Alexis Winter

While browsing the internet earlier, i found the work of Alexis Winter; an Australian Illustrator who is currently studying for a masters in Communication Design but also posts a lot of her illustration work online.

I love her illustration style; it is quirky and detailed and she has been able to capture a message in most pieces of her work.

Visit her website:

www.alexiswinter.com

On Etsy:

http://www.etsy.com/uk/people/alexiswinter

University Progression

I have now made a decision as to where I would like to study next year and yesterday I submitted my UCAS application. My final choices are; Chester University, Leeds college of Art, Nottingham Trent, Birmingham City and Norwich University of the Arts. I used all five of my choices on my application because I think it is important to have a solid back up. My digital portfolio is almost finished and I will be able to make this available online for people to view.

University Progression

Over the past few months I have been looking at and visiting universities in preparation for applying via UCAS this term.
I have visited the following:
University of Chester
Leeds college of art
Nottingham Trent
Staffordshire university

For each of these I need about 280 UCAS points which is the equivalent of DMM in my level 3 BTEC.
Currently this is my predicted grade based on the projects I have done over my first year. I would be happy to get these, however i would like to try and get a higher grade.

My favourite university so far is Chester, this is because of many reasons; I love the area, Chester is a small city full of character and individual businesses, they are also one of the safest cities in England. The Art and Design area in the university is on its own separate campus- The Kingsway Building.
The advantages of this is that it is very focused upon art and design and the facilities can be shared by various different courses. The facilities were great, they appeared to have plenty of equipment and resources and students seem to have utilised these facilities as you can see from the quality of work.
The building is only a short walk away from the main campus and the city centre which is ideal.

Leeds college of art also has its advantages with it specialising in art related subjects and great facilities throughout. It felt inspiring and quite small which is good because I think a large campus can be quite daunting.
Nottingham Trent was a another university I was looking forward to visit and when I arrived I found the open day incredibly organised including bags with student recipes, accommodation information and various other things about the university. I then went to a talk about their graphic design course where I was given a really helpful sheet that gave me information on what I need to put in my portfolio and the interview process. I think this will be helpful for any university that I apply to. When we went on a tour of the facilities they didn't appear to be quite so good as those I had seen at other universities and the large class sizes I found off putting.
When I went to Staffordshire university, again I found the facilities and resources were good and the staff seemed very passionate about their jobs. The studio was set out nicely and we were able to see some work from students.

I will certainly apply to all of these universities because I think they all bear good prospects for the future.

Personalised Cards

I went to the treacle market in Macclesfield a couple of weeks ago and while i was there i found a company which creates personalised name prints for children using a range of different themes. I took a business card from them and had a look at some of their products. It will soon be the birthday of my counsin's baby and so i was looking for something individual to get him, however instead of spending lots of money on something, i decided to have a go at designing something myself.

It needed to be something appropriate for a young child and so i decided to use a space theme because who wouldn't want to be an astronaut at the age of 1!

I looked at the characters in his name: SAM and thought about how i could incorporate the theme into it. 

I downloaded a good sans-serif font from Dafont and installed this onto my computer and opened it up on illustrator. I coloured the characters in a deep blue colour both fit for the space theme and for a boy and started to shape the A into a rocket, removing the counter and replacing it with a porthole. I also added an antenna to the top of the A and fire to the bottom.

I found the S and the M much harder to add to, however i decided to keep the A as the main character and simply add some hanging stars from the other two letters, i think it looks more symmetrical. 

I have some card blanks at home and so i have been playing around with my printing settings and have managed to do some test prints of the image which i'm pretty impressed with. I think it will make a lovely, personalised card for a birthday.

More sewing.

I am really starting to enjoy using the sewing machine now, I find it easy to thread and I have been looking into making different patterns.
I've found some really lovely places to buy fabric from in Chesterfield and Bakewell. The Fabric shop on Chatsworth Road has some really good value material and a wide range of different patterns and designs. 

I bought a small amount of material from a 'bargain box' just to play around with, but i have since used this to make four different objects on the sewing machine. 

I did have a few problems with the thread becoming stuck in the material and therefore jamming the machine and needle, but after sorting this out i managed to quickly start making again. 

Having not had much experience with a sewing machine before, i am pretty impressed with the results of my first few objects and have bought more material so i can hopefully work on some bigger projects and increase my knowledge of using a sewing machine. I think learning this skill is quite important, not to mention enjoyable!

Sewing!

