30 day challenge, logo completion and an annoucement!

Hey all, I've done a little more art this week, although I've had a headache pretty much all week.
I've watched a random video on Photoshop on how to draw smooth lines, and it pretty much boils down to doing it quick, and drawing from the elbow, not the wrist. I knew this before (the wrist thing), but never really applied it, so I've been practising with the motion today and guess what? My lines are better :)

The kickstarter campaign for Schoolism has finished, I think I'm starting mine in October. I've been watching a few of Bobby Chiu's vids on youtube this week, so talented!!

On twitter I noticed in my feed a behance page called The Pocketbook of 120 tips from featured creative from the design world. I'm not far into it but there's a pretty decent 30 day drawing challenge. So day 1 is to tell you I've started. Let's call that yesterday. Day 2 is today, and although I kind of started it yesterday I've done most of the work today:

Make a logo of your face with your name which describes your personality - smiley and bright! I did want to use bright purple text, but it was lost in my brown hair

So for the week ahead (it'll be interesting to see if I do all of these!)
Day 3: Make an illustration of your favourite number
Day 4: Choose 3 awesome graphic designers and try to make a new design mixing their styles.
Day 5: Redesign the logo of the nearest shop.
Day 6: Choose 2 objects. Mix them.
Day 7: Make a logo for an astronaut's umbrella shop.
Day 8: Draw something with your left hand.

The link for The Pocketbook can be found here:
www.behance.net/gallery/24768773/The-Pocketbook
And it's on a Creative Commons license :)

Oh, and I think I've finally finalised a design for my logo!! Although I'm torn between 2, so please see both below, let me know if you prefer one over the other!

I was eating dinner yesterday and heard something fall over in our bedroom. My canvas I've been working on had fallen over. There's no damage to the canvas or the frame, but I've now put the canvas away as I have no motivation to finish it right now.

The London MCM Comic Con was last weekend, and I really wish I had gone. I've not been to the one in London, but I've been to the Birmingham one, and Collectormania in Milton Keynes. Both have not been great. There's a really good convention on when I'm on holiday, there are so many Game of Thrones stars there, and we'll be nowhere close to go :( I've even looked into getting a little flight from where we're holidaying to London, but there only do 2 flights a day, one there and one back, so it's not worth it. Oh well, there will be more cons in the future.

The trailer tent is coming on nicely, we picked up a bottle of gas from our town, hooked it up to the little oven that came with the trailer tent and it works fine! The lights don't work though, I think we'll need to buy a light board to make the trailer road-legal. While I was at the shop buying gas they also sell a small range of tools, so I managed to get a drill bit for drilling a 30mm hole for my brewing buckets so I can get a bitter and a lager kit brewing. Although to be honest since I started Slimming World in Feb I haven't been drunk since then, so 2 beer kits will probably last us into next year!! We're supposed to be having a heatwave next weekend, I've asked the other half to get the summer clothes out of the loft, I wonder what clothes will be too big on me now?! That's the nice thing about losing weight (I've been overweight for 10 years), I can buy clothes that actually look good now rather than fit for funtionality, and I get a massive confidence boost to boot!

Anyway, I have an announcement to make (which I can't make until tomorrow, all will become clear). It's probably not a big deal for anyone reading this blog, but it's a huge deal for me. I don't know who reads this blog from my twitter feed, as I have friends and colleagues on there, so I need to keep it secret until tomorrow. And for anyone wondering (and for the people that know me), I'm not pregnant!!

More art, but starting to focus more on graphic design

I worked a bit more on my canvas last week, unfortunately the picture I took of it was when it was drying, so the blue colour in the middle looks a lot lighter than it actually is:

I spent about another 1.5 hours on this from last week. I'm happier with the clouds on this now, as at least they look like clouds, but I still need to add more shadows and highlights, rather than them just being a flat purple colour!
Something from my first picture of this as well is that initially it looked more like a sunset, and it's actually a sunrise, adding in a little of the green to the sky has helped with this.
However, on this day when I painted it I wasn't happy with the colours at all, eventually I gave up for the evening (rage-quit!) as it was making me more and more frustrated. I've yet to go back to it, I tend to paint on a Sunday at the moment, but we have another Bank Holiday tomorrow, so I will probably paint tomorrow.

