blog...

...I had intended to start doing this when I first came away to University but I reckon my head was just far too full trying to deal with settling into a new place far, far away from family and friends - not to mention the weird shift of pace... and it was very, very weird.

I'm coming up to what feels like the peak of my 2nd Year at the University of Gloucestershire and I feel like I've done all my learning in the last 6 months.  It's been amazing so far - amazing, terrifying, hard work, stressful, joyous and puzzling, but I have, above all else, loved the ride.  We're required to start up a blog for a research project (see the tabs above) which will run throughout the 3rd year - once I got it set up, I realised how easy it was to get a blog going, so I decided to finally join the blogasphere (is that the correct terminology?) as I always said I would.

I'm not completely sure what I'll use these pages for, I'm guessing that it will literally be somewhere to post cool stuff I find or am sent, my own work as it progresses and general musings on life - no doubt it will gain momentum as I get more used to the whole thing.  I think I'm going to like it here...

...till the next post, J.