All Things Wintery...

Copyright Rebecca Pike, 2009.

I have just submitted my work to the Anorak Magazine brief, after 4 long long weeks.

It is for the Winter issue, so I have gone for the pantomime/decorations theme with lanterns and fairy lights. I like some elements of it, however I am still not comfortable on Photoshop and I cant quite marry together the hand made (inked) elements with the digital bits, hence why I cant pull off the colours of the lanterns. Oh well, at least it looks christmassy!

Next, I shall enter the Loughborough Uni Christmas card competition while I am on a festive roll and I want to make a book about the alphabet experimenting with hand drawn typography. Hopefully this will all fill the next four weeks.

Home Sweet Home...

It is important for me to have a lot of home comforts around me when I work and also a lot of imagery to look at, who likes a blank wall? Decoration is key in my life and I love my new room, especially my desk and work area.

The Ugly Bug Ball...

My friend Coops and I have had a joint birthday party the past two years since meeting at University as her birthday is the day after mine. In true student style, there is always a theme and there is always fancy dress as we love to dress up. This year, we were thinking of having an Ugly Bug Ball, it would be challenging to dress up and also so much fun to fill the flat with giant flowers and leaves and make us feel really small! I was daydreaming about it and my inky hands started doodling again...

Greetings...

Over the Summer, whilst spending time in the Lake District at my Dads, I filled my evenings of no TV or Internet by making Greetings cards of all kinds.

This is a Thankyou card I made for my Dad for buying me my B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L desktop Mac. It was a very happy day.

The top image is the inside of the card, the bottom is the front, just saying thank you to my Dad for letting us stay in his flat for seven weeks... I wanted to use my calligraphy pen but illustrate colloquial language.

This was my Dads birthday card, its very personal as he loves the Penguins in Madagascar, is nicknamed 'Pikey' and has always wanted a Pig Farm... so i incorporated all these into one card.

This was the Fathers Day card I made a while ago, one of the first attempts at card making and I hope I have definitely improved since!

This was the card I made for my Dads friend Sally, for her 40th Birthday. It took me a reaaaally long time as I had a fine line pen for the details which I then had to go round again in gold. The detail was tiny and very time consuming but I am happy with the result.

I don't think this is something I can develop into my 3rd Year but it is a keen hobby. I love being crafty and I have always felt hand made cards are far more personal.

And Next...

I moved back to Loughborough a few days ago now and I'm pretty comfortable and settled in, apart from the first new flounces of paying everyone and the cats mother for all sorts and getting my work together. Similarly, I'm pretty comfortable and settled in with the area of work i'll progress with this year, I've done a fair bit of research and doodles I just need to compose a few potential briefs and refine some images with colour and pattern etc. We shall see. It's all very exciting though, I'm thinking of definitely exploring some advertising campaigns or some re-branding of some kind, I'd also like to apply myself for some competitions and live briefs as well as then I can see where my work stands commercially. I'd definitely love to get involved with the Daydream Network too.

Inky Hands...

I became quite accustomed to just sitting writing random things that popped into my head with my ink pen, it definitely became attached to my wrist, hence the permanently stained fingers! I have also been stalking the website and blog of my absolute favourite Illustrator of all time, Sarah Coleman, who I only discovered recently. Her work is absolutely amazing, it makes me just to want write and write and write with my pen (she uses brush). So that I did.

I got a lot of reference from various Art Nouveau books, such as these panel designs, adapted from 'Modern Ornament', by H.Summerfield Rogerson, c.1900.

I tried drawing with ink too which is the perfect tool to create the curls and swirls trademarks of the art Nouveau movement. I really love referencing birds, fish, flowers and trees and nature in general really.

I also picked out details of pattern that caught my eye, like this for example, 'Dogess In Black' by Vittorio Zecchin, 1913.