art by mel

Nursery art

2010-02-21T05:17:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone, I'm sorry it's been a while since my last post. Things have been terribly busy and I haven't been able to make much time for my websites and blog. Just a quick update tonight to show some new work I've done lately.

Hello

2010-02-21T04:55:00.000-08:00

This is my new blog. New year, new opportunies and a fresh new start with my blog and my other websites. Still monkeying around with it, but we're getting there.

Couple of Updates

2010-01-11T18:23:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone, it's been a while since my last post here!Things have been busy and I've been doing some book illustration work for a couple of publishers. My first real foray into the world of freelance illustration, really - and it's been real exciting. Unfortunately I've neglected my websites and blog a little bit, but not to worry, I have a few plans.

The Bookish Owl
I'd like to revamp the Bookish Owl into a more illustration and industry related blog, and a little less of my own personal updates. More on local gallery shows/happenings in Melbourne, more on breaking into freelance illustration in Australia, tutorials/tips/advice on topics of interest to artists and all that sort of thing. I'm hoping to get it all going by early February sometime.

A personal site
I've just registed MelanieMatthews.net and it's going to be my personal site and blog. This site will also be sort of a 'home site' to which all my other sites are connected. I'll also have some other articles and things of interest here, as well as the personal blog and news updates.

Bearprints
Bearprints, my portfolio site, is in serious need of updating and that will happen in the next month or so as I re-arrange and re-build my portfolio to a higher, more current standard.

Other Projects
So far I'm working on 365 Cartoons, a blog where I post a cartoon a day even though I've already missed two days, oops. There's some other things I'd like to do but I think I have enough on my plate to get through now, so more on other projects later.

Anyway, thanks for following the blog, hopefully I'll have some more good things to report shortly.

Why art school is totally rad!

2009-12-01T22:01:00.000-08:00

So a few weeks ago, I finally got my Diploma of Arts: Illustration. I'm now a certified illustrator! Woohoo!

Now, I can't think of why anyone would be hesitant about going to art school. With the exception of things like time and money, there's no reason not to do it if you want to become an illustrator (or anything really), no matter how old you are or your level of skills. I'd like to talk about some of the things that I appreciated about art school and what I got out of it.

Working in a studio environment
The first great thing that I can think of about going to art school is, of course, working with other art students! I shared my classrooms (it was two rooms joint together by a corridor) with 15-20 fellow artists and creatives, all with different styles, tastes and ways of seeing. We had the anime guy, the extremely cool dark fantasy/gothic chick, the photo-realism lady, the tattoo guy, the comics girl, you name it, someone in our class did it.

Even though we all had different ways of working and our art was totally different, being able to bounce ideas around, learn new techniques and voice different opinions about our own work or other artist's work was invaluable. It's rare to find such camaraderie anywhere else. And with 15-20 different points of view, you can get so much valuable feedback about your work that you probably wouldn't get from a community website such as DeviantArt, where people follow your work because it's the type of work they like.

And finally, 15-20 fellow artists means 15-20 different tastes in art, which leads to new and interesting artists and genres that you might not have ever known about before. Which is awesome!

The facilities
At school, you probably won't get access to the best facilities (your own studio space, computer, fancy art materials and goodies) until later. But even then, having easy access to photocopiers, scanners, books in the library, and a comfortable space to work just can't be beat.

I really miss having my own little studio area, though. It was great having my own big desk and my own wall for pinning up inspirational images and works in progress. Now that I am working on art mostly at home, it's been suprisingly difficult to adapt without having that nice big desk that you can tilt up at an angle, the photocopier just in the next room, and the library only a 30 second walk away. So when you're at art school, seriously, take advantage of all that stuff while you can.

Meeting local artists and illustrators
This year, I was extremely fortunate to have class meetings every fortnight with a working Melbourne artist. They talked about lots of different things - their work and process, what it's like working in the industry today, tips on how to get your work noticed. Something special that I gained from these meetings was learning about how many different roads one could take to becoming a professional illustrator, and the amount of possibilities there are for artists. Because really, anything that has type or an illustration on it - that was designed by somebody. That was illustrated by someone. This advertisement was the result of the work of lots of illustrators. I could go on and on!

The absolute best thing, however, was being able to see rough work and sketches, and hearing each artist talk about the steps that they take when creating a piece of work for a client. Ann James, a children's book illustrator, showed us tons of sketches and studies that she did while working on her latest illustrated book, Chester and Gil. The amount of research and drawing behind it was stunning.

Life drawing, and trying new things
Finally, being at art school means regular classes in life drawing and observational drawing. You're also sometimes forced to use unfamiliar mediums and methods of working, which is a good thing. These things are exercises that you would probably shy away from if you are at home teaching yourself.

Suprisingly, these classes are a great way to boost your creativity and spontineity. You can approach drawings in different ways, develop new ways of seeing, learn new techniques and try out new mediums. I mean, sure observational drawing sounds pretty boring, but it's so good for stretching those creative muscles.

Making the most of it
All of the above means nothing if you don't make the most of your time at art school. Prior to studying illustration, I did a course in Fine Art. But during that time, I didn't make the most of my time there. I was lazy, close-minded, stubborn and unproductive. So naturally, I didn't get much out of that course. Back then though, I didn't think that it was my fault.

When I look back, I can see that it was indeed my fault. You are responsible for your own experience. So, work hard, draw lots, ask lots of questions and have fun!

Business Cards!

2009-11-17T19:05:00.000-08:00

A little while ago I was lucky enough to win a giveaway prize of 250 business cards from UPrinting! They arrived a few days ago and I couldn't be happier with them. I even managed to get 2 sides in full colour! The folks at UPrinting were very friendly and helpful and I'll definately be ordering some postcards and things from them soon.

Also, here's a recent ink drawing I did!

