Haven't done a blog in far too long! .... 8 months apparently. I have been pretty lazy to be honest. A lot of things going on, and not really going on. So I guess I will try my best to give you just the highlights over the last 8 months. Back In September I discovered that my Redbubble account (my shop) seemed to be slowly picking up so traction. I have made a few more sales that I was completely unaware of. YAY people want to pay me to do arty things!!! This gave me a bit of a kick up the arse. To try and get back into the way of things. Yes I know I sound like a broken record! Since then I now have my own desk set up at home with everything set up and ready to go. I have been researching local artist and looking at so many things. Pinterest is a wonderfully handy tool. I have even started a new sketch book. As if I didn't have enough... So for a bit of the boring stuff. Since moving in to my house I have been pretending to be a really good cook. I have even been baking! Even using the pears out of my own garden! I more or less stole these from my Instagram, As you can see I have been doing a lot of baking and a lot of eating. In the last 8 months. I have recently made a few very big decisions. I have decided to take the plunge and I have opened my own Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/CraicinDesigns At the moment I only have 1 listing. I am still working on a few other things. The listing that is currently up allows for a custom portrait or action scene. Such as previous ones I have created below. Almost all of these little prints you have seen before but one of them is new. So one of my good friends, will randomly call me up every so often asking for unique birthday, and engagement gifts. Usually everything he asks me for is themed. Breaking Bad, Fight Club, Jurassic Park. So just when I thought he could shock me. He asked for the above to be made. Just to clarify what the above is. One of his friends took his girlfriend to New York and proposed to her in Central Park. He sent me a photo of the magical moment, when he popped the question. Then asked could I draw the groom-to-be as Venkman from ghost busters, and the bride-to-be as Miss Piggy from The Muppet's..... So I did what every artist does and just created what my client asked me for. While the whole time thinking he is totally mental.I have to admit still an awful lot I am not happy with within the image. It took me a week alone to do the New York skyline and trees in Central Park. So yes. I take completely random requests! I have also been experimenting with a few others. Here is a little sneek peak: none of the above is finished!
It's all just a starting point for me looking into different ways of designing posters for bands, Looking into more detailed patterns, looking into more detail of machines and devices. I am also experimenting with the idea of inspirational quotes and the idea of creating a scene or back ground that is just as powerful as the quote. So It's all happening. Slowly, but surely. I have also been getting back into designing some wedding stationery. I currently have three brides, which is fantastic! one who continuity changes her mind. however it can sometimes be frustrating. I am getting more design trials done and these can be used for perhaps other clients down the road. I am trying to keep a positive spin on things. That's all from me, I will try to get back into writing a blog at the end/beginning of every month.
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Little bit late with this months blog. I blame Halloween being way too awesome! So I have actually been up to a lot of stuff this month, not only designing new random things, but...... yea you know what that is basically all I have been doing. So first thing, I am a huge fan of Rock n Roll Bride. and after seeing a photo from their facebook page. I decided to create something a little different. You may or may not have seen this clue on my Instagram. (little bit of back story) I'm currently working at a printing company, we print a lot of designs for wedding stationery designers soooooooooooooo I thought I'd try my hand at it and after seeing the below picture from the Rock n Roll Bride magazine. So you've probably guessed it by now. I made dinosaur themed wedding invitations. Now I haven't yet finished it entirely but you get the idea SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH FUN MAKING THIS!!! So yea hoping this month I will be able to get this finished as well as a few other designs I noticed I started and just due to life I haven't managed to get back to finish. So that is my goal for this month. So for Halloween I did a few different things. I went to the Crumblin Road Gaol paranormal tour in Belfast. I have to say I didn't see any ghosties, but it was.... interesting, but I have to admit it made me really want to do the actual tour. The most eerie thing that happened on the tour, and also turned out to be the funniest thing. We were standing in the hanging room where they had hung 15 of the 17 men to have been executed at the Gaol (I hope I remembered my numbers right) and when the tour guide began to call upon the last man who had been executed, the whole room fell silent waiting for any noise, any chance of a sign from beyond the grave. All we could hear was an ice cream truck's cheery music about a mile away from the gaol. Of course there was also pumpkins to be had...... many many pumpkins I basically sat the rest of Halloween carving pumpkins and watching scary movies. Speaking of scary movies, I even went to see John Carpenter's The Fog in the Barge in Belfast last night. I had never actually seen the movie before, I though it was pretty good. I think I more enjoyed going with my mates though and the atmosphere that was carefully created. Back to Dinosaurs! I unfortunately I was unable to make it to a baby shower this month due to going to see Alien Ant Farm in the Empire in Belfast and pretending to be 15 again..... oops. However I was still asked to design a baby bib.... So I created a dinosaur wearing ox blood red DM boots, with the world ending and aliens coming down to save the dinosaurs........ I'm totally sane........ kinda.
