Tag Archives: Sketching

Public Transport

This isn’t a brilliant sketch but…

…just thought I would post it to show that I’m getting a bit braver about sketching in public. I did get some funny looks like ‘Why is that girl drawing the bus?’ but I need to keep practising my sketching! Although I find I’m better at drawing things with a lot of straight lines (buildings) I need to try and get better in general so have started taking my sketchbook places like a real designer! Haha The problem is that it takes me like half an hour to do a sketch, which was perfect for this bus journey but is a bit awkward in other situations haha

I’ve started a temps job at Accessorize (which is heaven), so I’m managing to fill my time up nicely :) Oh and also, I haven’t spoken about this yet because it was a bit touch and go on wether I was going…. but I’m going to D&AD’s New Blood on Friday!

If you know me, you will know how excited I get about yellow pencils – I’m SO excited! Dani, Bobbins and I are going to the Design Bridge talk at 3pm and hoping to bump into fellow ex-CoWA students Aaron Skipper and maybe Jake Pover if we’re lucky! If Christian Bird (who works at Design Bridge) is there too, 4 generations of CoWA will be present – that’s one big CoWA fest! Haha

I will be posting about my D&AD adventure to London so watch out for that at the weekend :)

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Hola Holiday!

It’s been a long while since I last blogged, the longest I think I have gone without posting since I started blogging actually! My excuse? I was mega busy with Uni work until the 14th, finishing off the last two units of first year and then preparing all of my work for digital submission – it took 15 hours to organise! Then next day I jetted off to Tenerife to catch the Island Escape cruise ship for some sun, sea and sangria(most of the canary islands’ first language is spanish)! I was quite happy to say Hello to a holiday!

I had been on a cruise in 2009 and despite the stereotype of cruises being for oldies, I really enjoyed myself! I didn’t enjoy myself as much this time, but I can’t complain – a holiday is a holiday! :)

There’s the Island Escape ship behind me! It’s tiny compared to the Cunard ship, Queen Elizabeth that was docked next to us in Madeira!

The weather was gorgeous most of the week, although I was quite disappointed to hear that it was actually really nice weather back home – just typical!

I walked past this shop in La Palma called Banana Computers, which ironically had Apple’s Ipad 2 in the window! Made me giggle a bit :)

Also in La Palma I found this beautiful, hand painted tile sign. There were quite a few of these around in a flower market in Madeira aswell, but a lot more detailed & illustrative.

Back on the ship I got my sketchbook out. I hadn’t sketched for a while so felt a bit rusty. I really need to pick this up a bit more over the summer…

As the ship docks in the port area, it wasn’t exactly the prettiest of views but still quite interesting.

When we docked in Madeira’s Funchal, the walk into the town was made a bit more interesting due to graffiti art lining the dock walls. I thought it was a great idea; quirky, colourful and a lasting record of the ships that have visited the port.

This was my favourite ‘Graphic Design’ of my trip. I’m not really a fan of the typography and branding(or lack of) in the Canaries. The culture is quite different to England, including the approach to Graphic Design. I would describe it  as Word Art-esque and cringeworthy! I understand that it’s purpose is to grab attention of tourists, not to please Graphic Designers so I tried my best to ignore it but I reckon my sister was probably fed up of me moaning about the use of Comic Sans and Mistral… nevermind! :)

After hunting for a postbox, I sent a postcard to Jack and photographed me posting it as proof – the post is proving to be a bit unreliable recently! He received it before he saw me Saturday afternoon – I’m impressed! That’s quicker than if I had sent it from England!

So that is a little insight into what I got upto on my travels. Oh did I mention that our flight back to England was delayed for 5 hours?!!!!! I always find myself saying this – there is no place like home. I love living in England and going abroad makes me appreciate how lucky we are – I’m glad to be back and eager to blog!

I still have a week left of the Easter Holidays so I have time to make up for the lack of posts this month, helped along by some Easter chocolate :)  Check back for the two final projects of my first year at University – Eeeek it went so fast!