Final school art show

2009-11-11T23:12:00.000-08:00

My class's final show will be held at the Chisholm Institute of Tafe's Frankston campus, within the art department buildings. It's been a totally awesome year and I have learned so much and met some fantastic illustrators and creative people in the industry. I've also spent the year studying with a fine bunch of illustrators and artists who are totally awesome and I look forward to seeing their work out there in the world sometime soon!

For our end of year show, some of us got to paint some big pieces of plywood to hang outdoors on the art department's walls. From left to right is the work of Lea Smithers, yours truly, Bonnie Eichelberger, Ben Lopez and Ashlea Bechaz.

Unfortunately I can't find a site with more of Lea's wonderful art on it, but if I find one I will update with a link.

Beasties

2009-10-31T03:01:00.000-07:00

I've had a bit of a frustrating day today, and I think the lesson learned is to remember the number 1 reason why we draw and paint in the first place: for ourselves. I have a painting that is stumping me at the moment and for a good chunk of the day I've been pouring over other artist's work searching for inspiration and guidance. And as I kept returning to the drawing board all I had was feelings of inadequacy and self doubt.

Even though I'm working on my portfolio, finishing up my schoolwork and determined to get somewhat close to having an 'industry standard' level of work, I often forget why I do it at all. Because I love it, I enjoy it and it's my identity. It's a part of me.

All you can do in times like these is work through it and keep drawing. I sketched up a few beasties in Photoshop and decided I liked them enough to post them!

New art and interview

2009-10-26T00:55:00.000-07:00

I have been interviewed! Yaay! By Sneh Roy over at Little Box of Ideas. I talk about inspirations, animals, and dreams of becoming a Steve-Irwin like explorer. Check it out!

I have a couple of new drawings plus a digital commission I completed over the weekend. I'm kind of looking at a different sort of style at the moment, something a bit more realistic (but still cartoony and stylised of course!)

Dragons

2009-10-18T02:58:00.000-07:00

Today I made some dragons, and made another pattern with more dragons. I played with just flat colours instead of adding all the textures I usually do.

Partytime

2009-10-16T20:50:00.000-07:00

It's time for a birthday party themed pattern! Hooray! This one is a big improvement over my last pattern I think.

The jungle cat pattern from before was bothering me so I fixed it up a bit, too.

Jungle Cats!

2009-10-13T17:25:00.000-07:00

The other day I read an article about how to create a seamless repeating pattern. This jungle cat pattern is my first go, I think it's okay, it could probably be more 'seamless' though!

5 things I've learnt so far as a freelancing noob

2009-10-11T23:25:00.000-07:00

In an effort to make the Bookish Owl a more entertaining and informative blog, I thought about all the things I've learnt in the last few months and decided to compile them into a list that might help other freelancing newbies out there. Keep in mind I'm still very much a freelancing noob, I still have a lot to learn, but here's 5 things I've learnt so far.

1. Folio presentation
It doesn't matter how good your work is, if it's presented woefully you probably won't impress anyone. How you present your work could be sort of a measure of how much you care about your work and how serious you are. Neatly presented pages of work printed on nice paper, inside an easy to open, sturdy and professional-looking portfolio is the way to go.

My portfolio is a monster from a store called Zetta Florence. It's a box/binder, about 8x11" in size, with mylar sleeves. Looking back now, the price I paid for it was probably a bit overkill, but it still looks good. You don't have to spend a fortune on yours but do be sure to invest in a good quality portfolio that will protect your work as well as making it look great.

Finally, the order of your work and the flow of your portfolio is definately something to consider. Don't jumble it up too much. For instance, I have all my digitally rendered pieces placed first (they also make up the majority of the work in my folio), mostly because this is the kind of work I prefer to do professionally. My digital work is followed by my greyscale ink work, and then paintings on paper.

I could probably write a whole blog post about this, but we need to move on!

2. Consistency
The thing that people commented on most about my portfolio was that it was extremely consistent and showed a lot of discipline. This sort of came as a suprise since I am still tweaking my 'style' with almost every piece I do, in order to try and get it right.

Consistency in your work is critical, especially if you are looking to illustrate children's picture books. You need to show that you can take one character, and draw him or her in many different ways while still maintaining the look of that character. Publishers want to see that you will be able to carry a character over a 20 or 30 something page book.

Maintaining your 'voice' in your work is important because it helps you form a 'brand' for yourself - it's your identity, what your work will be remembered for! It will make your work more easily recognisable as well.

3. Variety!
Wait.... what?? Mel, you just said my portfolio needs to be consistent! What are you smokin'?

Well sir, this means a couple of different things. And of course, it will all depend on who you are showing your folio to. For some markets, some of these might not be too relevent.

One art director suggested to me that it'd be a good idea to show examples of different styles. For children's books this is a good idea - you will probably get asked to do things in different styles, depending on the market that the project is intended for. It also is a way of demonstrating your drawing skill.

Variety in the subject matter of your work will impress your potential clients and employers. Show them that you can draw lots of different things, different moods.

4. Typography is just awesome
My class held an exhibition in Prahan about a month ago. One night, we had an 'industry night' where art directors, illustrators, agents and other professionals in the creative industry viewed our work and portfolios. In general, they were particularly impressed by the students who intergrated typography into their illustrations successfully. It seems to be a bit of an underrated area in illustration, and seen as more of a design thing. But making typography INTO illustration is simply, really, really awesome.

It may not work for everybody, and may not be very relevent for some markets. But I believe that having one or two pieces of work featuring great typography will really strengthen your portfolio and impress your potential employers and clients.

5. Art directors and agents aren't all that scary
They're just people like you and me, you know? Well, some of them might be a bit intimidating. They're probably working under tight deadlines or something. But most that I have met have been pretty friendly and very happy to give me feedback about my work.

