Hello.

Apparently I can update my blog from Word 2007 now. Which is what I'm doing right now. Isn't that clever. Word 07 is sexy, I love it. Unfortunately I only have the trial version and the full version is obviously expensive. Stupid Microsoft.

Anyway, I have Word 2007 because I have a new (Vista, ooo) Laptop. I have a new laptop because my old (not so old really) laptop got stolen about a month ago. Yes. Life got suckier. I think I should explain how the last 3 months have treated me. It's not really illustration related and I didn't plan to include much of my personal life in this blog, but it's an explanation of why I haven't produced anything creative and why the blog has ceased functioning recently. Also this is probably going to be quite cathartic. Here goes:

• Most people who paid any attention to my recent posts probably gathered about my boyfriend splitting up with me, and the horribleness that ensued. Lies, lies, deceit, cheating, more lies. He broke my heart and I honestly don't know how I'm still breathing. But I am. It affected me a great deal, and still is everyday – my creativity, let alone everything else, kind of went on hold as the feelings of pointlessness set in.
  
• I then went on holiday to Tenerife, which was lovely if quite lonely, and when I arrived back I found out one of my closest friends who I was planning to live with at Uni had made the decision to not come back in September. She lives in Northern Ireland and I haven't seen her since; we speak regularly but I miss her like crazy.
  

Second slap in the face. Two people who had become such important parts of my immediate life had just disappeared from it. Right, ok. I thought. Fine. I'll just get back to university, move in to my new house with my other new housemates, and just focus on work and try to forget.

• Four days after I had moved into my house, we were burgled whilst I was in the house, and I was attacked. I was hit and kicked in the head and held on the floor while all of our laptops were stolen, as well as both of my digital cameras, my phone, my Nintendo DS, my bank card and other various things were taken from me. I was lucky; I hadn't been hurt that badly (they could have done anything to me) and after being taken to hospital I was discharged with just a mild head injury. Obviously, it was horrifying, and I've never, and never ever hope to be again, in the position that I was actually scared for my life. Anyway, the police came and did their CSI thing the next day and took statements and bla bla, and luckily I was insured. I got quite a good payout, but it's just the personal things you can't replace, such as music, photos, videos, especially ones of my ex boyfriend; things that I can never get back. Also the emotional scars have been extremely difficult to deal with, my family and friends have been brilliant but both the break-up and the break-in happening at the same time has really made me question well...everything.
  
• I then really tried to focus on university work, it's all I could do really. Every thought was either of the ex-boyfriend or what I was going to do if I was left on my own again. So, I suppose quite understandably, I just couldn't do my uni work. Second year is so much tougher and I've always put a lot of pressure on myself; I want to succeed so much. So when I got this creative block or whatever, I freaked out even more. I just couldn't deal with it. I wanted to do my work so much but I had no ideas, no motivation, just a complete lack of self esteem and self belief. I was just crying all the time. The universe, I thought, hated me. Why did all this have to happen? Why me? You know, all those selfish thoughts and stuff like that.
  

So I decided then it was probably a good idea to see a counsellor. I hated that thought; it really made me feel like a failure. I used to be so happy and in love with life, but I'd been turned in to this person that would rather just lay in bed all day and waste away. It's been good though... I've been to a few sessions now and I'm starting to feel a bit more positive. I didn't want to accept that I was suffering from depression but I really think I was. Am. I don't know really. Some days I'm ok and some days are...hard. I miss being happy, I miss who I used to be and what I had. I'm appreciative of what I still have but I have to be honest, I haven't woken up and felt glad about it for months. It's that horrible feeling of dread that gets to me. I feel scared every day because I'm really thinking: "What next?" What's life going to throw at me next?

• Anaemia, that's what. Hurrah! I haven't been for the proper blood test yet to confirm it, it's just a preliminary diagnosis but it makes a lot of sense. I thought I was just feeling weak and tired all the time because I was so busy at uni and stressed and getting upset too much, but yeah. And I've been feeling extra cold (I'm a cold person anyway), but I always put that down to bad circulation. Maybe I've always been a bit anaemic and now it's gotten worse. I hadn't realised but I haven't really been eating properly. Not consciously, I just keep forgetting to eat. I've lost a stone since all this happened and although I can notice it and I do actually feel good about being thinner, I didn't plan to, and it's worried me. Has not eating properly made me anaemic? If so then I've been neglecting myself and that's a horrible thought. So once I get the blood test, I shall find out for sure. But I'm expecting it to confirm it. Everyone says I look pale but I don't really think so. Who knows.
  

So that's it. So far. I'm half expecting something else to happen soon, I mean why not, this has been the toughest time of my life, the universe may as well add to it. It's all just been incredibly unfair and I've lost faith in everything I used to believe in.