Em..... I think that's really it for this month. literally a lot of dinosaur things and pumpkin carving. Hoping to keep this month just as mad, and as I said earlier hoping to slightly back track and have another look at designs I started a little while ago and just finish them off. Also want to wish my partner another Happy Birthday :D A LOT HAS HAPPENED THIS MONTH! So, where to start. Logo design for M Mahood Music is done, currently still designing flyers but I am incredibly happy with the outcome, even my client is over the moon with it! Which is the most important thing! Hopefully my watermark isn't too over powering. But yea, this is what we came up with in the end. Very impressed it I don't say so myself ;) created using Illustrator and Photoshop. Here's a few of the logos that I played around with, before coming to the final: As you can see some a lot better than others. But there are many different stages that you go through when designing a logo. I had a lot of fun doing this! My Silversmithing course, has been very off and on, as I am getting to the stage where, to be honest I don't feel like I'm learning. I have noticed there is a huge difference from being at university and doing a part time course. If you basically showed interest in learning a technique and asked tutors in university, or if it was a tutors specialism. They got super excited and were pretty much awesome with showing you how it worked. So yea, I am getting to the point that YouTube is probably a better educator that any college or university, as well as cheaper! Which is a bit of a shame, but at the same time, it has made me hungry for knowledge! I've recently been experimenting with copper. Actually been very impressed with all the amazing colours and although I'm kind of doing it to waste time, I’m actually learning a lot from it: The above is just little pieces I have been experimenting with. Still lots of other stuff I want to experiment with but I have to admit, even experimenting with the different colours that come from the copper. Is amazing, and all I am doing is applying heat in different areas and even experimenting by heating the metal through other pieces of metals. It’s all still very small stuff, but I am starting to think about making sculptures, so who knows my next course could be a wielding course, or my YouTube will be full of wielding videos. I've also been doing more patterns, I have already started my 2nd in the series. I haven't yet put these up on my red bubble, as I am wanting to have at least 3-4 different series of patterns before I do, so here's the first it all it's different variations of glory! So that's basically what I've been up to this month, I have to admit June may be a bit slow as I am mainly just finishing off work and continuing to experiment with metal work. But I am also off to Glastonbury! So I shall also be putting up lots of pictures of that when I get back, But I think I will do my June blog before I leave for Glastonbury, we will see.
Thanks guys for stopping by, keep your eyes peeled for more pattern designs coming soon and more experiments. Please follow me on Instagram, as I am aiming to try and start posting more things on there! So, today I have been seriously finishing things off. I also have so many sketch books that I even weighted them all... 10 sketch books weighing in at 10 kg.......Mental. So I went back and had a look at my shop, now if you were to click the shop tab on my website, it will actually take you to another website called "Red Bubble". This site is basically where I upload my images and I can apply the images not only as images them selves, like posters and things. You can buy my designs on mugs, t-shirts, bedding, pillows, scarves, leggings, phone covers. The list goes on! So today I went through and decided to put up an image of my cupcakes. I decided to actually put up the mixed image. The image is all of the elements of all the suits as well as their symbols. I wasn't happy with the original image so I changed the colour of the back ground to blue, pink and grey. So the top 3 images are of what I uploaded. the single image above is the original. This is just a screen shot from the website after I uploaded the pink image, you can see all the different products I can apply my work to. So yea, it's pretty interesting. I also have my final done for my main project. the final for the magazine cover: Im actually so happy with this, and just to really scare you here are all of the finals from all the projects I did this year: So yea, I have done a fair bit of work this year, and although it was by no means an easy year, I have actually enjoyed it. I want to keep experimenting and doing art. This is just a stepping stone for where I want to be, and yea I'm freaking out about leaving uni and being a real adult. So that's it from me today, Tomorrow will possibly be my last blog on university work for at least a week.
I am hoping to keep my blog up, however I feel my life is very boring. We'll see though. So I went into uni today due to my Photoshop and Illustrator prescription being out of date and as I am a poor student, soon to be just poor. I couldn't really afford to keep my subscription. Not going to lie, pretty heart broken about it. So anyways, I had to re-do my portrait of the eyes open bar-code image. I have 10 different versions of the same image and some really funky looking edits from making the image. So here are my 10 different versions: Some are very similar and there are little changes, but I am glad to say I have my final, although I know things aren't spelt right, I will make this right tomorrow when I go back to uni. here is my final though with all of the incorrect spellings: I also want to do a little more detail with the type and make it more glossy and even 3D looking, as I want to give it the effect of it being a glossy gold.