What about criticism? Yeah, it can be tough - but don't immediatly think that any criticism is made due to your work being bad. There's a number of reasons why employers/clients/agents might criticise your work:

It might not be what they are looking for, or the kind of style/genre that they deal with.
It might no be appropriate for the particular market they want to sell to.
It simply may not be their particular cup of tea. Like everyone else, art directors and agents have tastes of their own.
Your work is good, but needs to improve more to be of a professional standard. You might not be ready for professional work just yet.

See, not all that bad. Always think of it like this: the person who is giving you critique/advice sees potential in your work, and is trying to help you improve.

If someone is not interested in your work, or doesn't think you are good enough for professional work, they will most likely tell you. But don't get disheartened. Just work hard, study hard, and LOOK at the work that these publishers and agencies are putting out there.

Well, I hope you enjoyed reading this and I hope it becomes useful for someone out there. These are all my opinions, by the way - if you have anything to add, or if you disagree about something I have said, feel free to leave a comment and have your say!

Also just thought I'd sneak this in, it's NEW LOGO TIME! My work has evolved a bit so I wanted a new image for my site and business cards to reflect my new and improved work.

Podcasts

2009-10-10T22:39:00.000-07:00

Today I have been listening to a lot of podcasts. The amount of information on some of the ones I've listened to is simply astounding and I've been sucking it all up like a sponge. I also seem to hold more value in the spoken word, as opposed to freelancing/illustration advice typed up on a blog or site. It's just more personal, or something. They are also entertaining and have some pretty funny moments!

So here are some awesome podcast sites I've been listening too.

Freelance Radio - a great series of podcasts for freelancers of all kinds, whether you're a writer, an illustrator, a programmer or whatever.

Escape from Illustration Island - cool collection of podcasts, I've only listened to a few of these but they're awesome.

Artcast by Stephen Silver - Stephen covers a wide range of topics but a lot of his podcasts are about keeping motivated, getting inspiration and really involving yourself in your craft.

I hope you enjoy listening to them as much as I do.

Terribly scanned but finished tiger baby commission

2009-10-07T03:18:00.000-07:00

Even more progress

2009-10-06T23:13:00.000-07:00

Characters blocked in with a little bit of texture added.

Just about finished except for a few minor details. However the mama tiger's face is looking very odd so I think I will paint over it and fix it up.

I'm also noticing some mistakes and it's too late to save them, for instance, the dragon's fire is lighting up the mountains far in the distance... and well, I guess it's just one huge dragon. Or maybe they're not mountains, but just little hills that aren't too far away? Oh dear.

More progress

2009-10-05T03:26:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the horribly blurry photo, here's the next bit of progress on my painting. At the moment I'm not extremely happy with the dragon, but we'll see how it looks when it's completely dry...

Also, here's some stuff I did in class today. Toodles!

Painting in progress! Oh yeah!

2009-10-03T23:03:00.000-07:00

I am painting! Just enjoying my last day off until I have to sit down and churn stuff out for the final month of my schooling. Here's a photo of my 'studio', or, erm, workspace I guess. My brother is off taking over the world starting with England so I am borrowing his room for my own fiendish purposes.

It's very cramped up as you can see and it's not the most comfy place to work but it's okay. I'm right handed so I have to be careful not to drip water all over my paintings while I work. Silly me!

While I'm messing around with the camera I figured I'd take some progress shots of my new painting. It's a commission! Here's the first bit.

I start with the background and just block everything in. This is about A3 size on watercolour paper, painting with gouache, by the way. It's yumtacular!

Next bit. The moon is looking a little funny so I will have to fix that at some point. But I can't get too caught up in little details just yet, so I must move on!

And here it is as it is now, with most of the background blocked in and a little bit textured.

I'll keep updating with new photos as I go along. So far, this is about 3 hours of work. The next step is to finish all the drybrushing in the sky, mountains and ground. Then I will fill in the foreground, and start filling in the colours of the characters. Details are added at the very very very end.

Anyway, I hope this is somewhat helpful somehow.

Day at the Zoo

2009-09-20T21:01:00.000-07:00

The other week my boyfriend was in town, we did lots of fun things like going to some galleries and seeing the Star Wars exhibition at Scienceworks. Yes, we’re both big nerds! We also went to the zoo. One of the highlights of that day was seeing a duck swimming innocently in the tiger’s enclosure, then moments later being snapped up, plucked and eaten for lunch. Well, I suppose ‘highlight’ is not quite the right word (sorry, duck!), but it was pretty exciting.

Being the lovely guy that he is, Leigh anticipated that the duck would get eaten so he took a ‘before’ shot. At this time, the tiger was not out on display yet, but was about to come out.

The bird was swimming in the water when the tiger came back out, and within seconds the tiger leapt into the water, splashed around and snapped up the helpless thing. Well, that’s what you get for swimming in the tiger pen! We asked the zookeeper if this sort of thing happened often and she said pretty much any bird that goes in there has a slim chance of making it out alive. They even catch and eat peacocks that go into their enclosure.

The tiger is a young male Sumatran tiger.

We went on to my favourite part of the zoo… the bears, of course! This beautiful fella was lying right next to the glass. He was huge, but looked so soft and cuddly. He would occasionally lift his foot up and press against the wall.

Look at that smile! He must have been having some beary nice dreams. *chuckle*

I’ve never been up so close to get a good view of a bear’s paw. It was huge! I love the little tufts of fur inbetween the padded bits. And check out those claws!

And here we are all tuckered out after our zoo trip! We have more photos, but the tiger and bear ones were my favourites. Only a few days ago I got another free zoo pass, so I will probably go again very soon and take my sketchbook with me.

Numbers, croc teeth and one lovely lady

2009-09-04T01:54:00.000-07:00

WHEW! Busy busy busy busy busy. All of these are Photoshop, with the exception of the lady, who was painted with gouache on pastel paper.

Illustre was great! So much wonderful work. I met some really awesome illustrators and designers from NMIT and met some people from the industry too. I even managed to sell a few pieces and win an award! Wooohoo!!