Recently, I have seen a rise in shops selling fabrics and 'Vintage' styled products like cushions or phone cases. Having been pretty awful at using a sewing machine at school in the past, I had never thought about using one to make my own objects until recently when myself and my mum started buying little squares of fabric in an attempt to make something successfully.  We have two sewing machines at home, however they haven't been used in some years, so we took down both from the loft to see which would be better suited. The older sewing machine which was my grandad and grandmas actually worked better than the newer one. After some difficulty setting up and threading the sewing machine I finally managed to get the hang of it and as it turns out had more success with it than my mum.
I made a couple of small objects while still getting the hang of it, one of which was a scent bag that now hangs on a door in our living room but I also visited a fantastic fabric shop in chesterfield where I bought some scrap fabric for 50p in the hope of doing some more tests with the sewing machine. However, as the material was of a good quality and reasonable size, I thought about what else I could do with it. I had always liked the idea of making myself a case for my nexus tablet and so this is what I set out to do.
I already had the stuffing and the outer fabric but I wanted some for the lining- I found a white new bed sheet at a charity shop for about £2 which means I have plenty of fabric left over to use in later projects.
I layered my fabric, placing the flat stuffing between the two and began sewing from the inside out, once I had fully sewn it up, I snipped the inside corners down so that the outside corners could be pushed out fully and turned it around to the correct way. I was already really impressed with how it had turned out but I wanted to add something to it which would stop my tablet from falling out. I found some lovely ribbon I've had for a few years and a silver button which complimented it well. I hand sewed both of these on and It was done!
I am really impresses with how it has turned out, especially seeing as I haven't really made anything like it before, I will certainly be keeping up using the sewing machine!

Cards

A couple of years ago my media teacher introduced me to a gallery owner in Bakewell who was interested in a photographic calendar i had made for a project. He liked my photography, however he thought it could have a better potential on greetings cards and so i looked around and it took me awhile to make a decision on printing and choosing my photos. 

I contacted an artist who already exhibited in the gallery with his Photography work; Chris Gilbert at Ravenseye Gallery who I sent a few of my photos to. He gave me some advice on my photographs, helped me to choose the best ones and told me how much It would cost for him to print them. 

I firstly printed only a few to see how they sold at the gallery- I found that I only sold a few, however I managed to sell a lot at a festival I had helped to organise for a project I was currently doing. I then printed more cards but unfortunately this year the gallery I worked at and sold my cards at is no longer up and running. I think its such a shame that it can no longer run, but no one seems to be willing to spend their money on art anymore. 

Therefore, I now have my cards back all packaged up ready to be sold but no one to sell them too! I am currently looking around local galleries that may give my work a space, however it is difficult because there are a lot of different photographic cards around and very little room for more. 

If anyone could help me at all with this then I would be most greatful, especially if I would be able to print more cards and fresh designs. 

Mister Hope and The Green Man Gallery

I first met Mister Hope and saw his work at the Spring Gardens shopping centre in Buxton where he was holding a small exhibition. I was instantly drawn to his quirky illustrations which often use popular and well known characters from books and films. I have more recently seen his work in The Green Man Gallery based in Buxton, which is a large gallery space that allows local artists to exhibit their work, they currently have a few permanent artists but also take on guest artists. I love this gallery because it is so spacious and set out on different floors; not only are you free to wander around, you feel relaxed and able to appreciate the artwork. The Gallery is fairly new and was bought to life by a group of local artists who wanted to bring their artwork to the attention of the local people and subsequently were offered the current premises by Vision Buxton.

Mister Hope is one of the permanent artists at The Green Man Gallery and his work clearly stands out.
Taking inspiration from artists such as Quentin Blake and Tim Burton, Mister Hope has developed a unique style of his own- he often exaggerates a certain area of the character which makes the work so captivating and often humorous. He draws out the images and adds colour using watercolours if necessary, however he has recently started to do paintings using acrylics on canvas which has been as equally successful.

I really like this particular image because even though it looks basic and simplistic there is still an element of detail which he has focused on in the hair and you can without a doubt guess who the character is meant to be.

Mister Hope: http://misterhope.com/

The Green Man Gallery: http://thegreenmangallery.com/

Laura Vann Illustration

Laura Vann is an Illustrator and Graphic designer who after completing a masters degree in Visual Communication (Illustration) at the University of Derby, is a freelance designer specialising in children's picture book illustration. 

I really love Laura's illustrations; they are quirky and individual and i think her use of colour is really effective. 

Below are some of her illustrations found on her website here:

http://www.lauravannillustration.com/

Summer Bridging Days- Day 2

Today, we have had two visitors- Anthony Fern and Bew Knox both of which are designers at two different design agencies. Anthony is a previous student from Chesterfield college who studied both art and design and graphics and then left to go to university in (Epsom), he is now based at a large graphic design company around our area which specialises in the leisure industry and so he spends most of his time designing posters, flyers and other promotional material for bars, pubs etc. I think this is both a good thing and bad because although it may give you a good experience of designing for companies, it also doesn't give you a lot of good work for your portfolio which would mean designing outside of work, perhaps freelancing.
Bew seemed more experienced and had worked for longer in the industry than Anthony. I asked him if he thought it was better to be a designer in a big city or somewhere more rural, as coming from quite a rural location, I find the thought of moving into a big city quite daunting. He told me that working in both is great, however, you often find that working in a city at a larger company restricts your creativity in the sense that you are given a brief from a large company and you don't have much freedom to play around with the brand whereas more rural agencies may allow you to spend longer and be more creative with brands and companies. I think I prefer the idea of being able to have that freedom, but also I think it is important that you dont stray too far from the original brief.

Overall, i have really enjoy the past two days and i think they have been helpful as they have given me something to think about over the summer and i can hopefully start developing my portfolio and start thinking about where i'm going to go after my college course is finished.