I have a desk!

I didn't think this day would come so soon but there you have it :) I have a DESK!!!!!! A space to fill with all my art materials and make messy, and oh, how I shall make it messy ;) How I look forward to the day I can not find the one implement I need because it is buried under such glorious piles of "productive" mess! The person I need to thank for such a wonderful gift is my dad who has so kindly offered up this corner of his flat  for me to use and girlify! (I don't think he was expecting the bunting!). While the rest of the living room is strewn with coffee mugs, photography equipment, books on Proust, Karl Marx and Art, jam-jars filled with an assortments of brushes, bottles of linseed oils, bills and sketchbooks filled real Leonardo-esque drawings and oh-I-was-just-"scribbling" scribbles! in the corner you have....well, you have this.....

It's so pretty! and girly! I LOVE it! I don't know if dad quite realises what he's let himself in for but I look forward to updating you on the next pieces of artwork that come hot off that desk. Watch this space!!!

Photos!

So, I finally bit the bullet and checked my bank balance! I'm so bad, I don't check it that regularly, just try to keep a running total in my head of what I'm spending which is never very accurate.....I mean, I was never very good at maths at school so I don't know how I fool myself every time! But this time I had just a little bit extra money then I thought I had and so I decided to go for it and develop some of the film that has been accruing next to my bed! I started with the most recent as there are a couple of rolls that are so old I don't even know what's on them! I figured that they've waited so long already to to see the light of day that they can wait a bit longer. Anyway, here are some of my favourite snaps. I was quietly relieved when I got them back as I'd had to guess the correct exposures for some of them but they all came out ok.

Here are some shots from the D&AD show I took part in at the end of June. Most of my year ended up putting work up for it which was great to see. For those of you who don't know, D&AD is a show that happens every year in London where graduates from art fields such as Illustration, Graphics, Photography and Advertising get to display their work for potential clients to see.

Mine is the middle one above the pink hair!

As a parting thought, when I'm back home home, as in East Sussex as opposed to Plymouth, I like to get my photos developed at Colourstream in Brighton. They always do a really great job, know what they're talking about and have student discount aswell! Worth the trip if you're ever in the area and need film developed.

A little bit comic!

So, a couple of weeks ago, I uploaded an etching I did at the end of uni whose image I'd taken from the last scene of a comic I'd drawn a few months back. After I'd uploaded the etching I realised that I never actually put the comic up here which was very remiss of me at the time and which I will rectify now. The creation of this comic came about when some of my fellow students (namely Peter Maggs) took it upon themselves to organize a 24 hour comic event (something which Plymouth University's illustrations course has done for several years now but which has never been a student initiative before). I'd never even vaguely considered myself a comic book artist before but as my work had become increasingly narrative lead over second and third year, I thought this would be an interesting new challenge! The aim is to produce 24 pages of a comic book in 24 hours (that's 1 page an hour when you do the basic maths!) and if you want to see pictures of the event go have a look at Diana's blog. The images aren't expected to be of that great a quality as there simply isn't time to produce anything highly rendered if you want to reach the target. Here is the result of my 24 hours spent in the library among friends with sandwiches and mushroom pie.

Oh woe is me!

Make that 8 rolls of film sitting on my bedside table that I can't afford to get developed!

Lets get creative!

The Sketchbook Project, which I took part in last year, is starting again and it's time to sign up! For those looking for a creative project, and the impetus to get started, this is a great way to doing just that. This may look like cold and shameless advertising, but I strongly believe that anything that encourages people to be creative without any judgement should be shouted about. I'm going to be doing it. It would be nice if you joined me.

Talking of book-binding...

Having spoken of book-binding in my previous post, me and some friends actually did some the other day. It was a nice way to finish off the year, by making a sketchbook to draw in in the future. 

It was Diana Mazuru's idea to make the sketchbooks.

 Hannah Grace's sketchbook is small but perfect. And I like her nails too!

 True to form, I took up the most room. All the mess at the front is mine!

 That isn't book-binding I hear you say! But Dave Hooper's drawings are pretty good!

 The finished thing.

I cut out all the unused pages from all the sketchbooks I've used while at uni to make this sketchbook.

Wish list...

Does anyone else use the "Wish list" button on Amazon? I couldn't quite figure it out for a while; all the books I really wanted to buy were so cheap on Amazon that I didn't need to add it to a wish list, I could get it then and there. But then I became a student and also started coming across really lovely books that definitely couldn't cost 1p. Weeds and Wild Flowers by Alice Oswald and Jessica Greenman was the first one I put aside to remind myself that when I had enough money that should be one of the first things I did with it. The next one on my wish list is this one:

In fact, for anyone who loves books, and particularly well made ones like those beautiful clothbound classics that Penguin started publishing a couple of years ago, or just one-of-a-kind artist books, then you should take a look at  Purgatory Pie Press which was set up by the author Esther K. Smith and her husband Dikko Faust. This book, How to Make Books, does exactly what it says on the label but what's really good is that all the techniques are super easy to do at the kitchen table. It made it onto my wish list by virtue of that fact. I love book binding (I did an A level in it and it was sooooooo FUN!) but now that I'm moving back home where there will be little to no space to spread book binding paraphernalia, it seems imperative that I look for ways to keep up my artwork with limited fuss. How to Make Books is exactly the kind of inspiration I need :).