Best of all though, I met someone who was very interested in my work. And I am going to see them on Tuesday and show them my portfolio. So I am very excited and super nervous as well, but it's so cool. I am one very happy illustrator right now!!

Will post more soon, but for now, back to work!

FIVE!

2009-08-26T01:25:00.000-07:00

Brought to you by the number 5! Hoo-rah! The giraffe has 5 spots, and he is eating 5 leaves.

My beary good friend

2009-08-20T03:33:00.000-07:00

Uh oh! Better keep out of this angry bull's way.... I drew him to go with my happiness bear. I'm also going to do a pelican and a wolf.

Also, I'm doing a series of black and white ink drawings for my portfolio.

The theme I chose for the first few drawings is a story about a boy who wants a pet- but he doesn't want a boring cat or an annoying yappy dog. He wants something FEROCIOUS - a lion, or a tiger, or a crocodile....

One day while on his lengthy walk home, he finds a bear. Next to the bear is a sign saying 'freE BEaR'. Could he have finally gotten his wish...??

Alice and the Gryphon and the Mockturtle

2009-08-18T01:09:00.000-07:00

Quick update, finished a painting last week, I decided I wanted to do a scene from Alice in Wonderland, of two slightly underappreciated characters as well. Sorry the colour scan is pretty terrible, I need to get onto getting a better scanner or something Ugh!

I also did this bear, who stands proudly on the front of my new business cards, which I should be recieving tomorrow. Hoo-rah!

I'm also updating my links to the right. More artists!

How does a tiger brush his teeth?

2009-08-03T03:13:00.000-07:00

We have an awesome little project at school that I've been scheming and planning for kind of slowly. It's an artist book and we have free reign over everything, pretty much. I want my book to be a fun and playful exploration of images, type and colour, and I want it to be chock-full of animals of course!

So here's a peak at one of the pages I've finished today. How DOES a tiger brush his teeth? I'm not really sure but it seemed something interesting enough to make into a cute picture.

And here's a close up of the tiger. I'm quite proud of him! Rawr!

Ferret Boy

2009-08-01T00:15:00.000-07:00

Whew! I haven't updated in a while, have I? I've been so very busy and a lot of stuff has happened. Some good, some bad, but yeah. Here are some drawings, paintings and sketches from a recent assignment I completed. Ferrets are ridunkulously adorable.

Zebracorn

2009-07-08T22:44:00.000-07:00

Fun little image I'm doing for a series of little promotional cards. I was originally going to paint it but, for some reason I ended up doing it in Photoshop instead. I think I've been agonising way too much over these pieces and want to get them out of the way quickly.

I showed this to a friend who liked it, but mentioned that the girl's pants blended in a bit much and were hard to make out. So I did a little bit of a colour change and the difference is huge!

Looks a lot better I think!

I uploaded the colour rough before, but just thought I'd show it again.

Boa Lady

2009-06-30T23:35:00.000-07:00

I am thinking I'd like to jazz up my website a bit. Maybe with a bit of artwork for the title of each page. This lady is an idea for one such artwork, inspired by the Dr Sketchy's session I went to last week.

Some things!

2009-06-30T05:49:00.000-07:00

Been busy lately but here's a few rough thingies I've slowly been working on, some assignments and commissions.

Patchwork Lion + website is online!

2009-06-21T23:31:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick pic I did in class today. I had a lot of fun experimenting and playing with fabric and patterned textures! I also decided I have too many tigers, crocodiles and bears, so I figured it'd be nice to do a different animal for a change. In this case, a ferocious circus lion who looks more like a plush doll... teehee.

Also, in other news, my website Bearprints.com.au is online! Hoo-rah!!

Hello!

2009-06-16T04:56:00.000-07:00

Just a sketch I did during class today that I really liked and decided to scan! It's a bit different from my usual stuff too! I rather enjoy using gouache like watercolour. It kind of feels like watercolour but I have more control over it.

Bearosel

2009-06-13T23:22:00.000-07:00

This is a piece I made just to go on the front page of my website. I've done about 3 or 4 different designs for Bearprints, but in the end I opted for something really simple and easy to navigate, with the art governing the overall look and design. Anyway, I wanted a piece to go on the front page of my site for the launch, I wanted something cute, fun, and featuring a bear. I wanted to throw in a tiger too, so after a bit of scribbling in photoshop I came up with this.

This is about as neat as my sketches get. After this stage I do flat colours and details, and once everything is sorted I move on to adding texture. I was going to upload an example of just the flat coloured stage, but I stupidly saved both of my working files as flattened finals. Oops!

My website Bearprints will probably be online within a week or two. (Yeah, I've heard that before, but this time I really mean it!)

Red and Blue and Yellow

2009-06-04T00:51:00.000-07:00

No inspiration Thursday this week, just a few more pieces from me. Yesterday we went to the city and met Matte Clare, an illustrator who is also heavily involved in Illustrators Australia. He had a lot of good stuff for us, and he showed us a bit of his work. He does a lot of illo's for business magazine articles and editorials and stuff, and it was really inspiring to learn about. I think it might be an avenue I will look into.

I have one more drawing to redo, then I have to pack it all up and deliver all my work in tomorrow for assessment. I've been pretty stressed in the past week but I have it pretty much under control now, I think. Before I head in tomorrow morning I'm going to celebrate with a yummy bacon and egg breakfast down at the café near the train station. Yay!

Here are the second and third pieces for the character illustration assignment. Far better than my old attempt. Here we have my character, the red croc, meeting a blue tiger, and then both of them interacting with an object - a vehicle. I'm pretty happy with all 3 and they are all pieces I would be happy to see in the end of year exhibition.

Well, back to work I go!

