Oliver Jeffers

I need to start doing this more often; posting about awesome illustrators/designers/artists I find. Truth is, I'm probably either very busy, and when I'm not busy, I'm being very lazy.

Right, so, Oliver Jeffers: I discovered his work recently when my friend bought one of his children's books, The Incredible Book Eating Boy, in New York. I'm so gutted I didn't buy it as well actually, but I've just spotted it's only £4 on Amazon. Hmmm.

I really like it because of the collage/painted over ephemera/graph paper type style that it's in:


I just love it. It's one of those things where you see it and think, I wish I had thought of doing that. And I love graph paper very much - Sara Fanelli uses it a lot too and I just think it has this aesthetic thing of being very ephemeral. I really need to start doing this more in my work; I collect so much random stuff but never seem to use it in anything, then I see work like this and just think, aha! That's how you do it.

His website is pretty cool too, check it out: www.oliverjeffers.com

He has 'Art art' and Illustration art' on it; personally I'm not much of a fan of his 'art art' but his illustration stuff is so immense. I want to show some but the website is in flash and that would mean taking a screengrab bla bla bla. Just go on it and look around. The 'world with coffee' series is especially good.

I'm off to do lots of research for the children's book I have to do for one of my modules. More on that soon.

New York, New York!

Ahoy hoy. Yes, I have arrived back from my wondrous trip over the Atlantic to good ol' NYC. Actually I got back about 10 days ago but alaso my life is never pure and simple so I have been sidetracked lots. But I'm here to talk about some cool things I saw and stuff.

So it was actually my 3rd time being in New York, and every time I go I love it a little more. I am considering living there one day; not forever, maybe for a year or so, perhaps a little while after I graduate. I am suddenly full of this freedom these days that I need to get out there and explore. I won't use the word 'travel' because that sounds so gap year and like a waste of time. There are a few places in this world that I have so stay and suck in to myself otherwise I fear I'll lose parts of me that I haven't attained yet.

And so, yes, New York. It was a 5 day (so short!) Illustration/Vis Comms organised trip, although I use the term organised very loosely. We pretty much sorted out ourselves what we wanted to do when we got there, and having been before I feel quite comfy with the subway system (as dreaded as it is, oh give me the sanity of the Underground), so we set about getting up at 7am every day, doing EVERYTHING all day and then slumping into the nasty hostel bunk beds at about 11pm! My feet have never hurt so much in my life. It was worth it though, in those short days we packed it all in. The Met, the MOMA, Empire State Building, Rockefeller Centre, a carriage ride round Central Park, Natural History Museum, a boat ride around the bottom of manhatten, cinema in Times Square, and in amongst this I managed to spend over a $1000. Which is a lot of money for poor student me. I am in so much debt right now. But I bought some amazing things! Lots of books, clothes of course, an obscene amount on make up (Benefit, darling, only the best), no shoes though! I really wanted some Prada shoes. In my dreams. When I am rich I will skip down fifth avenue just like carrie bradshaw (I will be dressed better) in some kind of crazy shoes dreaming up of things to draw next. One day! Haha.

I am currently downloading all my NY photos to my home computer. It's taking a LONG time. I think I took around 300 photos? Crazy. Obviously I will just choose 5 or 6 to put here. Not 300. That would be silly. Ho hum.

I also need to upload some pages from my NY journal of random things I sketched etc but as I said I am at home at the minute and my journal is at Uni home. I am so organised. Bleh. But i will do that.

Hmmm. Photos still not finished uploading. Well I'll ramble quickly about my week and why I didn't do this NY post earlier. All was going well this week, it was Elly's aka Needleblossom (where is she aaaaaaah come back to online world Elly) 21st birthday on wednesday which was EXCITING, everyone had an awesome time and I may even put a photo up here of how cool she looked. So yes, all was great, me and my housemates got back at 3am thurs morning to find our house had been broken into. Again. Major nastiness, it was so gutting. I really just couldn't believe that it had happened again, didn't take it in for a day or so I think. They'd smashed the back door and got in that way, my bedroom door was locked but they just broke the door down, we all got most of our expensive electrical things taken, laptops, ipods, you know the works. The house was a mess, it was so devastating.

So now we have to do the whole police, insurance, thing again. Joy. Fucking bastards. I hate them. It just makes you feel so unsafe in your own house. I can't wait to start looking for a new place for next year, far away! Maybe New York. Haha. Oh I wish.

Pictures not done still. I'm going to get some apple juice.

Right! All done:

This happy fella is a million year old fossil (or probably more) of a giant tortoise. Found him in the natural history museum. Looky. He's so happy. Geeeeee

The view from the Empire State Building at night. I have a history with this building. But it's all over now.

This is me being silly playing with the exposure times on my camera. I think it looks quite like a Monet. Haha. No but really, I do like it.

Another view from 'up there'. Prettiest place in the world.

The Blur of Times Square! Ah.

An orange bicycle we found on 5th ave. I have no clue. Wha.

Aw, we hear ya buddy. He was cool. Didn't approach him though, no way. Could be a murderer.

Me( far right), Carina (left) and Jenny (middle) on our lovely carriage in Central Park.

So there you go. I shall return in a few days with Uni illustration updates and more fun stuff.

Editorial Illustration

The last module I'm going to write about on here from Semester 1. This was the hardest module I think, each project had a turnaround of 3 weeks from ideas to final: a lot of pressure. I enjoy editorial illustration though, something nice about reading an article and coming up with an image to accompany it. Good job as well, it's going to be the best way to start out after I graduate - there's always work somewhere!