Returning to illustration related things. This is all why I haven't been doing much. Uni has been good ish and the projects are interesting, I'm starting to be able to come up with ideas a lot more and slowly I'm getting up to speed. I'm so behind though. I've been wondering about leaving the course, leaving this whole place and just starting again somewhere else, but I haven't made any decisions yet. I don't want to run away but being here kinda reminds me of everything I've lost. I don't know. That's a sad thought so I'm going to change the subject and tell you about my modules.

I have 4. They are Contextual Studies (booo), Narrative Illustration (Gah), Negotiated Study (Argh) and Editorial Illustration (Yay).

Contextual – Meh, not much to say, lectures, seminars, Modernism, stuff like that. And a bloody research journal. A whole lot of work, I tell you.

Narrative – We have a project to choose one of 4 extracts from novels and creating a series of 25 frames to convey the story. It's pretty mental, I have 7 weeks left. I've decided to Choose a story called "Norwegian Wood" but I can't remember the author. I'll get back to you on that. Hopefully that'll come out well and I can start to show actual work from it soon.

Negotiated – This one we basically write our own brief and do what we want. Which is cool, but hard. I've decided to design a series of illustrated hang tags to enhance the brand identity of Topshop. Hurrah! Hang tags are the price tags basically. But I'm going to make them PRETTEH. Well, aesthetically pleasing with a focussed message. Of course.

Editorial – This is the hardest module I reckon because each project has a turnaround of 3 weeks. Our first one was only 2 weeks. I think that's partly why I melted down. SO much pressure. I'm doing... ok on that. Not great. But Editorial is my favourite area of illustration at the moment I think. Our current article is called "How to mooch about." Yeah. Illustrate that, bitches. Owch.

To end on a more positive note, I'm going to introduce you to a wonderful Illustrator. She is Simone Lia and she is amazing. She created the graphic novel/comic "Fluffy", about this rabbit who thinks a man called Michael is his daddy. It's so cute and so hopelessly sad. Makes me smile and cry at the same time. You need this. Buy it now.

Go to: http://www.cabanonpress.com/simonesshed/1.lamp.htm or http://www.simonelia.com/

She is awesome. So that's the end. I'm going to post more frequently and hopefully soon I'll be able to post more of my actual own work. Fingers crossed. This is a long post. Bye.

Not dead yet

I suppose I'd better return to the minty net world. Hello. It has been over a month, after all. God. That's a long time. I would have thought the daily crying bollocks would have stopped by now. It appears that I am, in fact, very weak, and "just getting over it" is not as easy as making yourself believe it is. I have learned a lot in these awful 5 weeks though. Including that I haven't dropped dead from heart failure. (That's the real heart I'm talking about, not that bloody mess of muscle and fat(?) that continues to race extremely fast inside me.)

I still can't draw but I'm trying... I'm going on holiday to Tenerife on friday* so I'm hoping I'll be able to get some inspiration over there. Although it's not really lack of inspiration that's a problem. (If ever I wanted to create something wholly disturbing and angst-ridden, now would be a good time.)

It's like my good friend Needle Blossom aka Elly said to me "for the great master artist people, they get all inspired by depression and general shittyness. For us mere mortals, it's much harder." Then she probably said something along the lines of Don't Worry It'll Get Easier Soon.

*Wow, look at me. Being all pathetic about my life (or temporary lack of it) and yet I'm jetting off to some random country. And there are starving children, Rachel. The planet is dying, Rachel. Imagine.

Anyway.

It's a shame because I had so much arty stuff planned for summer. Totally uber exciting stuff, I even made a list. But this new Rachel doesn't like lists, and she certainly doesn't care much for what's on it, what she was going to do. Such a waste.

Oh I should probably announce my score for my t-shirt design on Allmightys.com, that ended weeks ago.
I got an average score of 1.23 (maximum was 5, remember), and 86 people voted for me. Thankyou, 86 people.

Needless to say, that average score is pitiful and didn't really help with my whole "I'm actually quite rubbish aren't I" thing that I've got going on now. Hurrah. Maybe t-shirt design isn't my forte. Fine. So what is then.

OH they've got a new competition up now, called Once upon a Time. Fairytales are bollocks. The princess always marries her lying, cheating, bastard of a prince.

I have, however, found a few interesting sites that have stirred some kind of passion in me (it's not dead yet), and so maybe I will share when I can be less apathetic. In the mean time, find me on del.icio.us and you can do it yourself. Rachelewis is my username I think. Maybe. Iono.

Hahaha. My phone just did my little text message wheedly beep thing. I've come to loathe that sound because it always gets me stupidly excited that it might be him, then of course it's an advert. Not that I think about him all the time, of course. That would be pathetic and heart-breaking.