Red Croc

2009-05-30T21:57:00.000-07:00

I've had a really, really frustrating week of artmaking, let me tell you. I've been stressing out all week because the piece I was working on for our latest illustration assignment just was not getting up to par. I couldn't hand that thing in as part of my portfolio, nor would I ever want it shown in the Illustre exhibition. So I am doing it over again digitally.

Also in the works is a resubmission for a previous assignment, where we had to illustrate 3 characters. Despite the high mark I got for those pieces I am not happy with them and I am doing that assignment over again as well.

So here are the three sketches I will end up painting. The character is still a crocodile but he is drawn in my main style and he has a bit more personality to him. He's also red!

My first painting attempt was so bad that I couldn't even look at the thing, so I scribbled over it and threw it out. My second attempt was not much better, but I kept it this time. The problem I had with these ones is the paper, I reckon. It's canvas paper for oils and acrylics and I don't think gouache seems to work well on it at all. I like texture in my paintings too, but this paper was probably too much.

Tired and frustrated after two disasters, I decided to put the brushes away for the day and play some Warcraft. Yesterday's attempt at painting was much better, thankfully! This time I painted on pastel paper much like I did with this piece. Despite a little blooper which ended up being a background, it went well and I was pretty happy afterwards. I had redeemed myself. Now, I just need to go to the shop and buy some more white gouache, because I am all out! Doh!

Belated Inspiration Thursday #2

2009-05-28T20:59:00.000-07:00

Oops, this was meant to be posted yesterday. Anyway, this week I am sharing the work of Alice and Martin Provensen, a husband and wife duo who illustrated some really great children's books. They are two of my favourite illustrators. If you like these pieces I highly recommend you zip over here to see the wonderful fully scanned book, The Animal Fair.

Owly!

2009-05-24T04:03:00.000-07:00

Just a little more illustrator practice, nothing spectacular... I'll tell you what though, I'm having a hard time enjoying anything that I make lately, so I'm not very happy at the moment. Oh well.

Tiger head

2009-05-22T05:51:00.000-07:00

I feel like I need to do more work in Illustrator and get good at doing vector illustrations, so here's a 10 minute tiger head for a bit of pre-bed practice. RAWR!

Inspiration Thursday #1 Jim Flora

2009-05-21T00:56:00.000-07:00

I figured I'd put up some inspirational images for myself every Thursday from now on. So here we go!

We went up to the city yesterday for another industry meet, where we met Eddie Chau, a storyboard artist/visualiser. He had some really wicked acrylic paintings to show us, and we learned all about the storyboarding process. I also popped into Outré gallery where I picked up this groovy book featuring the art of the awesome Jim Flora. Before guys like Shag, Derek and Tim Biskup, there was this guy.

Really loving his work. The book has a whole lot of old record covers for greats like Gene Krupa and Sidney Bechet, and there's also lots of beautiful lino prints, drawings and a few kid's book illustrations. There's a second book of his work that I saw at Minotaur which I am also eager to get my little paws on, but maybe next week.

check out more of his work here!

you have a Crocodile in your hair

2009-05-14T01:14:00.000-07:00

Finally the 'Fantasy Story' assignment done! The title I chose was 'The Girl whose hair came to life'. Basically she's a funny little girl who likes crocodiles, and wishes she had a REAL one. And of course, a real crocodile comes to life from her hair. Makes sense, yes?

The colours scanned a bit off but I actually don't mind the look of it. The pink is actually supposed to be a really bright hot pink, but my scanner... must dislike pink? I don't know. But anyway I'm happy with this painting and relieved I was able to finish it in time. It's gouache on pastel paper.

Underbed Pigs and clucky duckies

2009-05-12T03:36:00.000-07:00

The two other monsters to go with my nose ghouls for the monster competition! The first is a 'Long-Legged Underbed Pig', an anxious monster who likes collecting rocks and living quietly under your bed. The other is a 'Quarking Duck', a silly duck who wears boots and marches in a line, stomping around.

RaWR

2009-05-09T07:02:00.000-07:00

Sketching another idea for an assignment. I'm way behind on this one, too. The idea is that this unfortunate chinese man is trying to release himself from a curse that contains a monster spirit inside his body.

Hat girls

2009-05-05T22:58:00.000-07:00

Vector illustration. Been pretty sick lately so not much else to report.

Hat Lady

2009-05-04T21:19:00.000-07:00

This is a sketch for a drawing I am doing to be a part of the design for a nice lady's website. The client is a milliner and she makes really pretty hats! Originally, I had a design that was quite nice but it looked a bit drab, and not very bright and fashiony. I'm still using this design but changing a lot of it, and adding this soon to be finished drawing to spice it up a little.

Monsters up to no good!

2009-05-02T04:20:00.000-07:00

It's finished! Though I might tweak it here and there later. It was certainly a challenge getting all these characters into the one picture but it was a fun piece to do. Onto the next monster now, however I won't be posting any more monsters until after I've sent my entries in!

I also went to the Zoo yesterday, I have loads of drawings to scan, and I'll get around to doing em eventually.

Monsters in progress

2009-05-01T18:50:00.000-07:00

Nose ghouls! AAHH! I've never done so many characters in the one picture before, and I figured doing this many in one photoshop file would mean billions of layers and lots of frustration. So I am doing one monster at a time seperately, then I'll bring them all together. It's also a good exercise in making characters consistant. I'm hoping to finish this one today and move onto the second monster... which is a duck!

Monster #1

2009-04-27T03:26:00.000-07:00

The first monster for our monster design assignment, which is also an actual competition. This is a 'Nose Ghoul'. They're really tiny and like to do mischievious things with super glue... There's another image of these guys in the works as well.

Bearprints Type

2009-04-24T21:47:00.000-07:00

Playing around with some type ideas for my website Bearprints.com.au. I'm having fun playing around with typography! Anyway, I wanted a fun, hand-done look for my site and business cards, and I also wanted to incorperate the bear print somewhere in there. At first it was going to be some background element but I decided it'd be better if it was actually on one of the letters.

