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Welcome to rachelsays... The blog of Rachel Lewis, containing my thoughts and musings on illustration, design, fashion, music, cakey-bakey goodness, culture and things that I generally find cool. There's also a good chance my own illustration work will pop up on here.

All work on this blog is copyright to me unless I state that it isn't. Obviously. Don't do stealing, kids.

So come on in, have a look around, and leave a comment if you like what you see.

www.rachelsayshello.com
contact [at] rachelsayshello.com

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Music, Neon, and Small Objects.

Hello blog-type people. This week, I 'ave mostly been fer'ilising. I mean, er. I have mostly been working. It's been really great actually, startling how much I've learned about how design companies work, relationship with clients, how to actually layout a well designed page (sweeeet), and other stuff. Been bloody knackering though. Monday is my last day; I hand back over to the normal designer, then I get paid yeeeeha :D Hehe.

Today I went shopping with my dad, for his birthday present. It's scary how much I enjoy shopping, even if it is for my (oldish) dad - picking stuff out is cool ^.^ However, being the buying-stuff-aholic that I am, I couldn't resist these shoes in the Schuh sale:















How amazing are they?? (Yes those are my feet, they are pudgy, sshh.) They were half price, from £40 to £20. Duh. And they're uber high and actually pretty comfortable! I just love the neon style reflection on my floor :P I already have lots of neon accessories, although not much yellow, so may have to get a bag, or bright yellow top and then wear black jeans. Mwahahahaha. I want to wear them all the time! This nu-rave thing that's going on is the best trend EVER.

Moving on from that, I wanted to bring to people's attention some nice things I found, first of all is:
The Small Object
It's pretty explanatory once you visit it; a site selling lots of lovely little handmade artwork, and other things. These being my favourites:
The thumb war battle of 1596

Stickers. But cool ones.

And basically it's just a lovely little site. I like finding nice things like that.

Another thing I wanted to share was:
Creature Magazine
I found this via Allmightys.

"Creature-mag is an artist run online publication released quarterly. We receive work from artists, photographers, designers, illustrators, writers, poets and musicians from all over the world. The creature encourages free thought/speech and enjoys receiving pieces that both inspire and display an inventive application of the artists creativity.

We are a magazine of folk sensibilities, we aim to develop and sustain a talented community of creative people, to showcase the work of local and international artists and to facilitate both our own and others artistic development."

It's very pretty and now I aspire to having something accepted into it. But in the mean time, it's just a nice read :) Bookmark it, issues come every so often I believe.

The last thing, again found via Allmightys.com, is:
Music video for Grandaddy - Jed's other Poem.
It's entirely made on one of those old school 70's computers, and it's utterly beautiful. The song ain't half bad either!

I think the reason I like it so much is the visualisation of the lyrics, not just written out but, interacting with the song. I'm really into this myself - I may be alone but when I listen to songs I visualise the words and how they would be on paper, and the tones and melodies of the song affecting the way they're laid out - italicised, laid over, bla bla. Anyway, so quite often I'll just write out/design lyrics to how I think they'd look if music was visual. It's fun and so therapeutic. For example, I did these a few months ago now, it's the lyrics to Another Word for Desperate by Straylight Run:
























On the left is the original, typed up lyrics, overlapping etc. Click on it, have a look. The one on the right is the same, but messed up - I'm not going to say how 'cos I've never seen anyone else do this before, and it's miiiiiine ahahahahahaha. I'm sure you can figure it out anyway. It does strange things - stretches bits, flips lines over, all kinds of stuff. It's great. Hint, no photoshop involved, this entire thing is just done in word, well and a scanner/printer of course. Now I know how to use InDesign it can be done a lot easier now :) All the lyics belong to Straylight Run, of course.

So that's all for today. Have a nice weekend all :)

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Say hello to BerryFace

So I ended up emailing Keaton, asking about his work and things, and he gave me some very good advice:

"just keep painting and drawing exactly what you want to look at and it should be personal to you and therefore bare some kind of mark, but besides, being versatile is great in illustration."
Apart from the awful grammar (teehee), it's very true. I'm constantly worried about my style, or lack of it, and keep focussing on what I think I should be doing, instead of just drawing what I like, for the hell of it, whenever I want.