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but I've come across a website called Briefbox, which is where they post fake briefs to give designer something to practise with. I was over the moon when I found this, as I've been struggling to create briefs for myself to keep me busy and boost my portfolio. So this afternoon I've worked on a cafe menu, and the initial design only took 20 mins (which I think is a bad thing). However the brief said they wanted the new menu to reflect the qualities of their cafe (and to be 3 colours max): relaxed ambience. So I opted for a simply elegant design:

I did toy with the idea of adding a watermark, but the 'simple' design I came up with just looked like a child had done it, so I scrapped that idea. I've submitted it to Briefbox anyway, and I'll upload it to my portfolio too.

Week in week out I'm applying for graphic design job near where I live. I thought I might've been in with a chance at one job, but after speaking to the agency the design house wanted someone with good HTML & CSS knowledge. I only have basic HTML knowledge, and no CSS knowledge, so guess what I'm learning now! It seems graphic designers in this country seem to be a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to graphic design, not only does it encompass graphics, but web design, design for social media, etc. Good job I like learning new things!
The agency called me back and said they may be willing to train someone too, so here's hoping I get an interview!

I haven't worked any further on my logo yet, although I think I know what names I'm going to use. I think now I've done something for Briefbox (and my portfolio) I'll get working on my logo.

Anyway, as I've been teasing for weeks, please find below my original logo design:

Why does everything on this blog make white backgrounds slightly grey?

However I didn't like the name as:
1) It was too '90's'.
2) It reminded me of my old places of work

Also, (and again not sure if I've mentioned this), my partner and I think we've finally thought of a company name to run our own mobile catering business, so I get to design not one, but two logo's!

So I have plenty to be getting on with next week, hopefully I'll have a bumper crop of pics to show! 

Starting my landscape piece & Schoolism

Well, what a wonderful week of weather we've had here in Blight! (That isn't sarcasm) We've been going for a walk every single evening, so I've not had any time to do art or research going freelance this week! That and the fact I committed to spring cleaning the house the next weekend we have crappy weather (which is this weekend).

I did however start my new painting on Sunday last week, as we didn't get the internet back until Monday. I bought a new easel from our local stationery shop, and now I have something to rest my canvas on.

I've had an idea for painting a bigger picture for a while, and last Sunday I had this dilemma with my spare time in the evening; play South Park's The Stick Of Truth, or start my painting, so I did the latter, and I'm glad I did:



Believe it or not that's supposed to be a sunrise!

I've spent 2 hours on that piece so far, acrylic on canvas, and I'm hoping to work on in some more today. I did do another piece before this, on a tiny canvas, it was a Formula 1 car, but I forgot to take a photo of it (I'm writing this at the in-laws so no option to take a photo either), and it's rubbish, I could not get the cockpit to look right! I'll post the picture next week.

I've also signed up to Schoolism's Kickstarter campaign, where I get 2 months' of access to one of their online courses. I've been interested in Bobby Chiu's stuff for a while, so it's great he's making his courses so affordable.

No internet!

We've had no Internet since Friday! So this will be a quick post as in writing it on my mobile.

I haven't done anything in the way of art this week, except do a ton of research for going freelance.

I did buy an artists' easel, of which my blank canvas now sits on :) Now I won't get backache when I paint!

Anyway, I've thought of another name to trade by,  but no designs yet. We should have Internet for next week,  so I'll post pictures of design process of creating my initial logo. I'll also be researching more still for going freelance, but I'm getting itchy fingers again to do more art, so i should have something to show you next week!

Have a fantastic week!