I Like…..Birds

Here is one of my first attempts at designing using Illustrator. Its good fun but I’m starting to think its really not me. Well, I suppose if I became totally fluent using it, but at the moment it just looks very flat and unsophisticated. Ah, well, early days.As you can see I haven’t even worked out how to save the file properly as this image shows the whole work space not just the printable part!

I’ve had some good feedback from New Designers this week- a weeks work placement at Tigerprint and an invitation to work with an agent based in Cheshire. Tigerprint design all the gift ranges for Marks&Spencer and are a branch of Hallmark so it should be interesting seeing how that industry works. The agent also sounds really positive, she seemed to really like the work she’d seen in London.

Its difficult at the moment because of the school holidays. I really want to get on and DO something, work on a project, start the rest of my life post CCAD, but its too tempting to be distracted by the children and the garden. Everyone seems to want feeding all the time and never at the same time and never the same thing!

I had a look at Carl and Lyndsay’s blogs and they both seem to be busy being creative.Carl is working on T-shirt designs which will be for sale at Darlington Creative Market…I’m not sure what or when this is so I’ll have to find out more because it sounds like it might be worth a day out. Lyndsay is about to do some work placement at Hallmark.

Time for coffee and making plans.

“If Birds Sing Through Life Then Why Can’t We?”

Good news… I finally got paid today for the work I sold at Indigo in February!

Bad news… The cheque will only half cover the cost of a new wheel and random piece of plastic for the car after I hit a rock in the road last week. Sheep had knocked a bit of the wall down and it was impossible to avoid on a blind corner, oh dear.

This week I’ve been spending quite a lot of time ( but not enough) doing these paper designs which I’m taking over to the agent tomorrow.I’m going to spend some time at the studio watching how they do things and probably being told I’ve been wasting my time with the painting I’ve done this week! I can’t help feeling that since my strong point is embroidery and loose, expressive drawing, I’m not really showing my work at its best…

I do quite like the one with the orange flowers though, I’ve added one stitched flower and it would look nice as a large design on a child’s T-shirt perhaps.The birds on the left look a bit better now they have some legs on.

Other good news this week does NOT include the inevitable rain which just won’t stop and which has made the water from the taps turn the colour of John Smith’s Best Bitter. I did get an e-mail from “Trend Bible” who have asked for images to go in their publication which forecasts fashion trends for future seasons. They liked the red and white bear dress, which is also my favorite.So I sent a good quality image via the old dial -up set up and after 29 minutes realized I had sent it to myself!

Right, Its time to play Illustrator and drink a little more coffee.The scene below is my kitchen table looking like a hive of industry.Its cold though, I need something to light the fire. Its JULY!

Green

I’ve been trying to make some of the experimental designs I did on fabric at college,into “flat” paper designs for an agent. She was interested in some of my work, but wanted them clean and flat. I’m not sure if I’m doing what she wants, it feels a bit as though I’m working backwards and over simplifying things.Anyway, I’m having a go but need to work about 100% faster and stop being distracted by the other bits of life.

As I have said before, Osmotherley is full of talented people and I have recently been talking to Lynne Hugill who has set up a business designing web sites with an “eco” theme. Lynne has worked as a designer for a lot of big companies, including Disney, but her passion is green issues within fashion and design. If you’re thinking of building a web site for yourself take a look at Bamboo Web Design and keep it green! Anyway, I’m hoping she’s going to share some of her knowledge with me and a few others by giving us some much needed “Illustrator” lessons.

I think could do with some photography lessons too but here is the Willow House in full bloom, with Jake’s half finished door…that sunny weekend seems along time ago, I think we had visions of lazy days full of picnics and outdoor living, but its not turning out to be that kind of summer. The rainbow was the biggest, fattest rainbow I’ve ever seen, now if only the pot of gold was just the other side of that wall…

Designer Bookbinders

Here is just a quick post to say that there is a small piece in this month’s “Crafts” magazine about our local bookbinding star Angela James (see archive ” A Walk In The Woods” May’08 ). Along with 30 other members of the Designer Bookbinders group Angela was invited to design a cover for an exhibition celebrating the work of Welsh landscape artist Kyffin Williams. Her work will be on show at Contemporary Applied Arts this August and has inspired me to take a look at Kyffin’s painting which I am not familiar with.

Also today I have spent money I don’t have on paint so that I can try and do some designs on paper. I’m also looking into getting some lessons on Adobe Illustrator which seems to be what people “in the industry” want.

New Designers (or, Down in the Tube Station at Midnight)

Hello! Its been a while, due to extreme technical difficulties (a broken power cable for my vintage Mac). So anyway, YES!!!!, the rumour is correct, I did get a first, which is a big first for me! Its been a long journey from Foundation Course drop-out back in Harrogate in the 80’s to finally graduating twenty years later! I must admit it was bitter sweet getting my results as I walked towards Highbury on Upper Street, remembering how much I had hated my first attempt at a degree, Applied Social Science at North London Poly! I was in London for New Designers along with all the rest of my group. A week of highs and lows…the first low being when I saw how my work had been hung…too high to comfortably look at the embroidery. And the highs including the after party at the Carling Academy and some lovely walks along the river in the sunshine.In the pictures( sorry about the quality I only had my phone) you can see some views of the stand with Lyndon and Jayne making notes and Sara Collins in front of my work as well as Sam Bullock’s and Lyndsay McBean’s. Sara deserved to get alot more attention for her designs which I would love to see actually made up into clothes – really lovely screen prints on satin for womenswear and bold prints in quirky colour combinations on little girls dresses.

This is the view from the café and shows the roof of the Business Design Center which leaked overnight on Friday and ruined some work on our stand…compensation claims are already in!

Back on Witchmountain the garden has run wild in my absence and the lawn is a meadow of Clover and fallen Rose petals. If the rain ever stops I will sort it out but for now I must return to drawing and catching up with possible contacts from New Designers.

Have a great summer CCAD folk, well done and keep in touch.

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