So I've been day dreaming about all these pieces I want to do, and most involve ink actually. I haven't used ink for a while but I love it, and I think I want to start using it more often. It's the process that I enjoy more than the outcome usually (most of the time it's just a mess, but getting messy is so fun).
So with that in mind, I did a recent Drawanyway task, where you had to simply draw the view through a door. Then I decided to go over it in ink, hurrah:























So there you go. Lots of fun :)
Another uber fun thing, as you have probably noticed, is my new Doll-Doll! She is called BerryFace and she likes you a lot, especially if you feed her easter eggs ^.^ Look after her.
Another thing I wanted to point out is my friend Elly's art blog - Needle Blossom Shed. It is posted under my "Blogs I like" section, but everyone should take a look at this post. Basically, it's awesome. Oh how I love collage!

That's something else I need to get back into as well. Argh. You see my problem?

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Keaton Henson

Update May 2009:
I've been noticing a lot of traffic to this particular page on my blog. Guess Keaton's a popular guy! However this is quite an old post and so doesn't have a lot of relevant, recent information about him. Go to his new website www.keatonhenson.com and have a gander there.
What do you think of Keaton's work? Feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of the page.
Alternatively, have a look around the rest of my blog and get involved! Maybe even subscribe, I'm quite interesting! :)

The other day I was wearing an Enter Shikari t-shirt that i bought at Download, and it reminded me that I was going to find out who did the album artwork for Take To The Skies. So I found out. His name is Keaton Henson, and this is his website.

It's not fair. He is a year younger than me. And he's so talented already, no university degree, just went out and did it all himself. You can read about him on his biography page, anyway. It kinda depresses me 'cos here is a guy who knows exactly what he's all about, he's already got awesome commisions, knows his style and just produces this amazing, quirky work. I'm nowhere near that stage yet, I don't even have a style.

It makes me think I should just give up if people are going to be so much better than me, and younger! :(

Ok, self pitying rant over. Sorta. I'm not jealous, I just want to be exactly like that ;)

Here is some examples:
Take to the Skies front cover
Monsterrr Clothing
T-shirt Design
Hearts Under Fire EP cover.


The thing that I aspire to is this:


Having your artwork, like if you were commissioned by a band, up on stage in front of loads of people... god that would feel so amazing. One day.

(All images copyright to Keaton, damn him.)

Thursday, June 21, 2007

First day of Work!

So today was my first day at my new temporary job, at the local editorial design / publishing company I mentioned before. It was really good, actually quite fun, and considering it was a full day (9-5.30), it went quite quick. I was given a few tasks to do to get used to how they work, indesign, that kind of stuff. Like I had to design a couple of adverts for the back of one of their publications, and also just had a play around with the layout and design of one of the magazines they produce, get used to how it all works, as from monday I'll be covering for one of their designers and handling all that kind of stuff so I need to see how it all works really. But yeah, it was fun, I enjoy doing things like that.

Yesterday's drawanyway task was to produce a drawing in under 2 minutes, so I decided to draw my brother playing the keyboard:
I quite like it, considering how long it took :P

Everyone should take part in Draw Anyway, go here to find out more.

That's it for today. Yet again I didn't do this week's Illustration Friday topic. Sigh. I can't do it next week either, 'cos of me working and all, but the week after that I will do it. I keep having all these great ideas and not being able to do them! Sigh.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Must be some kind of rift in the space-time continuum.

I haven't posted in a while... been quite busy recently, nothing that exciting though. I said to myself I was going to post here once a day but that never happened. I will try though.

Anyway, you may have noticed I prettified my blog ^.^ I'm not overly keen on the header, so that might change soon, but it's ok for time being. Much better than the standard blogger text bit anyway. And I had lots of fun fiddling with colours last night so everything matches now. Hurrah!

There is a new t-shirt design competition open over at Allmightys.com. The theme for this one is 'Big City Life' and I'm going to try my hardest to win :) I've had a few ideas already, especially as one of my First Year projects was called 'The City', so I think I'll use the concept from that illustration. (Click to have a look, I posted it back in May.)

So here are a couple of my initial sketches for the competition:



This comes from that illustration that I did, but I'll do it in Illustrator (or try to), and use nice flat colours and stuff. Or...

There's this one, not as keen on this, it's supposed to be showing the road and the speeding lights of the cars at night. Meh.

