Latest for Amelia’s Magazine, a series to illustrate Hannah Bullivant‘s interview with Alina Raetsep, Editor in Chief of ethical fashion magazine SIX Magazine. Read it in full HERE and while you’re at it check out Hannah’s amazing blog Seeds & Stitches (love her posts on jam making and swedish clogs!).
For the illustrations I wanted to go with SIX Magazine’s Manifesto:
Slow Fashion:
Respect for the clothes and those who make them:
A return to Individuality:
Happy as Larry today! The sun is out, my £4.99 pink BBQ arrived in the post and, perhaps more importantly, I had my final assessment at Uni yesterday. All good I’m very happy with my project and my perspex laser cut type blocks, I even made a video for my presentation. I’ll post about it properly soon but here’s a sneak peek for now:
My latest illustration for Amelia’s Magazine, an interview with folk singer Alessi’s Ark by the great Hels Martin read it in full here. I wanted a different approach for this one, listening to Alessi’s songs and just letting go. I tried to encapsulate her fantasy world featuring some elements from the lyrics and a playful child-of-the-80s palette. You be the judge:
Also my ‘You are not alone Japan’ illustration has recently been featured in Illustration Rally here and Japan based sewing machine company Janome’s blog here (thank you for contacting me Debbie!).
Read MoreHello sunny Monday!
Hope you’ve had a good week, it’s been all work work work here as final deadline for uni is fast approaching (a week tomorrow! eek!), catalogue and book cover are almost ready at work (looking soo good) and have a couple competitions on the go due this week.
I somehow made the time to attend the Designing the Decades study day at the V&A on the 1950s. An all-day event on art & design history of my favourite decade! Really enjoyed a full on day of talks and discussions with speakers such as V&A curator Lily Crowther on the Festival of Britain that celebrates its 60th anniversary this summer, author and lecturer Dr David Heathcote (of BBC fame) on Architecture and Urban planning, Geffrye Museum director Christine Lalumia on Furniture and Interiors, design historian and author Lesley Jackson on Robin and Lucienne Day and author and lecturer Dr Christine Boydell on The New Look and Horrockses Fashions. Filled a crazy 54 pages on my sketchbook with the new palette of radical colours, the brave new ideas for the future and the importance of European emigrant designers after the war. The 1950s were a time for optimism and rebuilding all aspects of design from the ruins but also a time for over-thinking and hard work. Not forgetting it was also a time of great social contradictions, sexism and injustice to minorities, the decade is a great source of inspiration for me in my everyday life. Beyond the pretty dresses and perfect hair I’m interested in the passion and determination to design a new and better world for everyone regardless of class, the profound understanding of materials and design processes and the meticulous attention to detail and love of typography. The want and drive to improve with limited resources available is very inspiring from clever use of cheap materials to a boy picking up a guitar and creating a new sound.
Before I forget, I wanted to share my latest illustration for Amelia’s magazine an art review by Jessica Furseth on Edwina Ashton‘s performance at Jerwood Space. It involves Edwina dressed as a lobster moving things around in the gallery. Wait, does it? Mmm… Jess’ words always far better than mine read The Lobster Within in full here.
After the Lobster Lady I was in the mood for more Lobster fun (ie. Procrastinating with a capital P) so I played around a bit and came up with this pattern:
All the summery colours and motifs made me think it could work for a beach towel maybe? parasol? swimwear? Which prompted me to look up flights to Cuba, Croatia, Australia… PROCRASTINATION. Ok, I’m off to work. No, really.
I can’t believe it’s already Friday. This week I have been mostly working on freelance and uni projects but I also made the time to attend the Saul Bass film poster exhibition at the Kemistry Gallery (‘Design is thought made visual!’), the ‘Book in Context’ Book Arts & Design 3rd years show at LCC that made me very proud to be in my course and sadly had to say goodbye to a friend who’s going back to Sweden with an epic Tropicana farewell party. I also got potentially good news so please cross your fingers for me, if it all goes well I will let you know next week.