Vaudeville 1914 huzzah!

2009-04-22T03:49:00.000-07:00

Yay I finally did it, the vaudeville project! This is about 11x16inches, acrylic and ink on illustration board. This is really inspired by a lot of the work seen on Cartoon Retro, mainly the old style comics and pinup illustrations. The ukelele looks a bit wierd to me but other than that I am pleased with the result! Yay!

Business bear and tiger man!

2009-04-21T00:16:00.000-07:00

Whew, home at last after a fairly productive day at Tafe, I would say... this happy bear is going to make his home on the front of my business card! I have heaps of fun making this and by the time I had finished, my headache had gone away!

And these are some concepts for a drawing piece. It's looking a little bit too 'Disney' for my liking at the moment but it's getting there.

Vaudeville 1914, take 2

2009-04-19T03:07:00.000-07:00

I'm a horrible sketcher, I know- my sketches are always so dirty and unpolished! I also need to work on drawing hands. But anyway, these are two explorations for my revamped Vaudeville illustration. The other ideas that I had were not very good; they were a bit crude and probably a bit offensive and inappropriate. I've been having a tough time with this project unfortunately and it's been wearing me down a bit.

Instead I wanted something a bit classier and more suited for a general magazine or paper. I wanted to combine some elements of Vaudeville - performance, music, a cute girl in a skimpy yet dazzling outfit, and for some reason, a tiger (dead or alive). I opted for the first sketch here since tigers don't really have much to do with Vaudevillian entertainment, though I'm sure they'd jump at the chance to star in a show or two.

Is it Friday yet??

2009-04-17T06:39:00.000-07:00

I am glad, that after a miserable morning of being too self-critical and all that, I was able to end the day with a picture that I like. It may not appeal to everybody, it might be too simple for some people's tastes... oh well. I enjoyed working on this a lot. That's what matters, right?

Actually, it seems like the cub looks like it is in a different style to the mother. I might change that tomorrow.

I might use it for a business card, or a postcard or something... seems to work well with 'Bearprints'.

Monster practice

2009-04-15T05:41:00.000-07:00

One of our new assignments at school is designing and illustrating 3 monsters for a competition, which we will actually submit and hope to win! The prize is pretty awesome: 10 thousand bucks, and the opportunity to illustrate an entire book and design about 70 monsters for it. And it will be published all around the world!! The 3 monsters we have to do are basically 1) a tiny vampire 2) a long legged pig and 3) a duck with boots! The brief has much more information on each monster. The book is a whole 'manual' about all different types of monsters.

I keep playing around with style. A little while ago I did the image that is over on the right- the bookish owl, and I loved it. But I still don't think that is the style for me- I want to be a bit more illustrative and use more line in my work. So here I am again, experimenting... trying to find something right for me. I'll find it soon! I just have to keep drawing.

Jungle Girl

2009-04-13T22:55:00.000-07:00

Eh, not much to say about this one... except that her legs look a bit funny to me. Oops..

Beasties of the Night

2009-04-10T06:40:00.000-07:00

Every time I visit ConceptArt.org I feel really inspired by the incredible visionary work of the pro's working in the game industry. It's a great place to kill a few hours looking at all of the amazing work there. Tonight was one of those nights and after a while of browsing, I wanted to sketch some fantasy beasties! Now this is the type of stuff I would draw when I was 16-17. I'm not sure if I really have it in me to draw things like this all the time now, but it's fun to go back to where I started out sometimes.

It also shows how much I have improved in the last year or so, even though I've mostly been doing graphic/cartoony looking work. This was so fun though that I might come back to it a lot more!

Black bear, black bear

2009-04-08T23:43:00.000-07:00

I sketched this cute little guy and decided he deserved some colours. With this one I tried to keep it as simple as possible - large shapes defining the form of the character, simple background, bold colours. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

And here's a polar bear! I may add some colours to him aswell.

Tiger on the loose!

2009-04-07T06:03:00.000-07:00

Just a little bit of sketching before hitting the sack! I might colour this kitty up tomorrow, depending on whether I decide I like his face or not - I feel like I could abstract it a bit more to make it a little more interesting. Since doing the owl yesterday I have felt like I'm really onto something cool. I just have to keep working at it!

Oh yeah, I got around to jazzing up the layout today, I think it looks pretty groovy. Next up is my portfolio website, Bearprints.com.au - but still a ways to go on that one yet.

The Bookish Owl makeover

2009-04-06T03:23:00.000-07:00

Well, I think I've had the most productive day in a while today! For once I put the computer games away and forced myself to sit down and do some work for my portfolio. One thing I made was this bookish owl, who will be a part of this blog's new design! Hopefully I'll be able to get it up tomorrow. I'm very proud of this one - for once, out of all the pieces I have archived on my computer, I can point at this one and say, 'yes, that's my style, that's what I do'.

Earlier this morning I completed this one. I think the lineart on the tiger may be a little overdone but overall I quite like it. I was going for a silkscreened look wth parts of it, and you might be able to see the parts where I have coloured outside of the outlines where the registration is off. I don't think this bear is all too thrilled by the tiger's attempt to gain his attention, but maybe he'll warm up to it sometime ;)

Blake's Bear

2009-04-01T22:53:00.000-07:00

A while ago I was asked by a friend's partner if I could do a commissioned painting for their nursery room, in time for the birth of their baby. I had a lot of freedom - they wanted something to go with their teddy bear theme, and something unique and in my style. So to start I drew them a bunch of bears and they picked out the ones they liked. They were very fond of the bear playing with blocks, so I drew that one out again and did a few colour roughs for them to choose from.

After we worked out some colours that we liked, I set up my painting stuff and began! Here's some progress shots of the painting, and the final is at the bottom. They were very happy with it, and they've gotten a few comments about it apparently. I was certainly happy with how it turned out, I would say it's my best painting to date!!