The rest of my day I have been writing up sketch books and making sure everything is in order, I am sure that tomorrow will be no different with getting my work to a standard that I am happy with. Today I got a hell of a lot done, everything for the end of year show that I wanted to put up is now up. I had to re-cut some new vinyl for my wall. And now everything is beautiful! I now get to just concentrate on finishing off my sketch books and writing everything up that needs to be done before hand in. I feel like I'm in a very good position, I even feel that I could hand in all of my stuff on Monday. Everyone else in my class is currently panicking and therefore this makes me also panick a little more due to myself feeling calm. Don't you just hate that. Although speaking of things that you hate most coming up to hand in, one of my class mates mentioned to me today was he "can't wait for this to be over, so he can stop feeling guilty about wasting time" Shit just got real! Deadlines can be really good for people or you can crash and burn, I do have that feeling of panic and worry, trying to get things done. It is a little weird when you stop just to breathe and then feel guilty. So anyways on to a more productive and positive note. I have done what feels like a million different magazine covers: As you can see I have been experimenting with a variety of different colours as well as text. I also went a step further with this I knew I wanted to have a bit of colour within the black and white image. However I think the lips actually make it more sexulised. This could however be a poster or even a magazine cover for human trafficking or something within that sort of topic. I however want a more generalized kind of image. So, I took the image from the above, went through all my photos I had taken from this project, and photoshopped eyes in from a different photograph. This was unbelievably weird I can tell you that, straight off. I have to admit this I think worked out pretty well, I however think that this looks like me, but a little different..... I know it sounds weird but, yea a different version of me. Although when it really comes down to it, as long as it looks like a person, and gets the point across. That is the whole point. So my idea here is a little more self explanatory. I want the eyes to try and look into your soul!, no I just want to eyes to grab peoples attention, although I still want them to look along the lines as realistic, however the more I photoshop this the more and more unrealistic it looks. especially as the eyes are very much a small part of the image, the colour doesn't really pierce through very well, even with the lines of the bar code coming down the face. I however really like the 1st image on the 2nd row, as I think this does grab your attention. I am just currently a little unsure on how to take it further. I am also really unsure on what colours to have my text and I seem to be continuing the same argument with myself on which fonts look the best. I am continuing to work on this even as I write this blog, I have a feeling however I may need to sleep on things and see how I feel about it tomorrow. So yea, that's it from me today.
Today has been such a tiring day. So today I was to put up my work for the end of year show. I went to put my work up and then after speaking with tutors. They thought I should go back to my plan and edit it a little further, such a blow. I was hoping to have all of this done by today. So I went back to he drawing board and came up with these very similar ideas to show: I decided to in the end go with the second image. So I then had to go and get my vinyl done. I have to admit I was very nervous about getting it done. I have never used the vinyl cutter, but thankfully I had another class mate who was just as clueless and we, I mean she. Figured most of it out. I have to admit I have been working so hard and trying to get all of my work done for hand in and then some. I was a total zombie most of today. So with my vinyl I had originally wanted to have under my facebook image, "If you're not paying for the product, the product is you." Under the Coca-Cola portrait "Open Happiness?" I wanted to plat on words for that. Then finally for my bar-code image "Just another price tag." Due to my Coca-Cola and Bar-code slogans being one line, after a little bit of debate, and discussion. My self and the tutors all agreed on simply shortening down the slogan. "The product is you." The plan is to finally get all of these up tomorrow for the end of year show. I have to admit after all the running about I have done today, I definitely feel more prepared for putting all the portraits and everything up tomorrow. Also excited to see how the vinyl will look.
