Schoolism complete

So I finished Schoolism last Monday, and listened to the book excerpt from Bobby Chiu. It was quite insightful. I feel from doing the Painting Creatures course I've learned a lot, and also learned how to figure out quick and easier ways of doing things. I've also learned that using reference is not cheating if applied correctly, although I've learned this several times in the past few years it still comes back to give me a kick up the arse.

As such, since finishing the Schoolism course I've done no art at all. Nothing. Nada. Zip. So I did a few figure drawings this evening:

On Friday I attended my first Christmas party for my new job, and I was absolutely annihilated. I've never had a hangover so bad - I was still being sick at 8pm on Saturday! Needless to say this has inspired me to come out with quotes I'll never stick to, like 'I'm never drinking again'. I probably won't drink too much over Christmas now as I've had my blow-out for the Christmas period.

I'm off to Amsterdam on Thursday as part of my birthday celebrations (the big 3-0, eek!). Don't think I'll be drinking much while there, but I have some expeditions planned - the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh museum, and we have a couple of shows at the Boom Chicago comedy club booked too. I can't wait! I went to Amsterdam a few years ago, and loved it so much that I've always wanted to go back. It's such a vibrant city, and we didn't do half of what we wanted to do the last time we were there. That, and the fact we were knackered from walking around on the first day didn't leave us with much energy to enjoy the city for the remainder of our time there.

Well, I hope you're all getting ready for Christmas - I managed to put my boyfriend off from putting up the Christmas tree until 3rd December, and now it looks like a festive elf has sneezed all over our living room; there's tinsel everywhere!

Well, right now I'm going to finish watching my recording of The Hunt, narrated by David Attenborough. I love everything he narrates, and the camera skills of the crew for this series are just astonishing.

I won't be posting a blog post next week due to said holiday above :)

And last but not least, my Pinterest of the Week: http://batkamal.tumblr.com/post/70928746752

Becoming a recluse!

I finally knuckled down to do some homework this weekend, and have literally not left the house all weekend. I've completed video 2 and assignment 2 of the Schoolism workshop I'm doing, and just about completed week 2 of the Start Writing Fiction course I'm doing with FutureLearn.

I've just finished watching video 3 of the Schoolism course, and realised I've just been drawing animals, not creatures, as the title of the course suggests 'Painting Creatures', duh! So now I need to go back and create some creatures. That'll be in next week's blog entry. However from video 2 I've been learning all about drapery, and had to sketch a couple of things to learn different drapes:

With hindsight the rhino didn't have that many folds in its skin to study, I should've picked something more wrinkly...

Video 3 is going back to my original creature sketches, but I now need to draw some creatures, not animals that already exist.
Also, for week 2 of my Start Writing Fiction course I need to write the start of (or complete) story, no more than 500 words. I'm finding the course quite interesting, and it's harder than I thought it would be, but I'm getting some good feedback from other people on the course.

I've seen this video before but thought I'd share it, as I particularly like the part about showing up to do your part of something, even if some other part of you struggles: https://youtu.be/86x-u-tz0MA

And, as promised I would do a Pinterest of the week. I spent a fair bit of time yesterday trying to find something, then I happened across something which I knew would be right, as it's so cute. Hope you enjoy! http://www.duitang.com/people/mblog/50764978/detail/

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!