The Deceit of Zeus

2009-03-29T15:50:00.000-07:00

Sorry the scan isn't very good. For drawing class, we were asked to pair together two phrases from a small list to form a title, and create a piece to go with that title. When I was looking through them the first two that stood out to me were 'The deciet of' and 'Zeus', and I immediatly thought of the story of Zeus and Europa - probably my favourite tale from Greek mythology.

Zeus becomes enamored with Europa, and transforms himself into a white bull and mixes into her father's bull herds. Europa became fond of this white bull's gentle and playful nature, and one day she climbed onto his back. Zeus took this opportunity to take her away with him, he carried her on his back and swam to the island of Crete where he ravished her.

At first I started out with a more realistic looking style, but eventually it evolved into a more simple, graphic look. I think the final is sort of a mix between the two. The final piece was painted on toned pastel paper with a limited pallette of gouache.

I think I am getting closer to what I would call my style!

A few of my favourite artists

2009-03-26T00:48:00.000-07:00

Today I decided to share some work by a few of my favourite artists. Hope you like them as much as I do!

^ Bill Presing

^ Becky Dreistadt

^ Mary Blair

^ Alice and Martin Provensen

^ Tim Biskup

^ Alberto Vivanco

Foxy

2009-03-17T02:27:00.000-07:00

These are some studies for a John Wolseley inspired drawing. For this I wanted to do a character in my own style, and put it in a Wolseley-esque environment. I chose the fox because it's an introduced species, and around it will be dead leaves and plants indicating the result of allowing a foreign animal to thrive in a new habitat. Or something like that!

Boarish

2009-03-15T21:51:00.000-07:00

I didn't go to class today because I was unwell again, but I did this cute piggy when I was a bit boared. Get it? Boar-ed? *guffaw*

Dragon!

2009-03-13T01:25:00.000-07:00

I play World of Warcraft. I drew this dragon, which is called the Red Proto-Drake, for our guild website. Hooray!

Kitty

2009-03-09T16:25:00.000-07:00

So after posting all that other stuff I did this... which is my usual style. And I feel good about this. So... maybe I dont need to change anything at all, just have some more confidence in myself!

Sketchs

2009-03-09T15:43:00.000-07:00

Here's me trying to experiment with my drawing style. I feel like I have a lot more freedom drawing this way, and I enjoy drawing loosely but... well I need to do a lot of work on it.

Kittens n Crocs

2009-03-09T15:23:00.000-07:00

Arggh it's been too long since I last posted. Not good enough Mel!!

I've been working busily on my crocodile character paintings but it's been, well, an annoying and frustrating exercise thus far. I did this painting in gouache first, and I am not happy with it at all.

Horribly painted and the values are terrible. Also, you can see my fail attempts to do drybrushing. Gah!! This made me think a lot about what I was trying to achieve with my drawing and painting styles, and what I wanted to do after Tafe is finished.

I figured I want to do something involving doing art for children's things. Picture books, educational publications, and maybe things like greeting cards and mascot characters and stuff. So I turned this assignment around and tried to make it really 'children's picture book'-like and here's what I ended up doing.

Not really very happy with either of these two, but I am happy I sort of branched out and tried something different. They're done in watercolour - good watercolour painting is so hard to do - once again, the values are horrible in these and I need to learn to paint flat, even areas of colour with watercolours properly. As for the style, I'm not sure if I really like the dot eyes, but then, they're kind of cute.

Gwen Kereval

2009-02-27T22:24:00.000-08:00

I just found this illustrator's website whose work I really really like! Her name's Gwen Kereval and she's French, and does stuff for children's books and publications. Have a look at her groovy stuff.

I love it so much, she uses colours and line really awesomely. I'm guessing they were made in Illustrator. Sweeet!!

Some truths

2009-02-26T01:50:00.000-08:00

This is something I found on Stephan Silver's blog, and he found it somewhere else on the internet. I think it's really awesome, and whenever I feel a bit down about what I'm doing it always manages to cheer me up.

I haven't copy-pasted, but typed it out so that I can drill it into my head a bit more.

Ignore everybody.
The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to be yours.
Put the hours in.
If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.
You are responsible for your own experience.
Everyone is born creative. Everyone is given a box of crayons in Kindergarten.
Keep your day job.
Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with those that champion it.
Everyone has their own Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.
The more talented somebody is, the less they need props.
Don't try to stand out from the crowd. Avoid crowds altogether.
If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.
Never compare your inside to somebody's outside.
Dying young is overrated.
The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.
The world is changing.
Merit can be bought. Passion can't.
Avoid the watercooler gang.
Sing in your own voice.
The choice of media is irrelevent.
Selling out is harder than it looks.
Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.
Worrying about "Commercial vs Artistic" is a complete waste of time.
Don't worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.
You have to find your own schtick.
Write from the heart.
The best way to get approval is to not need it.
Power is never given. Power is taken.
Whatever choice you make, the Devil gets his due eventually.
The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.
Remain frugal.
Allow your work to age with you.
Being poor sucks.
Beware of turning hobbies into jobs.
Savor obscurity while it lasts.
Start blogging!

The one that stands out most to me is this one.

You are responsible for your own experience.

I learned this lesson after wasting 2 years in a visual arts course expecting everything to be handed to me. I was stubborn and my mind was closed. Now I know, as the old saying goes, you get out what you put in. This is exceptionally true in art school.

I'm going to give it everything I've got this year. Starting.......... now.

Okay, gotta go draw. Seeya!

Steaky Croc

2009-02-24T23:52:00.000-08:00

Today we went into the city to see some very interesting things. First we paid a visit to the Malthouse theatres and we got to peek into the workshop where they are currently building the set for a show called Goodbye Vaudeville, Charlie Mudd, which we are seeing in a few weeks time. We also got to see the set for Woyzeck, which was amazing, and I wish I had time to see the actual show but it closes this Saturday.

