Recipe Look

I was told about this site aaages ago by Tom, the creator of Recipe Look, when he commented on an old post about my illustrated recipe book.

I then went 'that's a really great idea for a site!' in my head, and then... didn't do a lot about it. But my illustration yesterday about the muffins I made reminded me about it, and when I had a little look again, it's going really strong.

Here's what it's all about:

"Are you fed up with normal recipes and their pesky, text based formats? Do you want to see some life breathed in to your lunchbox inspiration, some spectacle in your spatchcock chicken? Recipe Look is here to save you supper time. It’s packed with interesting food ideas and they’re all drawn out by hand, so you can easilt see what you have to do. What’s more, you have the chance to make your own ‘recipe look’ and send it in to us. We’ll simply make it the right size and stick it on the site; you’ll be famous in minutes!"

Which I think is a great idea - I do love food illustration and illustrated recipes and it's really inspiring to see loads of recipes submitted from all over, as well as how people are drawing them - the idea is to use the least amount of words as possible so the recipe comes across purely in the drawing.

This is the most recent one from the site, sent in by orboc:

So that's the basic idea. I'm going to email the muffin recipe in so you might see it up there soon.

It would be nice to have coloured/arranged the recipe in Illustrator as doing something hand drawn never comes out exactly the way you wanted it to. But I am still Mac-less and have only MS Paint at my disposal. Yeah... not ideal.

Soon. Hopefully. Probably not :(

Arty-type graduates 2009, (un)Natural Talent, and just how scared are you?

I had a conversation with my friend today about art in general, and my course, and the talent on it and if you are born with talent or not. That kind of thing. I generally came to the conclusion that throughout my artistic education, I have come across a few people who have been hugley talented. You know, can draw perfectly first time round and are just damn good. But they don't seem to care. They have their little world and don't seem driven to do the work they're set or find about new things or research into things that inspire them, you know all that standard stuff. Well, things I find standard anyway. But then they draw, and it's like, wow. Ok, you bastard, clearly you're born talented and I hate you. You're cool, but I hate you, because I work my ass off, I'm constantly soaking up the world around me, looking into things, sticking stuff on my wall, finding inspiration everywhere, experimenting, trying new things. And I'm nowhere near as good as you. And you just sit there and smoke cool little cigarettes.

It's like, if there was a graph, there would be a relationship between how talented you are as to how little you seem to have to work for it. And I've always thought that unfair.

So it's strange when I come across this post today that kind of reassured me against that thought I've had. That actually, they're not better than me, everyone is different, and stop comparing yourself to someone else, who at the end of the day, isn't exploring their creative life enough. (semi self-help book, there). That, by the way, is a really great blog, and it's pretty to look at too. Go look.

This all stems I think, from the fact that I've nearly finished my course, and I'm freaking out about leaving into the big bad world. I handed in two modules today. Which felt AMAZING. Despite the fact that it was the most complicated hand in process EVER and I got so stressed I felt pressure on my chest. Do you ever get that? Well I had that today. It was weird. Anyway, I finally got it handed in after dodging an assault of: technology going wrong, huge print queues, selfish computer-hogging spanish students, stanley knife cuts, spray mount fumes, photography classes stealing your hand-in room (damn you Henry *shakes fist*) the entire uni network being stoneage slow because everyone wants to print barcodes, and tutors announcing we're losing our studio in 3 days.

But. I. Did. It.
Which is more than I can say for 80% of my class who had got extensions for one reason or another. And I'm bitter about that because I work hard and some (not all) don't deserve an extension, in my humble opinion. Is that harsh? Actually I don't care, it's true.

Previous freak outs that I'm sure many of us feel.

I've just got 1 more module to hand in on thursday then it's DEGREE SHOW TIME BABY.

So my question today is, Where are you, soon-to-be art (and especially illustration and graphic design) graduates?? Are you freaking out? Are you a naturally-talented, cool cigarette smoking bastard? Are you a nervous wreck who feels they have BECOME their shiny white macintosh? When is your degree show? Just how drunk, exactly, are you going to get?

This is the website to watch. There's a lot of us, isn't there.

Computers

I've had this quote going round my head for a while. Thought I'd better do something about it.


I'm not keen on the tetris style 'to'. Not that legible. The rest was fun though - It's just a type experiment before I delve into my projects. I'm not procrastinating, honest.

**I don't hate computers. I'm sitting in front of a shiny, pretty white box as I type this. I had to use it to scan it in didn't I? And overlay the microwave instructions. So to reiterate; computers are fine. Just not all the time. Do some painting, damn it.

Random Ramblings and Reminders from Rachel

Haven't posted in a few days so I think I shall :)

The new Illustration Friday topic, Your Paradise, is pretty cool, I like it a lot. Shame I don't think I'll have enough time to do it though =/ I've been up at Wolverhampton visiting Russell this weekend, going home tonight, so no art has taken place, I have one day at home tomorrow, then I'm off to Download! Which I'm very excited about. I hope the weather holds up =/

So I could attempt it tomorrow but I don't want to do another half-arsed one like last time. It would be good to spend a few days on it. I have a few basic initial ideas though, either a personal response, some kind of self portrait (perhaps with my ipod on, cos when I'm enveloped in my own little world of music, that's my paradise) with/collage/decoration, maybe even do it vector style... then of course another paradise is creating art itself... which means that the piece could be anything, even just a 'happening' (ooo so arty) as the actual creation of the work would be the outcome.
Or focus on the definition of the word itself... paradise, utopias etc... and then go a bit different, and base it on a dystopia... because of cours ethe title is 'Your Paraadise', not My Paradise... and your paradise could be my idea of hell.

You see. So many ideas, but no time :( I'll see what mood I'm in tomorrow though, I might just throw together the self portrait idea. It's a bit 'a-level girl art' isn't it, though. Like "Oh I'm sooo misunderstood, the only time I'm at total peace is when I'm listening to my tuuuunes on my ipod that my daddy bought me".

Which isn't true. My dad didn't buy me my ipod. I won it. So HA take that, apple.
Except I <3 href="http://www.handiedan.com/">
http://www.handiedan.com/

I can't put an image up 'cos it's all flash based, but go see. Everything varies quite a lot but my favourite stuff is the kind that the site is decorated with.

Its just the vector swirls and the inkyness and the website is amazing and I'm very jealous :(

Also, this guy:
Leo Hillier.

Looky how cute it is ^.^

I can't remember how I came across him.. just one of my random internet trawls I guess - but his work is so cute, I really love it.

Two totally different styles but I love them both.

See this is my problem, how am I ever going to figure out a style if I have influences from so many different things? Sigh. Watch and find out I suppose.

OH and before I go, just a reminder to any passers-by to vote for my t-shirt design!

Details are in a previous post but just go here, register, and rate my design!

Have a look at the others too, some are amazing.

Right, enough of this madness. No-one will have got to the end anyway.

If I don't do the IF topic tomorrow I'll definately do my blog header design. It's waaay boring right now. I'm thinking inky/collage doodle type thing, with just 'Rachel Lewis Illustration', or maybe something a bit weirder than that. I keep trying to think up of fun blog titles but they're all a bit lame.

I will ponder it on the train journey :)