I also got some work for Amelia’s Magazine this week. First up this article by Jess Furseth on Sideshow Stories, Jason Butler‘s drawings and Will Burns‘ poems exhibition part of the YARNfest storytelling festival. I’ve always had a massive interest in Freakshows, read many books and seen films and documentaries and still find it hard to explain the fascination. Jess’ words are far more eloquent than mine: ‘Maybe we like seeing the grotesque because it takes us out of ourselves for a moment, or it could be we just like feeling shudders down our backs. Or maybe it’s because in the midst of the strangeness, strong or subtle, there is something almost beautiful.’ Read it in full here. I wanted to recreate the feel of freak show signage without making an exact replica. Here’s some initial sketches from my sketchbook:
And the final illo, all paper, glue and coloured pencil:
I really enjoyed the whole process and I think I will be exploring the possibilities maybe on a larger scale and different materials (wood? laser-cut coloured perspex?…) I’m excited already!
More hand-lettering work to illustrate Sally Mumby-Croft’s interview with Chad Valley read the article online here. I made a digital collage using some of his pictures and added lyrics to his song ‘Up and Down’ using the positioning to play with the duplicity of the story.
Ps. You can still vote for my Norwegian Wood poster HERE. I’m currently #18 out of 202 which is absolutely amazing but I still need a few more votes to make it into the Top 10 and have a chance to display the poster in central London. Thank you!
Read MoreHope everyone had a good Valentine’s and for those who don’t celebrate, hope you managed to avoid it successfully. I had a lovely day in any case that ended in my new favourite restaurant that serve the biggest portions you’ve ever seen in your life (reason why it’s my favourite, eh) so woke up this morning feeling rather unwell. Food hungover.
Anyway I wanted to thank Illustration Rally for including me in their Valentine’s Day Rally yesterday. I really enjoyed going through all the entries and the different views on this love-it-or-hate-it day. Here’s the post with my work
Also in Illustration Rally, this piece I made for Jess Furseth‘s article for Amelia’s ‘The reluctant Valentiner’ read it online here. Jess wanted a dark take on Valentine’s for this one and we agreed to go with mexican sugar skulls for initial reference. This is the final piece:
So much to post about! Another week of madness coming to an end. Been working on so many freelance and uni stuff I really feel like starting more personal projects and get my hands dirty with some solar plate printing, it’s been a while.
I have two ladies I wanted to share today. First, icelandic ukulele genius Elíza Newman teaching us how to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull (the volcanic mountain responsible for the ash cloud last year) has just released a new EP ‘Ukulele Song for you’. She is an absolute doll and the ukulele is probably one of my favourite instruments of all times so I was very excited to illustrate her for Amelia’s. Read the interview in full here. I went with her previous album cover for reference, loved the feel of it and how well it reflected her soft, twee pop:
I wanted to make it my own and I’m happy with the outcome, this is me at my most twee probably. As it turns out, Eliza herself read the piece and she wants to use our work for some promo stuff. Hurrah! Will keep you updated. Always great to get positive feedback.
And just out today, a bit of a special illo for writer Helen Martin. She interviewed presenter and writer Cherry Healey exclusively for her site. It’s a beautiful and inspiring story/interview/article touching on subjects that as a 20-something female I absolutely can relate to. The struggle to find your dream job, unpaid work, dating, getting married, babies… Must read, can’t recommend it enough, great advice too, Carry on and live, live, live! Full article here.
What a week, ladies and gents! Assessment at Uni went very very well, been super busy with exciting freelance projects and competitions and I feel more motivated and inspired than ever. Might have to do with the dozens of TED Talks I’ve been watching lately, the Foreign Office talk we went to at See No Evil, Natalie Portman in Black Swan or the Future Beauty: 30 years of Japanese Fashion at the Barbican I only managed to catch yesterday, the very last day. So don’t be surprised if you hear a lot of film and textiles talk from now on.
More to the point, this is one of the latest pieces I’ve done for Amelia’s and the Science Museum Cockroach tour. As in, you dress up as a cockroach in full on fibre glass costume and go on a tour of the museum and the new climate change science gallery. Don’t know about you but this sounds like a dream to me. It’s danish art collective Superflex to thank for coming up with the art installation and the chance to see the world through the eyes of our favourite insect. I honestly cannot wait! Here’s the article in full.
Child cockroach:
This is what you are missing!
Photo by Amelia Gregory