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Boom Boom Sketch

Yesterday we got all sketchy in class with some old format technology! Old Macs, Typewriters, Cameras, Floppy Disks, Stereos… the list goes on! Armed with lots of pens, pencils and paints we flexed our creative muscles:

As an 80′s child (for 6 days) I decided to take the Neon approach for my stereo…

Then in groups of 3 we produced a big drawing, starting from the same point but in each of our own different drawing styles. On my team….

…. Amy, Bobbins and Myself.

And the finished piece….

Dirty drum and bass (Amy) control centre (Bobbins) and 80s electro (Me)!

You can see some of my classmates working  here at the new course site!

No idea what this new project is heading towards but it will be interesting…

Oh also got feedback for my Magazine Design yesterday – 63! :) I did some sums and my average for Semester A is 62! That’s a 2:1 so I’m pretty happy with that, YAY!

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Filed under BA (Hons) Graphic Design, Graphic Design, Illustration, Sketchbook, University, University of Lincoln

Hogwarts of Lincoln

So, it’s been such a busy week and I’ve been really under the weather too which hasn’t helped :(

Some might know about my love for Harry Potter, so no surprise that I saw it Sunday :) Come Tuesday, I thought I was actually at Hogwarts! Let me explain…

Tuesday has become sketching project/Cafe Nero afternoon day. Last week we had to draw people we wouldn’t usually observe and I expressed my new found love for sketching. Well this week the love is still going strong! We took a walk up the Steep Hill (I was taking pictures for City Typology Project along the way) and found ourselves at Lincoln’s Cathedral. Bobbins managed to get us in for free (any Lincoln University Student can get in for free) and we had a wander around. He loves grand historical buildings (about the same level of excitement I get to with Harry Potter) so as you can imagine, he was very smiley.

We wandered around and I found this really lovely typographical drawing on a prayer noticeboard near to Gilbert Pots (couldn’t find the artist name though, sadly):

Bobbins did want to show us the Chapter House where apparently some of the Da Vinci Code was filmed (Oh, I walked past THE Magna Carta! Blimey!) but there was a service in progress so we sat in the Cloister courtyard. It’s absolutely beautiful there – like something out of Harry Potter! I will definitely be going back to take photos and the best part is that we have our Graduation ceremony at the Cathedral! Eeek! Graduating at Hogwarts? I can’t wait! Haha
Anyway, freezing our fingers off (it’s pretty much impossible to draw with gloves on) we got down to the sketching…

(Photo courtesy of Bobbins)

To get some feeling back into our fingers we headed to Cafe Nero…

I think I’m developing a style now, and I quite like it… What do you think??

This is my favourite sketch I’ve done so far, although I did end up with a headache from the Sharpie fumes!

P.s. Exactly one month today I will be 21 – arrrgh scary!

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Filed under BA (Hons) Graphic Design, Graphic Design, Illustration, Sketchbook, Typography, University, University of Lincoln

Tea-Potty

Pencil, pencil crayons, fine liners, felt tips, paint, collage and 4 hours to produce 100 different variations of teapots or skulls. It felt a bit like the Mad Hatter’s tea party…. the majority of people chose teapots, including me! 100 drawings sounds ALOT but it was ok up until about 60; that’s when I started to get stuck for ideas.

There were sooooo many good ideas/pages – from pumpkin teapots to typographic teapots, and even Prince Charles saying ‘Mmm Tea’. Oh and also some really good skulls too I need to add :)

Also something else tea related today; I got some FREE toast from the canteen! Buy a large cup of tea (85p) and get free toast (worth 70p) – gotta love Deal of the week!

Anyway, back to work… mine are the two sheets at the top right here (on top of each other)…

As I’m not really much of a fine artist/illustrator/think I can’t draw/can draw but I’m really slow and indecisive I did panic about drawing 100 teapots! I really need to practice drawing and scribbling more. I enjoyed  the more figure and ground/collage/3D approach….

I managed to complete 102 teapots in the 4 hours so I have saved myself from homework :) Pat on the back for me! I’ve got plenty of other stuff to be getting on with anyway….!

Next week we are looking at old film posters, which reminds me of a project I did at college back in March.

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Filed under BA (Hons) Graphic Design, Graphic Design, University