Ciara Healy - yesterday's seminar

I don't know about everyone else but i throughly enjoyed Ciara's talk yesterday, it was really interesting to hear about her work and what she's experienced so far in her career. I particularly liked her collage and butterflies made up of the old love letters and found objects. Although i thought it was very brave of her to cut up the carbon copies! I don't think i would have gone that far! Also the pieces in which she melted asotate appealed to me, that's something i haven't tried before and so i am going to attempt it, hopefully without setting my house on fire...

She mentioned a few artists that i was drawn to... Andi McGarry, whose artists books have a very gritty, hand-made aesthetic - that rough, flow of the mind technique that i so greatly desire!

I love the close-up detail and textures in this cover...

Sara Fanelli whose illustrations remind me of a cross between Lauren Child and Oliver Jeffers, again the combination of mediums and hand-drawn type give an exciting look to children's books...




 She uses collage a bit more subtly than Lauren Child,
                                                                    i'm not sure which method i prefer...



http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/gallery/2011/mar/31/childrens-books-7-and-under#/?picture=372987789&index=0    <--- a great collection of Fanelli's illustrations with a mini article that explains the images as you go along...



I can't copy any images from Ciara's site but i strongely recommend you take a look, whether you were there or not. There's the wierd and wonderful (knitted bird coats!), simplistic/innocent illustrations, book work and generally an admirable example of minimal use of detail and just strong watercolour/ink linework.
http://ciarahealy.com/index.html  

I'll stop writing now......

Mixed Media piece

I think this piece has been a bit too 'digitally modified' but it's given me ideas of layering and collage for my America book, if i did it by hand then it would have the aesthetics i like. I can't remember who it was by, it is from one of the many blogs and sites i've visited recently.. Note to self: reference as you go along!!

If anyone knows of practitioners who work in similar ways, let me know =)

Problems with my blogger!!

Dear anyone whose good at using blogspot....!
After attempting to comment on Becky's new post 8 times, literally!! My blogger won't let me comment on anyone's posts or keep my logged in, it keeps saying 'choose account' and it's all very confusing!! I don't really know how to describe my problems but if anyone (by some miracle) knows what i'm talking about then can you help me please! =)

If not then another thing to say is if i don't respond to any posts or comments you leave/send me then i apologise! Hopefully the problem will resolve itself.. Me and computers tend not to get along!!

MISSION!!!

So, i've managed to make two of the cubecraft pieces today, in amongst other things... and they took forever, were really fiddly and look kind of naff anyway due to my rubbish printer quality! But hey ho here they are!....

You can see the imperfections...all i had was pritt stick or industrial type glue, think i needed something inbetween!!

This one had a 'wooden' toybox and 6 building blocks with it. The blocks were pretty straight-forward but the toy box could have done with more tabs because it didn't stay together very well at the bottom.

N'aawww look at his lil face....!

I'm pretty sure after the patience and amount of time that it took to make these two, that for the installation project, i'm just gonna make up my own characters. Perhaps on a bigger scale these would have been easier although i don't think the print quality will be very good blown up to A2-ish.. Ahh well, we'll see what happens!...

CubeCraft

So Dave emailed me this morning with a link to a 'cubecraft' site and since then i've been geekishly excited about all the stuff i've come across! I thought they just showed you examples of work but actually you can download the net and make your own. That's what i'm off to do now (well when i finish browsing researching anyway..) i'll start off with a few 'borrowed' ideas and then try and work out my own.

Here's a few of my favourites so far...










Anyways, i'm so eager to get making (laugh if you wish but i happen to like my geekazoid enthusiasm..) that you shall just have to discover your own if you're interested!

http://www.cubecraft.com - look at the 'blog' section for other designers/links

http://www.marshallalexander.net/ - none of the images seem to be working when i post them on here but check out this site, they're less 'digitally manipulated' for want of a better phrase. i.e. they look less fake...

Hopefully i have some success, i'll post the results later, whatever they may be! =)

Becky's Quote(s) of the day...

I think this could quite possibly be quote of the year!!....


"You can't call it sideways cause then it looks like we're all backwards!"

How does one even begin to work out how to make this!?....

I just came across this video of (the best) wedding invitation ever. I don't understand how it works but i think it's amazing! If only i knew how to make it, it would be perfect for my America project!

Original site: http://vimeo.com/22306468