Interview

I was interviewed recently by my alma mater, Cardiff Metropolitan University.

Goodbye University

The show is over! And it was great success :)

Check out these reviews:
Illustrators Wales
Plastik Magazine
Ein Caerdydd (welsh)
There was a lot of twitter buzz too, but I don't have a twitter and, as a direct result, don't keep up with it very well.

Really pleased. Proud of everyone who worked so hard!

It's kind of surreal to think that's the end of uni ..for now anyway (I've been flirting with the idea of doing a master's in a few years...). I feel like I'm supposed to feel like something, but all I can think of is getting on with things and making sure I'm set for rent and food and such lol. It should be interesting being out of full time education for the first time in my life.. like a magic box of secrets!

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Cardiff Illustration Degree Show 2011

official website

This Friday is going to be SPECTACULAR! So if you can, come!

RSVP on Facebook.

the above poster was illustrated by Daniel Hamilton

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Down to Business

truth

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10 reasons not to go to the gym

I really enjoyed doing this one! It's been a while since I've enjoyed doing anything this much.. And oddly enough, the most fun part was the editing bit where I got to put all the words on! haha

I was looking through some of my stuff today (just from the past two or three months actually) and I think I'm getting better at this. There was a lot of thinking and stress since the beginning of third year as I tried to sort out some illustration mysteries. And it took a lot of blood, sweat and tears (and conversations (sometimes heated debates) with Daniel Hamilton) to finally get myself out of the dark place of pessimism and coldness.. but it feels good to be able to see other things besides doom and gloom.

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Socialbot is Sociable

He really knows how to break the ice.

I could probably learn a thing or two from socialbot.

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Wind vs Nuclear

Still trying to figure out the secrets of illustration through editorial.

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RockManItOff

rockin' classic

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Giddy Giraffes and Rocket Pillows

yummy comic brights!

Blogger had a hiccup and deleted everything from yesterday onwards so I don't remember what I said before, but enjoy!

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The Princess and the P--

True story.

Don't judge me. I was very young at the time. Maybe this little misunderstanding was what led to my love of language and appreciation for puns...

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Dawn of the Robots!

We had a workshop with Bristol-based Norwegian freelance illustrator, Øivind Hovland*, yesterday after his Monday Muse talk the previous day and both the talk and the workshop were really interesting and helpful! The Muse was about his inspirations and how he goes about getting work, and the workshop was about targeted self-promotion (using screen printing! yay!). So, basically, there was a lot of goodness packed into those two days.
I really want to get into editorial illustration (perhaps this is hard to tell from the kinds of things I've been doing...I shall fix this!), so I decided to target a magazine (in this case Wired) and do a screen printed pretend cover illustration (or I guess without the "Wired" logo, it could be a spot illustration? maybe..).

Anyway, I now have 15 little prints of this fashionable "Wired" robot... If anyone wants one, let me know! lol

* Be sure to check out his work; it's so worth a look!

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Crit Group Poster

I screen printed a poster for the Crit Group that I and Helen host.

I need to take some good photos of all my screen prints one day because I am not doing them any justice this way :(

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snake, rabbit redo and workspace

Here is 'RABBIT' booklet's other half.

The words are the lyrics to Katy Carr's song Snake's Kiss. I also altered the Rabbit booklet a little bit and exchanged the words for Florence + The Machine's Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) lyrics. Both still need a lot of tweaking in order to work, though, and all the altering of things these days is making me feel a bit rubbish.

I have a new workspace now at one of our closer campuses (Howard Gardens)... But it has not increased my rate of productivity (actually I think it may be hindering it)... Also I need lessons in how to make workspaces pretty (and inspiring and cosy and encouraging and happy).

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Dissertation: Exploring Dream-Narratives in Film

 

This forty-nine page book represents all of my cognitive processes over the past few months (since about May 2010 to January 2011). I have realised that I wouldn't mind helping people proof-read their work for a little extra cash.

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RABBIT

This is a project I'm working on for my Real World module. After getting my dissertation printed and sending it to be bound(!!), I printed off the file for this booklet. I just cut and folded it MOMENTS AGO!

  

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Les Reines Bleues 01

Here we have the first page of a potential two and a half page comic to express an idea about sense and nonsense.

Not totally satisfied with the speech bubbles... but it was all rather fun to do. I have so many plans and I'm so very excited about just getting on with things. Tomorrow begins great things!

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A tower floating into dreams

Putting together a simple diagram for my dissertation, but I may just scrap it altogether because I'm not so sure if it's doing its job like it should be...

Obviously I was not cut out for making diagrams (also I think the wording is confusing).
I'll fix it later.

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P.S. Look what it's doing to me! ;o;

turning me schitzo...

Floating Ideas

While moaning about having nothing worth posting I had the thought "I usually enjoy seeing people's sketchbook pages. Why not post some more stuff from my sketchbooks?" So, for now, that is precisely what I'm going to do! :)

These are the ideas floating in my head at the moment, each described in one word.

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sketchbook sequential scribbles and stuff

Hiya!

I've been focussing on dissertation work recently so, while the practical work hasn't stopped by any means, I've not been doing as much finished stuff. Not to mention I've been battling with some creative frustrations and people frustrations that seem to be keeping me from getting on with things...
A few wee (A6) sketchbook pages follow. Some things are plans for current pieces, others are just floating ideas...

and I've recently gotten back into posemaniacs.

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Shadow Play Illustration Symposium

Last week from Tuesday to Thursday was the Cardiff School of Art and Design Illustration Symposium: Shadow Play. Many of the papers were relevant to my dissertation and it was an enjoyable evening overall. I should have blogged about it beforehand, but I was so busy it totally slipped my mind.
I only managed to attend Wednesday afternoon's talks, but it was so worth it. I wish I'd been able to go to all the talks over the full three days and I hope to get the chance to go to more events like it.

You can find photos of the event at the Illustration Research blog.

Photos from the Big Draw with which I assisted, Postcards from the Future, to come soon!

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