Time to go.

Vote for my t-shirt design

This is a very quick post. Just to let people know that they can now vote on my t-shirt design (pictures below)

here.

You can rate between 0-5. I would appreciate your votes, thankyou.

Also just to let you know that I'm going through a very difficult time at the moment and being creative/drawing/smiling/living/breathing isn't at the top of my agenda right now. Maybe i'll post something in a fit of rage and genius. ness. but i doubt it.

i'll try and get back to "normal" as soon as I can.

edit - also if you pop by here, can you feed berryface please. she looks upset and i dont want her to die

Grafik 150 Book

I forgot to mention this earlier; I received my copy of the Grafik 150 Book this morning! Which surprised me because I only ordered it at the weekend. It's published by Grafik (duh), the monthly graphic design magazine that I subscribe to, and you can get a copy here. It's basically to celebrate 150 issues of the magazine (which is so great and like design porn), with loads of designers saying what inspires them inside. I got the green version of the cover yay :P

I haven't read it all yet but what I have read is fascinating. Anyone with a general interest in graphic designers and what they like etc would do well to get this actually, I recommend it a lot. And its only a tenner, bargain.


Oh and I'm going to New Designers 2007 tomorrow... should be fun! I'll post here if I come across anything really cool.

Final Design for the allmightys contest, and a handmade card...

Next week is my friend's birthday so I decided to make her a card. I usually make most of my cards but this one is quite cool I think, and semi inspired by a post on Elly's (aka Needleblossom)'s blog. Mainly cos I stole her idea of using dulux paint chart thingys. They are so sexay. Right:
I haven't sent it to her yet so I hope she doesn't read this. Actually I don't think she even knows about my blog. She lives in Aberystwyth now which = no real world connections :P

It's all about decadence and my love of the victorian wallpaper resurgence thing. I suppose I should have made it about what she likes but screw it. She'll get what she's given :P (if she ever sends me her new address, grr)

Then a few days after that it's my auntie's 50th, and she actually is into that whole thing, well basically she's just ace at interior design, so i'll make it all about her house or something. Yeah.

I also posted this on DrawAnyway as today's task is all about decorating cards! How spooky.



Also I just wanted to update everyone about my Allmightys.com t-shirt design:

This is the final version. Voting starts next tuesday, (17th), so everyone needs to vote for me :D
That's what you'll see in the voting gallery. Wish me luck!

All
works in this post is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Illustration Friday Night: The Dead

This is my first post for Illustration Friday Night. The theme is The Dead, and I had lots of fun doing this one:

Click for larger image.... it looks better that way.

Yeah, This is not natural...
A bunch of holes where the dead used to be, underground 
Forget supernatural...
'cause all those resting in peace, are out and walking the streets 
With no heartbeat

It was inspired by the lyrics for 'Wake The Dead' by The Used, off their album Lies for the Liars. It's such a good song. You can find the entire lyrics here. This piece was done entirely with black and red ink. It felt so good to use ink again, I really like it. Except I bought a new calligraphy pen and it's rubbish.. unless you use hardly any pressure then no ink comes out. I'll go buy a new one tomorrow.

All
works in this post is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Submission for this month's Allmighty's competition.

So I've nearly finished my design for this month's Allmighty's t-shirt competition:

Just a few more changes... I don't like the font, and the bottom needs a bit of work too. I was going to give it a spraypaint/stencil effect but I remembered you can't have designs with gradients on, I think. I'll have to check that. But it's nearly finished :) Should have it submitted early next week. Don't know if I'll have time to do another one, I'll see how busy I am. Sorry about the massive stupid copyright thing but as I haven't submitted it yet, I don't want anyone coming along and nicking my amazing idea :P It's transparent(ish), just look throooooo it. Eeek.

It's quite fun and cute, and I like it ^.^ And it'll make a kick ass t-shirt. Watch this space.

The other thing I was going to mention is that I'm now a member of Illustration Friday Night - definately not cute. But still hopefully fun. It's basically a blog-type-place for people who want bit more exciting/dark/scary themes, not ones like Twist. Or Camouflage. Don't get me wrong, I love Illustration Friday, and sometimes you find some really good stuff on there... but sometimes you don't, it can be a bit... 'stationery illustration'. Like nice little bunnies. And I do like bunnies. But sometimes scary dead bunnies are more interesting. Yes?

So this week's IFN theme is 'The Dead'. Which is waaaaay better than 'Geeky'. I've had lots of ideas for The Dead actually, what a great theme. Mooohahaha. And I've had 'Dead' by My Chem in my head ever since too. How I love that band. Off I go *skips away*