I want to think up of some better ideas though, focussed on the actual 'life' of the city. And make them good. I have about 20 or so days though so I should be ok. I'm going to try to submit more than one design though because then I'll have a better chance won't I :)

So that's that. I also wanted to post about this great little site I came across via Illustration Friday, called Drawanyway.com. Check it out; the basic premise is that all of us, even the busiest, have a few minutes a day that can be used to draw. So there are daily, quick tasks set on there for anyone of any artistic ability to take part in. So far it's been fun :) I'm trying to use it because I know I need to draw more than I do, and the community feel means you can get some really great feedback on what you've done. It's only small so far but I've got a feeling it's really going to take off. For example, the other day the task was a self portrait, and the aim is to do most of these tasks in about 10-15 mins. Here's my attempt:
It's not that great; just shows how bad I've got at drawing now I don't do it every week. That's the good thing about uni, free life drawing classes :)

Tomorrow I start a temporary short job at a local design company, editorial and publication design, that kind of thing. Should be really good but I'm so nervous! I'm such a wuss. Everything frightens me. Life frightens me. It gets scarier as I get older too =/ But I shall post here tomorrow after my first day. Eep.

Last thing I wanted to say today was that a few weeks ago, while being bored and browsing on the internet, I typed in Rachel Lewis Illustration (for that is me, don'tcha know) into google, and guess what came up. Well, go look for yourself! I'm the 3rd entry down, but, and here is a massive shock, there is another illustrator called Rachel Lewis. An entry above me. Oh my god. Blasphemy. Bit unfortunate, eh. Out of all the careers :P Anyway, so I had a look on her website, www.rachellewisillustrator.com, and actually her stuff is quite good. I say actually as if i wasn't expecting it to be, no I just feel a bit put out, I hate when other people have my name! And my career. Boohoo. I like her editorial illustrations the most, like this one:
That's a bit small. Er, click on it.

And look, that's even the style I like!! Oh dear.

....Maybe it's me in the future. Or a rift in the space-time continuum. Waaa!!

Anyway, go look at her stuff. She is a better Rachel Lewis Illustrator than I am at the moment.

I hope people don't get confused. I'll have to change my name to Princess Conswale Bananahammock.

Update May 2009: I think she is now defunct... that website doesn't work anymore. So maybe I am the only Rachel Lewis of Illustration now? Who knows. You can see MY website over at the wonderful place of www.rachelsayshello.com... home of the real Rachel Lewis ;) hehe.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Download Festival, Illustration Friday and other fun stuff

'Ello all! Just a (not so) quick update on stuff.

I got back from Download Festival yesterday, it was such a great weekend! Saw some really amazing bands and met up with loads of people I haven't seen for ages :) I'm not going into great detail about it 'cos I could go on for hours, but Id say the top 3 bands were Enter Shikari, My Chemical Romance and Linkin Park. I suppose they are also my 3 favourite bands but yeah, they were amazing. Especially Enter Shikari, what a rave! My bag broke and everything but had such a good time.
I met Aiden as well, at a Q&A session thing, that was awesome. I was going to meet Linkin Park but the meet and greet was at the same time as Marilyn Manson, and I'd never seen him before. (I've met LP 3 times now.) So I gave my pass to a friend :) Yay.

So, I never did get the chance to finish last week's Illustration Friday topic, but I've decided to do it anyway because... well I wanted to. But this week's topic is also good. It's 'Suit', and I think I'll go down the 'suit of cards' route :) So after I've finished Your Paradise, I'll do that one too :)

So for the 'Your Paradise' one I really wanted to use Illustrator, as I barely know much about it. So I've downloaded the free trial of cs3 and had a go on it today. This is what I've done so far:
I'm quite pleased with it so far! Obviously it will have some sort of colour/texture but this is just the lines at the mo. Paths are quite fun. Except I can't figure out how to join some of them, it keeps saying something like "paths need to be in the same group or not grouped at all" or something. I dunno. If anyone knows the answer then do tell :)

So yes the basic premise for 'Your Paradise' is a self portrait of me, listening to my ipod. But it's actually me plugged into flowers and nature and stuff. Soon I'll add lyrics and scribbles and inky bits. Basically my paradise is listening to music outside, completely tuned off, doodling a bit and not caring about anything :)

I look a bit moody but i'm supposed to be concentrating =P

The results for the Allmightys t-shirt competition came out today; unfortunately I didn't win :( My average score was 2.02, but I did have 131 people vote for me, so thank you very much everyone!! You can see the winners here.

So that's about all I have to say really. I shall post my finished illustration friday illo when it's done :)

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

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 :)