Shop Til You Drop

Yes, this is me - looking pretty tired!

Today has been quite a long day, with myself being in school from 8:30 today! As much as I love the art of Illustration, it definitely has it up and down days. I sometimes think being at art school has turned me into a slight schizophrenic – some days I’m manically happy, the next absolutely miserable. At the moment though, I’m happy to say the least even though there has been a few hiccups with projects I’ve been working on and juggling uni around with my part time job and a design theory essay deadline looming.

I was featured in Shop Til You Drop magazine in Australia as you can see - which I received in the post a few days ago from my lovely cousin. I feel I’ve been waiting so long to see it in print!

I’ve been working really hard with my group for our Press Print artist books’ project but it should be finished in the next couple of days, and is looking good from the Photoshop mock up. We’re going to screen print it in a black blue, salmon and light chestnut brown colour. I also did another project with Gylemuir primary school which was a nice change getting to work with children – although I don’t think I could do it as a full time job!

I’m going to postpone my images of the Press Print for now, as I’d rather wait till they’re printed and in their laser etched boxes! I’m doing laser cutting tomorrow (at a small fortune) and planning on doing my fox brooch in walnut so it should be up in my Etsy store soon.

There are a few exciting things coming up and my last project of the year is an eight week one, with the theme of “Character”. I haven’t had a chance to think what I’d like to do yet for it, but I’m planning on doing printmaking if I can!

Amelia's Magazine

I also contributed a quick piece for Amelia's Magazine's article on Charini Eco Lingerie Fashion. It took me a day so it wasn't as developed as I would have liked, but I'm happy with it for a one day project. I was inspired by the Sri Lankan deer and the phrase "airing out your dirty laundry in public" which isn't that appropriate, really(!)

You can view the article here.

My Working Process

As you can see, I tend to work from my bedroom. I am guilty of being an illustration hermit but I find I get distracted easily in the studio. I worked from photographs I did with my friend Seb Singh on Saturday using my lovely friend Jess (Dress Me Best) as my model. This is the series of images I'm working on for my Böö Press Print Project at Edinburgh College of Art for the Glasgow Artist Book Fair in April.

The theme is Shamanism, so I'm working from a range of contemporary and historical influences. The end result should hopefully be screen printed in a limited colour palette, (at the moment I've chosen brown , black and pink). There are four others in my group, Emma Alqvhist, Danielle Callaghan, Emily Katagiri, and Sorcha Fitzergerald. I've used some different techniques in my work for this print, using inky pens for the feather hair band and some digital colouring. We hope to have the work as A5 screen prints and put them inside a handmade box with tissue paper tp separate the images. We may have a laser etched logo of some kind on the cover or even a laser cut stamp. I'm really excited for this project so hope we can pull it off well! Pictures to come.

i've been so blue without you.

Enter the Dragon

OK, I know it’s a cheesy way to introduce a new post. But after being very disengaged from the internet world (apart from sadly to tell the truth, rummaging through Urban Outfitters & Topshop online and Facebook), I am going to try and make more out of my blogging again. (I really dislike the word ‘blogging’ - it just sounds so distasteful.)

It is coming into the year of the Dragon - my year - which makes it that little bit extra special for me as I am a little bit auspicious. Must be the Asian genes. I’ve had some good news in terms of my illustration work… I’m being featured in Shop Til You Drop magazine in Australia next month and I am hopefully going to produce some new items for my Etsy store, some of which may be sent down to the Nook & Cranny store in Liverpool’s Blue Coat Gallery very soon.

I have and haven’t enjoyed the first semester of my second year of ECA. We did a project with William Goldsmith and Michael Kirkham - both of their illustration work I can admire although drastically different from my own. The first three projects consisted of two sequential illustration projects and a more self-directed project of ‘Edinburgh as a Utopia’ working within a digital medium. This semester I have started the gradual progression to working digitally. I even got a Macbook Pro, which I now adore (yes I am trying to become a ‘real’ designer/illustrator!). A first for me; but is making work a lot more efficient and definitely a new learning curve for myself.

2012 has been a bit of whirlwind so far. I went to Amsterdam last week with my significant other, although I didn’t do anything that cultural except smoke and eat cakes and go to the Erotic Museum and get paranoid in Burger King. The most cultural part (and indulgent) of my holiday was our visit to Artis Zoo, which I loved. It even had an aquarium and butterfly farm. The marmosets were definitely one of my favourites, although I never found the sloths in the open area zoo.

In other news, I also found out a few days ago, that I won a competition from Vice magazine - so in the space of two weeks I’m off travelling again down with my other half to London to go on the Eurostar to Paris to see Woodkid perform on the Eiffel Tower. I can’t wait! My plan is to do lots of drawing, a bit of dancing and eat Laduree macarons. Yum.

Shall keep you posted.

Laura x

oh, eca, how i've missed you!

My first week back to ECA has been a little over anticipated as expected but none the less, nice to be back. I was given my first project of this semester called 'A Day in The Life' where we were asked to go out and buy a junk item and write and illustrate a story about said item. My chosen object happened to be this delightful pair of budgies I found in the wonderful junk and antiques shop called Relics in Glasgow. Love at first sight, literally.

So far, my idea for my story is a little sketchy. I have been watching a million budgie related videos, watching their behaviour. I came across certain quirks that budgies have, such as falling in love with their own reflection and repeating the words of others which happened to remind me of the greek mythology tale of the two nymphs, Narcissus and Echo. I'm loosely interpreting my story around that, but it's still fairly early in the research and developmental stages at the moment.

I have started doing some roughs and here is, finally some new work! Excuse my first poor attempts at digital colouring. Yes, possibly by the end of my degree I will have skills in being a photoshop master but this will do for now. At the end of this project I should have around 5 illustrations altogether but I am hoping to experiment in printmaking and possibly some other materials depending on where things to lead to. Soon to come!

after a short interval.

Saos Bras de Alportel, Portugal

After what seems to have felt like a very long summer, it is definitely heading into autumn. My illustration work has sadly been a little stagnant as I have been working two mediocre jobs and took a little trip to Portugal with my other half. I've cut down my jobs now and I have just started a new part time job at Mango. I am also going to be entering into my second year at Edinburgh College of Art as of next week. I can't express how excited I am to go back to school and indulge in doing illustration again! I feel like things have definitely improved for the better in these last few months.

Bucks and Does is now for sale in Analogue in Edinburgh so feel free to pop in and pick up a copy! I definitely felt like I learnt a lot from this project but I would be interested in doing something similar again. I finally bought a printer and scanner so I will upload some of my new work in due course. I really feel like I need to learn some technical skills this year and get back into doing printmaking and learning more about photoshop and illustrator. In other news although my Etsy shop hasn't taken off completely yet, but its been nice to have it there for promoting my work and have sold a couple of pieces which I'm of course, very happy about!

I will be posting up some new work as soon as I can so watch this space!