Just a little miffed that I have left playing with the vinyl to literally the last week of university. Although I have to also admit I found that the process with vinyl is unbelievably tedious. Tomorrow will tell more however. I also decided it was best to go a head and get another sketch book. As I plan to do a lot more editing and just in general more work. So that now brings me to having 10 sketch books to hand in next week. I am just hoping that tomorrow I will be able to really start in getting things done. I have also done a lot more of my sketch book write ups today. So I plan to finish it off hopefully tonight and then the rest of tonight I will be stuffing my face with chocolate and watching Netflix. That's all from me today. I got a good bit done today. I went back and started to add more to the portraits, as though they were magazine covers: I am aware there is an other magazine called "Mental", however there magazine is more based on mental health issues and in new techniques to treat mental illnesses. The reason I choose "Mental" was due to how we were asked by the labeling guys in our class, to pick 1-3 words to describe our work. A lot of the words others chose within my course were really funny and laid back words. I randomly chose mental, due to how the portraits I will be displaying and the whole back story to them is very heavy going stuff. Or in layman's terms "Mental". Also with how I am also displaying my playing cards. So as one of my friends suggested, it's also another symbolism of how corporations play games. I really didn't like my Coca-Cola magazine cover. I don't think any of the colours work. I have to admit I really under estimated this task. I really wanted to have the idea of a magazine that basically tells of all the things going on in the world, a bit like The Sun, but not as terrible. So I found that the Facebook Magazine and the bar-code, worked really well. I think this was mainly due to how the Coca-Cola image it's self already plays on the opposite of colours with the red portrait and the blue background. I also did a few more versions of sort of awareness posters. Within this campaign. I am still figuring out what to say with each image. I have a lot of information of each. I just don't really know how to put it all. Especially with how I want all of my images to have very bold and hard hitting statements. To really make you think and of course to try and get a shock factor involved. I also turned backed to the end of year show with my piggy bank idea. I decided to start designing them today to finally figure out whether or not I need to build my shelf tomorrow for them. Here are the designs I came up with: This is my piggy bank that I am thinking about buying to decorate for the end of year show. I took this image into illustrator and began to design over the top of it. I firstly thought about designing the pigs to go along with the pieces I am putting on. So I firstly created the first three images. I personally don't find these very interesting. Also because the when all the issues I am bringing up really boil down to. Is money, So I thought about why not be simple and have gold pigs. one for every image, then I of course thought about silver and decided to just have a little look at the idea of having a silver pig with pound symbols all over. I decided I really didn't like this. I even began to look into spray paint I would be able to get: I then started to look further into other piggy bank designs that others have done: I came across the crystal covered piggy bank and the cartoon piggy bank. (two very big images above)I have to admit I got really excited to do something like the cartoon piggy bank. Although I realized within my time limit it just really wasn't going to happen. I have to admit most of my concern comes with the piggy bank I am thinking of getting. Because I am getting that particular one, I am not too sure on how to completely cover it minus spray painting it. So the idea of self adhesive crystals on the piggy bank, really makes sense. So I began to research this idea further: Found these crystals online. I also found the gold and silver studs. I think the studs would be amazing. Almost like a blow fish or a hedgehog. The idea of something being covered in spikes makes it a little harder to hold. So this I think would really work for the piggy bank. I also went on to looking at how I want to display all my work for the end of year show, again. So above are again more mock ups of the end of year show. 1st image is of my first idea of having a piggy bank for each portrait. 2nd looking into having just three gold piggy banks, 3rd I had previously mentioned about having vinyl coins around the wall, with again three gold piggy banks. Then of course I started to look at possibly not having any piggy banks or even vinyl coins. I have to admit I am strongly thinking about not having anything, but just my art work, and the slogans underneath the portraits.
This idea of just having the slogans under the portraits and no piggy banks, would really help me out with getting to concentrate with other work, true. But I think it's a little bit distracting too, for the public, in what too look at. The portraits them selves are very striking, with the added piggy banks and vinyl coins in the background. It may be too buys and not really knowing where to place your eyes on. I will have to ask around possibly and see what tutors say about this. Although, as it currently stands, I am thinking of not having the piggy banks or vinyl coins. This was a very long blog today. I clearly had an incredibly productive day. So, I have been pretty bad and not blogged over the past few days... I decided to give myself a little bit of a pre-hand in holiday. So today and Thursday I have been trying to get all of my sketchbooks in order, due to having the blog I decided to go through all of my blog posts and make little QR codes to put into my sketch books. To match up the timeline as well as hopefully making it easier for my tutors to read through my brain mess of work. so yes I have to admit I really underestimated this task, I have nine different sketch books, and 5 different projects. 4 hours later.... Glad its done now however. I also went back and noticed I never actually finished my website for the student finance part of my project. So I went back and completely finished it off. Here are some screen shots from the site: the website if you do want to check it out is: craicindesigns.wix.com/studentmoneyadvice I have to admit I am not too impressed with the website myself. I really under estimated it. I just had so much information, I think, I might actually go back and get rid of a page or change it. Not too sure, as I have decided not to continue with the website or even the student advice idea. As my ideas have developed further into more sort of how corporations treat their consumers and even their workers. Infact, as I have said that, I have actually gone backward looking at my original research, on corporation companies. I have also been experimenting again with what I will have at my degree show, as I am determined to have a shelf for my piggy banks, although I am now unsure of even having my piggy banks. this is just looking at what kind of slogans I can put beneath my images, as I am pretty much struggling with that. I am not too sure if the piggy banks are a bit too much or not enough. I am not too sure, I also have to still try and figure out how to design my piggy banks if I do decide to show them..... SO MUCH TO DO!
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