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Exhibition, fame, rejection, festivals, fashion, jewellery, jumbles and creosote!

There has been lots going on since my last update. Obviously I have been generally sort of panicking about my exhibition at Sheffield Showcase which starts next Wednesday 1st June. In between, gathering frames and mount boards (and incredibly expensive mount board cutter - £21 I ask you!), looking at pictures in various frames, changing them around, thinking what to leave in/out, etc. There's no shortage of pieces to include and I have until next Tuesday to continue musing on the best combination of pieces and the best way to present them.

This week in preparation, and to publicise the event, I emailed some pictures and details off to the Sheffield Telegraph and I am very pleased to see today here I am in print!

It's all becoming very real! I do hope that I get some contacts or even, dare I say it, sales from the exhibition. Who knows?

So that's the FAME bit. And the EXHIBITION bit. Festivals?

Well I did an illustration about Wood Festival yesterday for Amelia's Magazine. It hasn't been published yet, but here's a sneak peek below. I really enjoyed doing a larger, busy, social scene and working in a colourful, happy, almost children's illustration-y way (there are lots of children in the image). It was a bit of a slog because at first I attempted to do all the colour digitally (when proficient this should save time), but as I am very much still learning it was a bit slow, and the colours came out too solid and bold, so I went back to basics and good old fashioned pencils and thumbs etc, for the colour, and enhanced just a bit digitally at the end!

Still good learning again. (learning what I'm not very good at - yet anyway!)

Here's that peek, the image pre-colour:

and a section post colour:

Now, Fashion, Jewellery, Jumble and Creosote.

Well, fashion wise I also did another fashion illustration today for Polish Fashion Week and Amelia's Magazine. More to follow. Jewellery, I was approached by the subject (human!) of one of my previous illustrations to do some illustrations for her own jewellery. Exciting! So that's a new collaboration I am very much looking forward to. Jumble - well the Dan Shaw CreatureMag illustration I did some time ago has got all a bit jumbled up, but the upshot is Betty from CreatureMag has asked me to do another illustration for the magazine. So that's also great.

(Again the explanation re: jumble will come later).

Finally Creosote: I've done an illustration of folksy muso King Creosote and his new collaborator, Jon Hopkins (quite a pretty boy). I was pretty pleased with the results. Pictures to be posted in next posts as Blogger for some reason puts your last uploaded picture at the beginning of your post so it all looks rather odd and is hard to change round.

Ahhhh... a last point I just remembered and added to the title: Rejection?! Royal Academy Summer Exhibition rejected my Ex-Fighter picture. Bar stewards! I received the letter yesterday. Still I now have to collect the picture so at least I have an excuse to go daan Laandaan for the day!

To be continued. . . .

Latest Illustration published

This is a bit late I am afraid, been busy panicking about my forthcoming exhibition at Sheffield Showcase which starts 1st June.

But a few days ago my R/H Label illustration was published in Amelia's Magazine and here it is:

http://www.ameliasmagazine.com/fashion/qa-with-finnish-fashion-designers-hanna-riihelainen-and-emilia-hernesniemi-of-rh-label/2011/05/17/

I am featured in Urbanity Magazine

A creative contact through Twitter, Paula Cavender, contacted me to ask me if she could feature me in her magazine, Urbanity, which she had to make for her final degree project. I said YES of course and here is the published interview, and magazine which will be a printed magazine aswell. I hope to get a copy to show my mum who refuses to deal with computers! It's nice to be described as new and emerging creative talent!

Here is the magazine have a wee look:

http://issuu.com/paulajaynecavender/docs/urbanitymag1

the Pierces published

yep it's been up and running a few days just I've been away.

Here it is in Amelia's Magazine;

http://www.ameliasmagazine.com/music/welcome-back-an-interview-with-the-pierces/2011/05/11/

Illustration work in progress

I have just sent off an illustration for a music review.

I thought I'd show the work in some of its stages. Apart from the finished piece as I can't till it's published.

I did quite alot of work on this piece digitally so I'm a little bit pleased that I am kind of getting to grips a bit more with that side of stuff. Still a long way to go though!

General Update

Hello lovely blog readers (all 1 of you - on a good day!)

a general update. Not very inspiring title, but bear with. (again, in reference to a Twitter/Facebook update earlier, what's with this cutting the end off words/phrases? - it's clearly bear with ME, and it's clearly, AmazING, not Amaze, but I do have to say there is something of the Sally Whatshername/comedy value that makes me want to join in)! Or let's call it a generali updateteemi - another version of the same kind of play on words - you know the one, that character from the lovely series Miranda.

ANYway:

since I last posted I have sent off a fresh illustration which was well received (hurrah!) and I have been a thinking and plotting my exhibitiononie which begins 1st June! Alot to do!! I have to get this scan business sorted, get some good prints sorted, and get everything framed. Eeks a sunder, it's quite a lot considering I'm a way for a week aswell during that time.

Today I received my MOO/About.Me business cards (free apart from P&P if you get an About.Me site), they were well good! I think I am going to use them to get some greetings cards printed at some point.

In other news, I've been in contact with Sheffield Art in the Markets and another exhibition looks on the cards. I've also been discussing the possibility of having a joint exhibition with an artist friend at the Cupola Gallery in Sheffield.

I have put some more pictures in my Society6 shop and it's free shipping worldwide till Sunday, who knows someone might order something! I've put the word out on Twitter and added loads of links to the shop on my website (aswell as on here). I took advantage of the free shipping to order 3 prints myself aswell to use as part of my exhibition.

I can't put any of my pictures in the shop that are larger than A4 as I still haven't worked out how to photograph them at 300 dpi. Plus they always seem just that bit darker when photographed, the colours aren't as bright and sharp, the whites not as white. I think I may just go for getting a A3 scanner and call it a good investment!

Tonight aswell I've set up an Etsy shop, but that doesn't work as Society6 who print etc for you, so I haven't put anything in yet! But I designed a header for my store which you can see here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/earthakitt?ref=si_shop

I'm called earthakitt on there, which could be a problem or a bit confusing. I registered as a buyer ages ago, and you can't change your name unless you close the account and set up another one. But my shop name is clearly me so maybe it won't be a problem.

That's all for now folks, I am sure something else will come to me later, there seems to be a lot of plates spinning the air at the moment and I find it difficult to remember them all!

Oh, I just remembered something, my Yes to AV illustration is being used on Facebook as the profile pic of both Amelia Gregory and Amisha Ghadiali, I am dead honoured!

Over and out (for now).

Work in progress

I have been working on another fashion illustration to replace the R/H label one that wasn't right last Tuesday. No landscapes or headless women this time, just the clothes on a (hopefully) nice long elegant body! I did this on A3 so I am going to have to photograph it rather than scan it, unless I scan it in two sections and paste together, which I haven't done before, not sure how it will work, but I'm sure it can be done one way or another.

Here's two pictures of the illustration so far: