Under the Blossom Tree II

Been up since 5.30am thinking about this piece when I thought, "What the heck, I might as well finish it!"

Et voila, here is the final piece.

This was more of an exercise to see how much I've improved in terms of drawing and painting, as I decided to redo an old favourite of mine which you can see on my deviantART page here.

Here's both versions placed side by side so that we could see the improvement:

It's crazy how much my style has changed! I've moved away even more from the anime/manga style (in 2010 I was beginning to move away from it) and I have improved in my anatomy. I think my choice of colours for the skin is more realistic as well.

Here's a WIP:

Guess that's all for today! Thanks for reading.

Inspirational Quote: "You just gotta fight your way through"

Image taken from Tumblr

Freelance Matters | Who Are You Working For?

I found this really interesting blog "Jeremy and Kathleen" when looking at wedding invitation inspirations, and then found an article they had written about working freelance. Now I don't really know which design sector I'm going to head for and I was thinking of doing some of my own work over the summer holidays.

Her article talks about the importance of working for yourself and making you do the things you love as well as working for clients. She talks about how to do this in a general form so that it doesn't feel like you HAVE to do those things in order to do what you love.

What attracted me the most was that she stressed the importance of doing work for yourself first (so creating your own branding, making yourself be the client) as it'll help you find those potential clients. I know this before I read the article but only now did that actually sink in. It made me realise that I really really need to give my all when it comes to designing for myself, as that's what will attract clients.

I work really hard at uni so I'm not too stressed out about that, but now I'm thinking, maybe I should pay more attention to how I display my work. I normally just take photos off my phone of the final piece or just submit the photoshop version onto Behance, but maybe I should use my camera instead and make sure that the print out is just as good.

I need to perfect my branding methinks, and to include a section on this blog so that people could see all of my work. I need to be more "in the know" in the design world and perhaps look for other blogs and start involving myself in the design network.

Thanks, Kathleen! Your article really opened my eyes! To see her article click here.

FMP: My Thoughts

I had a little chat to my lecturer today because I've been stressing so much with this project; every design that I do doesn't "feel" right to me, and I'm getting more and more worried about it because I've only got just over a month to complete this. It sounds a lot, but by the time I've actually finished the design I need to look at paper stock and then printing companies... And the list goes on.

She made me realise the reason why I've been so stressed, and it's because I'm not using the methods that I love the most. It's good that I've been experimenting and tapping into digital design but what I really love is traditional illustration. I can't believe I didn't think about it before! It does explain why I've become more and more annoyed at myself that I can't produce the perfect design that I have in my head; it's because I'm not using the "right" methods.

Even though I have learnt a lot from my experiments and my designing I have decided to base my wedding invitation around traditional media, although I might use digital typefaces to it. I want my invitation to have that "organic" feel to it, to have character, and what better way than to do it by hand? 

Because of this I have decided to start doing some more research into illustration. I had briefly looked at two inspirational artists (Amy Brown and Jan Pienkowski) and the illustrations featured in the Grimm Fairytale's book, but I'm going to look into book illustration and illustrations portrayed in fairy tales a bit more to get that fairy tale feel.

Thinking about it makes me feel a lot better about my product, although I'm secretly annoyed with myself that I hadn't thought about it sooner. At least I've learnt how to use Illustrator a bit more!

Art Improvement Meme

Yesterday I realised that I shouldn't be ashamed of my old work; why should I be ashamed when it is a record to show my journey in the art world? So I "un-hid" all of my old work on DeviantART and just sat back and started flicking through them.

It's just such an amazing feeling to just look back and think: wow I've definitely improved on anatomy, on facial expressions, on hands (OH GOD THE HANDS... I just love picking out the things that I now am pretty good at whereas before I spent hours pouring over reference images just to draw one little finger. 

Anyway, so I decided to fill out this improvement meme on DeviantART by kamaniki to see how I'm going so far!

Now I'm dying to do more illustrations and things, and try out different techniques :D

Let It Snow

When I saw the contest on DeviantART called “Let It Snow” I immediately wanted to submit something to it. It had been ages since I signed up for any competition, and because England right now is downright miserable it’ll be easy to come up with some snowy.

But I didn’t want that; I didn’t want to do a drawing of a snowman or any of those other stereotypical Christmas things, I wanted to do something personal.  Christmas to me means being with my family and just spending time together without worrying about those things you have to do for work or uni.

Spending time with every member of the family, even those we have lost.

Even though it’s been three months I still miss my dad. It’s getting easier to cope but it’s still difficult. I still get those moments where I just want to curl up in bed and cry without anyone asking what was wrong – because it was so obvious, wasn’t it?

So this is probably what I would do as soon as I go home for Xmas; give my dad some flowers, tell him that I miss him, and to have a very Merry Xmas.

I wanted to do a really simple illustration as I have lately been very inspired by Simon's Cat. I think I might want to go to doing illustrations for Children's books as a career but shall have to do more experimentation and research before I dedicate myself to that.  

Tools | Watercolour pencils (without water, so sticking to their pencil form) | Watercolour paint

Blogger vs Tumblr

I'm a bit caught up in a dilemma  I can't figure out whether or not to make this my main blog, or just leave it with my tumblr.

I post all of my sketchbook work, WIPs and finals on Tumblr and post final things over here, but wouldn't it be easier to do everything on here? It's so confusing!

I guess I'm only thinking of this because my current signature is "lizjowen.tumblr.com" and I don't know whether to change that to "lizjowen.blogspot.com" as I want it to look more professional. WHAT DO. 

Depression - Final and details

Click to see bigger

Just a little something I did when I was going through a hard time (I was feeling crap about not being able to have the motivation to design and that I was a bad person blah blah blah). Because I have left it for so long I kind of forgotten how it felt to be so emotional... Until now, that is. 

I'm still finding it hard to get out of this mess that I'm in since he was gone, but my current uni project has revealed to me that art is a way for me to channel my emotions. For example, I'm obsessed with drawing thin lines with messy watercolour techniques (like the one shown in the picture above), roses, and stuff like decay and birds... It's frightening, actually. But I guess that at least I'm not bottling everything up.

I hope to do another picture like this soon because it truly was an experiment that turned out to have a lot more emotion in it than it should've done.

Stationary Set

Just did a little bit of designing for business cards, compliment slips and letterheads. Hopefully I could mass print these and start giving them out!

Pet Peeves

This was the first time I had the choice to create my own design brief that mainly focuses on typography. I first thought that I’d use some lyrics but display them in an illustrative way, but then I decided to do something a bit more personal so that I could engage more with my viewers. 
So I listed all of the things that annoyed me and picked out ones that would specifically fit well with each others. I chose Helvetica Neue as my main typeface because of how minimalist the design was, as well as Impact and Pacifico. 

It was quite hard for me to choose the colours (as I initially was going to go for grey and white) so I went onto kuler.com and chose this colour scheme because it was bold and I was never thought that I would use this colour combination. It was quite exciting! 

I was inspired by vintage Carnival posters and the way they laid out their type. 

Please note that this brief was not a real project and was done for a uni project.

And everytime I'm just staring at the same blank wall, again and again

I hate this feeling of helplessness that I always come across. Now matter how many days, weeks, months or years go by I always find myself hitting the same wall over and over again. I mean, how many times have I wrote about this problem here? Millions, perhaps. So many times that I'm surprised that people haven't given up on me.

I need to do art, I want to, and then when I get that feeling that makes me go, "Yeah I can do it!" I just fall back into the same lazy pattern that I've gotten accustomed to. Where I just can't be bothered to pick up a pencil, let alone look at a blank page. Why can't I just keep that enthusiastic part of myself running for more than just a day? What happened to the time where I just loved to draw and kept doing it day after day? I've always dreamed of doing art, of becoming a good artist one day, but something is holding me back...

Truth is, I really don't know what that "something" is.

Is it because of the lack of tutor? Guidance? Someone to help me each step of the way? Sure I did a hell of a lot more art when I was doing it for my GCSE's, and did many pictures when I was applying for uni. Or is it my lack of self-confidence? Skill? What the hell is holding me back? D: Whenever I listen to music or watch a film I find myself daydreaming, yet I never seem to put my ideas to paper even though they're still stuck in my head. Why? Why can't I just draw?

I wish that someone was there to help me with this, to point me in the right direction, and actually help me overcome this once and for all. I'm sick and tired of this feeling... But I don't want to force myself into it either like I did before. 

Wow I sound like such an idiot.

Inspiration Board

So I'll start off with one of my first posts with an inspiration board; a collection of images, music and artists that inspire me.

1. ImagineFX Magazine
I just love this magazine. Ever since I got my hands on it last year (or the year before) in Feb I immediately subscribed to it. Even though I'm not at that level to achieve the same level of skill in those step-by-step tutorials I try my best to look at them. I'm amazed by all of the artwork in there, and I hope to be featured one day!

2. Chinese/Oriental styled art
Since I delved deeper into Chinese culture back when I was doing A Level Product Design I fell in love with it. I just loved how artists made all of their pictures seem "magical" with the flowing robes, beautiful hairstyles and delicate features.
Such artists include Guangjian Huang, Heise, Qianyu, Phoenixlu,

3. Anime
I just love the style, and I love how people have developed this style into a more 3D form (much like the picture I've shown). Even though I don't really draw in this style anymore I still admire it, and I love how much detail is paid to their clothing and movement.
Artists: Shilin, Laverinne, Jiuge, Emperpep, Kaoru-chan,

4. Fantasy
No matter how many people tell me that I should move away form fantasy I never will, because I can't. I just love the stories that a picture could hold and the different points of view on the fantasy world.
Artists: Dark Spider, Amy Brown, Victoria Frances, Kuoma,

5. Angel Sanctuary
Seems pretty obvious: the artwork is beautiful! Pretty unusual storyline as well of love and fate.

6. Bride of the Water God
The amount of detail in each page is breathtaking.

7. Reading
I just love how I can enter a whole new world as I open a book. It kinda annoys my family as well when I completely blank them out as I read.

8. Gyaru fashion
This fashion is so so amazing! Just shows that you could tweak your appearances without the use of plastic surgery, and you could become a whole new person. They have such a good fashion sense and I love how much attention they pay to their appearances!

9. Music
Music is the reason why I work well; without it I just stare into space with boredom. I always find more and more artists to add to my list of favourites that I haven't really got a particular favourite anymore! However I will always listen to Lady GaGa <3

10. DeviantART
And last of all but definitely not least; DeviantART. If I didn't find it during my GCSE years I never would've thought that I wanted to pursue art and design as a career. I wouldn't have been able to improve in my drawing skills, nor would I have the determination to keep on going through thick and thin. I have met so many people on there and seen so many inspiration art pieces that I'm constantly amazed whenever I go onto the site.

The Pros and Cons of Blogging

I never really thought about having a blog for my art and Graphic Design first, because I thought that it was a) a waste of time and b) I don't really know how to use one.
Well after today's critic session I decided that maybe an art blog would be easier to use to jot down everything instead of using a sketchpad. As much as I love using sketchpads, all of mine are really cluttered with random pieces flying out everywhere. To put it simply; I'm a very messy person, so a blog might help me become more organised.

The only thing that is wrong with blogging is that I would have to spend loads to get everything printed out, and there might be a limit to how I want things laid out.

So this is what you'll expect from me on this blog:
* WIPs of my art as well as my graphic design pieces
* Sketches and experiments of what I learnt from tutorials.
* My final illustrations, graphic designs, photos... Everything to do with art.

And basically anything else that relates to my university work or from my free time.

That's all for now.