Brightly Coloured Fun

This week I've been having fun making bright and colourful things just for fun! Here's two of them for your viewing enjoyment:

Tea + Jam

I spoke to a little shop selling locally designed and made cards and various other crafts and they said if I could come up with some cards for spring/v-day season then they might take some on for me. These are my first design attempts. I rather like them but still need to consider how I'm going to produce them.

Drawings

I've been drawing in museums quite a lot to keep in practice but I haven't uploaded anything for a while, so here's a few pieces from my recent sketchbooks:

The Life Cycle of a Business Man

This is my first piece for Ten Paces and Draw. A bunch of illustrators from all over the place contribute. There are a series of themes and a few of us make a sketch on the theme, exchange them and create finished pieces from somebody elses work. The link above will take you to the post with my work and the sketch it was based on by FitzFitzpatrick. It was an interesting exercise and I'd definitely like to do it again. :)

gourmet tresses

gourmet tresses, a photo by AbiStevens on Flickr.

An entry for Zizzi's Fresh Talent 'deliciously stylish' menu design competition.

A redo

Wow I really haven't been doing a lot creatively lately! O_O
Anyhow, I needed to sort out my portfolio for various reasons and ended up doing a re-gig on my space propulsion article image from a while back. I wasn't happy with it before and always preferred the character in the background to the one in the front so here's a re-arrangement without the silver surfer style character:

Sketchbook

I hadn't done a lot of free drawing since I left uni so the last few weeks I've been going out to museums when I can. These are a selection of my sketchbook drawings.

Ipswich Museum:

Dublin National Museum:

Cambridge Zoology Museum:

Alpine Soundtrack

Two versions of an entry into a supremebeing competition to create an image inspired by the phrase 'alpine soundtrack.' The wave pattern in the sky, emanating from the mountains, is drawn from a cool special photo of what actual soundwaves look like that I found.

P.s: this is the first thing I've made using my brand new CS5 rather than my slightly dodgy version of CS2! :)

Chinese Dragon

It's been a while since I did anything new. This is possibly a competition entry but mostly just a more extensive experiment with the layered pattern/texture technique I've developed recently (as you can see on the scales and the hair.) Also, I love dragons! :)

My First Sleeping Beauty

My entry for a ballet poster competition; 'My First Sleeping Beauty.' Part of the competion is judged on voting, so if you like my entry, please vote for me here: talenthouse. :)

IP1 again

I worked on this editorial for IP1 a while ago but couldn't post it till the magazine came out yesterday.

Colourful Things

Here are some of the more colourful things I was working on before my Karin portrait. Am starting to add nice worn/scratchy bits to my work to take a bit of the flat digital edge off it, as well as messing around with layers of scanned paint textures to create patterns on clothes, trees, hair etc.

Karin Drejer Andersson

I finally figured out how to link my images from flikr to avoid copyright issues thanks to Marcus Butt! Therefore I will start posting nice images again.
I've actually been working in lots of bright bright colours lately so this was kind of a swing in the other direction which I enjoyed. It's a portrait of Karin Drejer Andersson, who some of you might know as a member of the bands 'Fever Ray' and 'The Knife.' I'm a huge fan of her music and saw Fever Ray live last year.
This kind of reminds me of those creepy Victorian Memento Mori photos that I like. :)

Sock It To Me

Design a sock competition sounded like fun so I knocked a couple out! The car one was actually an entry for Tigerprints Male Pattern competition but didn't get anywhere so I re purposed it. I'm enjoying creating repeating patterns at the moment so may try a couple more.

IP1

IP1 Magazine

I designed a couple of banners for the website of local magazine IP1. Keep refreshing the page to see different ones. Mine are the one of lots of fish and one with the astronaut. They've asked me to do some work for the next issue of the magazine too. :)

Contact sheet

My first attempt at making a contact sheet for sending to art directors etc. This ones for my editorial work. I'm working on another for book cover design. :3

The Eco-Commuter

Something my brain came up with on the train home from London today after New Designers. Just for fun.

Me oh my

A self portrait. Just for fun. haven't tried to draw myself in years.

To honour the imminent death of a pencil!

A little drawing for fun. I have a 2B pencil I found lying in a studio and a cheap WHSmiths blue coloured pencil which are my favorite 'thinking' pencils for working up thumbnails. They are unfortunately both coming to the end of their lives.

I talk too much

For a Psychologies article titled 'I talk to much.'
"Talking a lot can act as a shell in which to hide from other people, but also from oneself."

English vs Continental

Self-set. For a Waitrose Magazine article comparing the two breakfast styles.

Creative Block

A little illustration I came up with on the theme of creative block. Sometimes it's nice to draw something for no reason other than to draw.

Festival of Ideas

The festival of ideas runs a competition to design the booklet cover for each year. My tutor seemed pretty keen on me entering so I've pulled this together in what little free time I've had this week.

Beam Riders

My last editorial for my hand-in tomorrow. Not entirely certain if I'm happy with this one yet. Need to stare at it for a couple of days! It's an article from new scientist.

Understand your couple type

My latest self-set editorial for the final major project. A second one for Psychologie magazine. This time about different types of couple.

Elephants - complete

I finally got round to photographing my Elephants album. Not as nice and professional looking as the ones Stephen took of my V for Victory album, but the best I could do with my bridge camera and no studio.
p.s: my photo editing is crap. I'm going to have to do something about that.

New Habits for Old

Another self-set editorial brief from The Economist.

Elephants Single

I've been meaning to post this for a week! This is the completed cover design for the album cover I've been working on. I'll be taking photos of the album itself including the inside later.

Website

I have finally constructed my first little website! When I've got more time after the degree show I'm going to try and build a better on from scratch but this ones not looking too bad:

www.abistevens.com

Think before you speak

My latest editorial project. An article from The Economist magazine about how distracted driving is becoming the new drink driving.