After that we went to the ACCA and saw a show called The Waterhole. Exhibitions at the ACCA are always a unique experience - this one in particular was pretty fun to go through.

Here's some developmental stuff for our next brief, which is to create a character and do 3 different illustrations of it. There's a theme to each one. My character of choice is Steaky, a crocodile I made up when I was like 10. He's lost a lot of weight since I last drew him. He also has friends, Mr Bear, whose past is a mystery, and Amputee Elephant, who endured a rather unfortunate accident in his younger days but makes do with an exceptionally exquisite trunk.

Book Cover Final

2009-02-21T16:33:00.000-08:00

I think I'm pretty happy with it but it looks a bit tackier than I thought it would be. Sadly, I am not a fantastic designer, though I wish I was. Great design makes me happy.

10 10 10!!!!

2009-02-20T17:16:00.000-08:00

After a nice morning out shopping with mum, I did some more work on my Books Alive cover. The book's title is quite long - '10 Short Stories you Must Read This Year'. With a title like this, you really have to think a lot about hierarchy and the way the text is arranged on the page. If all of the text is treated equally, the importance of certain words is lost, and it doesn't have much of an impact on the viewer. If some of the text is too small or faint or hard to see, it becomes unbalanced and confusing.

The most important part of this title is '10', followed closely by 'short stories'. That's what this book is - a compilation of short stories, duh! Also, I placed emphasis on the word 'must'. Because it's a strong word and I felt I should treat it that way. And although it isn't capitolised, it's still stronger than the following words. You MUST read these stories. You must read these stories.

All that is left to do basically is the illustration of the owls, which I've decided will also be done in Photoshop. I really want to give this illo a real retro cartoon character look - solid, clean lines and sort of a silk-screen printed look.

This was a fun part - making the text pretty. For this design it was really imperitive that the title of the book was as much a piece of artwork as the rest of it. I used a cool font called 'Big Top' for the number 10, and then decorated it some more. They key to this is clever use of the Selection and Stroke tools:

select the 10
create a new layer
modify > contract the selection by about 20 pixels or so
use the Stroke tool, be sure the stroke is located INSIDE the selection
repeat and experiment with various weights and colours
and remember to create a new layer for each thing you do so you don't ruin anything you like!

I hope that makes sense. Here's a bit of a step-by-step series to give you an idea of what I did.

Tiger and the Three Bears

2009-02-19T21:36:00.000-08:00

Just a silly little tiger I did today on the computer...

And here's a personal piece I did last week, I was bored one day and drew some bears that I liked, so I decided to colour them! The drawing was done straight on the computer with my wacom tablet. The lineart is probably the longest and most tedious part of producing these pictures, lots of 'undo'ing and redoing. Most of the linework is done with the tablet as well, but for bits that needed an extra clean and curvy look, I used the pen tool and set the stroke setting to simulate pressure. Which basically makes it look like it was done with a pen.

TIGER TIGER TIGER

2009-02-18T22:23:00.000-08:00

Our first assignment for computer class was to design an image that was to be printed on a t-shirt. It had to be fairly simple with no really fine detail, and we also had to incorperate some text. Originally I had the tiger yelling 'RAWR RAWR RAWR' but like 3 other people in my class also did cats that were saying 'rawr' so I went for something a bit different.

But really what's not to like about a tiger screaming 'TIGER!'? He's making himself known, and declaring his place in the world!

I'm pretty happy with the result, especially the text. I really like adobe illustrator now and will use it a lot more in my future work.

Berty owl and friends

2009-02-18T22:08:00.000-08:00

Here are a few of my favourite drawings I did today~ more owls, for my book cover. I am gonna go with the fat owl with the little reading owl on his head for my final piece!! Oh, and my classmates named the coloured one Berty. I thought it was a pretty neat name.

Patterns!

2009-02-17T14:24:00.000-08:00

Today I'll be making the diamond pattern that will be used in my book cover! I'll be making it in Photoshop as it is very simple to do, compared to making it traditionally. I made a new 5cm x 6cm image, divided it up into quarters and used the pen tool to draw the basic diamond for my pattern. I made 2 diamonds, 1 orange, and 1 blue.

The texture was made using my own custom made photoshop brushes - more on those another day. This diamond was too short, so I made it a bit longer. I placed my 2 different coloured diamonds into a new image, duplicated them to create my pattern and arranged them like so:

Now, all I have to do is make the white background slightly off, and give it a bit of texture to give it an aged look. I also changed the blue colour slightly.

Now to test it out!! I defined the whole image as a pattern, made a big new image and filled it out. The finished pattern is a bit bright still, so I played around with the hue and saturation and made a more faded version... but, still not 100% happy with the result so I will play with with it a bit more until I get something that is suitable.

And that's the diamond pattern for my book cover. Thanks for reading! :)

10 Short Stories you Must Read This Year

2009-02-17T13:58:00.000-08:00

That's the name of the book we have to design a beautiful cover for. We don't know the authors, and we don't know anything about any of the stories in this book. All we know, is that we have to make something beautiful for the cover, and make it something that everyone will want to keep for years to come.

For my book I thought I'd come up with something relatively simple, inspired by modern graphic design, that featured a nice illustration of a character.

The most difficult part of this is making the character something that would appeal to all ages, and not just children - a cartoon with a vintage/classic quality, rather than something too young. So, I started by sketching some owls and deciding on a colour pallette.

I chose blue and orange because I think they go beautifully together, and when faded, and combined with off-white, they have this awesome retro feel. The third owl was drawn first, and I liked it so I cut it out and used it in my (very) rough mock-up.

This is basically the design I've chosen, except there will be a few changes in the layout- firstly the diamond pattern here is too large and will be scaled down. Secondly, the area containing the title and authors will be moved over right up to the right side of the cover to simplify it a bit.

That's the front cover so far!