We did 4 projects over the space of the 12 weeks but I've made a massive amateur mistake and somehow lost one of them. Like, completely. No idea where any of the files have gone. I have an inkling I left it all on one of the Macs at Uni and they all got wiped over xmas. Gah. It was an illustration for an article about the british summer, I quite liked it. Anyway, here are the other 3:

'How to Mooch'

An article about the art of time wasting, quite a light hearted thing. I have to say, I don't love this. This is the problem with all my editorial pieces; the ideas are weak and the outcome is always safe. Probably due to the lack of time. Which isn't an excuse. I just think that all my editorial stuff never seems to be 'me'.

'Elevator to the Stars'

This was an article in New Scientist last October, about the theoretical possibility of building a space elevator to take things/people into space. I think it's ok, this one. I like the way it looks, just again, bit of a weak idea. Well, just a bit obvious.

'Message in a Bottle'

I don't think this was technically an editorial illustration. It appeared in a magazine but it was actually for a short story. So more Narrative illustration I reckon. Anyway, it was quite a good project. Basically about this woman who tries to drive home in floods and ends up in a river and nearly drowns, with this whole backdrop of a possible divorce because her husband is having an affair and all that malarky. So I decided to do a kind of conceptual, dark, murky illustration to match it. I think this is my favourite piece from the module. So there.

So what I mainly learned was that in all my future work, I need to start thinking harder and being cleverer with all my ideas, because these weren't all that amazing. Just a bit too obvious. Blah.

And that's the last of my Semester 1 work. Well, I had essays and all that but that's not fun enough to talk about. It doesn't seem all that much now. Hmph. Well it was. And I'm going to do better this semester; i'm in a better mental state so should be able to focus more.

I get my results on the 25th. First set of marks that go towards my degree! Omgzz. Yeah.

Recent Editorial Illustrations in 2009.

Next Uni Work Update: Negotiated.

NEGOTIATED PROJECT.

This was my favourite module I think. We basically could do anything we wanted, like a CD cover, set of posters, advertising, book cover, anything really. That was good because we wrote our own brief and worked to our own time scale so really had to organise yourself.

I decided to do Point of sale illustration, which is stuff you get in shops, at the point of sale. Obviously. I decided to design new hang tags for Topshop, to be put onto the clothes. You know the tags with the price, size, barcode etc on them? At the minute they are black and very very boring. So I made some that are pretty :D

I decided to colour code the tags: one for each style of clothing. For example, skirts are green, jeans are blue, tops yellow... etc. This is because it puts each style into a visible group and is easier to find what you want in amongst the randomness which is Topshop's railing system. You know what I mean. Clothes are grouped together in sections of "This will look good with these jeans" and stuff, which is great, but I wanted to create a different visual system.

I'm pretty proud of them to be honest. I've stuck the copyright thing on because they're just THAT cool. Haha. So no stealin'. Unless you're from Topshop and want to give me lots of money for them. :)

That's all for today. The last one to go is my Editorial module. Then I can start rambling about lots of cool things!

New Year, New Start.

I am so glad 2007 is over. It wasn't the best year for me. That's a massive understatement. It was the worst year of my life. However... I'm starting again and that means a new outlook and GETTING MY BLOG BACK TOGETHER. It's been bugging me for ages, how unorganised I've been with it. I don't feel guilty though, I'm been so busy I'm surprised my brain hasn't melted out of my ears yet. Semester 1 of my second year was SO crazy busy. The step up from year 1 to year 2 was just mental.

I promised this year that I was going to keep updating my blog with random illustration stuff, my own work as it was progressing, etc etc. But... I had neither the will or really the inclination to do it, such was my mental state. SO now I'm going to put up all the work I did for Semester 1, then start semester 2 with the proper intention of keeping this place updated. I promise I will.

So without any further delay, procrastination or excuses, here goes.

NARRATIVE ILLUSTRATION

This module was one of the hardest. The brief was to choose one out of the 4 selected texts, and illustrate it using no less than 25 frames, graphic novel style. OMG. So much work in 12 weeks! I chose Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami; never actually read the entire book but I will one day as it seems good. Our extracts were only a couple of pages long you see. (I say only. Still enough.)

The section I illustrated was where the main character, also the narrator, is recalling a relationship he had in his late teens/early 20's, with a girl called Naoko. Basically the premise of the section is that he is on an aeroplane to Hamburg, and is writing in a journal about his life I guess, and he's thinking about her and he can't really remember what she looks like, he can remember scenery and meadows they walked in clear as day but it takes him a while to remember her face and it makes him sad, obviously. Anyway it's very haunting and well written because you don't really know at this point why they broke up, why he misses her so much, etc.

The story is across 12 pages, these are actually to form 6 double pages. Enjoy:








So there. It's quite conceptual and loose... I wanted it to have this dreamlike, out-of-reality feel to it. I wish I could have shown the development phases as I was going along but the final ones show you what is what.

So I handed this in on the 8th January, I'll find out my grade on the 25th. I'm so scared. I didn't apply for mitigating circumstances or an extension, even though I was well within my rights to after everything that has happened; I wanted to prove to myself that at least I had something, at least I could do one thing, my work. I'm pretty proud of myself for getting it all finished. I think it was the only thing keeping me going; if I didn't have uni work to do then it's scary to think what would have happened.

I'll post the other 3 modules in the next few days.

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.