Wednesday 27 August 2014

A new challenge

The finalists have been announced in Lilla Rogers Global Talent Search.  The top 50, out of 999 entries can be seen in an online gallery here.  Sadly, I'm not amongst them, however when you see the style and caliber of the finalists, it's obvious why.  My style just isn't what they were looking for.  Hmm, wonder if I can fake it next year?!

Anyway, here was my entry.  The brief was 'little terrariums.'


 I've just finished the next SoulStrike poster, showing the elements of the Flame series.  I'm not sure if I have a name for the other one yet, but there will be a black and white and a paisley series as well.  The name of this post is referring to a challenge I've somehow set myself by putting forward an expression of interest in a twilight designer fashion market.  SoulStrike is going to be a collection of t-shirts and bowling shirts, which have been altered, or 'hacked,' which feature the SoulStrike logo, in it's various forms, and other designs based off the posters.  There will also be coordinating accessories and, as previously mentioned, jewellery.  The market is called hustle and scout, and is held regularly in Canberra.  In June next year, they intend on having a day market and twilight market here in Hobart (given the timing, it would seem to perhaps coincide with Dark Mofo).  Expression of interest are being sought at the moment and applications will be called for in February.  This give me about 5-6 months to develop SoulStrike into a brand, have product and a marketing plan in place, ready to impress the organisers of the market enough to let me attend.  Easy! 
Below is the Flame poster (pic taken on iPod, so not great).  Both posters have been completed on A3 sized paper, meaning I can't scan them at home (and frankly, I'm not confident in my ability to get a decent scan of a pencil image from my scanner anyway), so I'm going to try a few of the copy centres around to see how well these drawings can be scanned, and how well they are reproduced as posters and on t-shirts.  Watch this space for the results!


Last weeks' Illustration Friday theme, Journey, didn't move me to think of something to draw about it.  This week's theme of Skull is much more straightforward.  Knocked this out during a break at work.


Emma

Friday 15 August 2014

Upload Successful...now comes the hard part

So even after creating mood boards and putting together most of my initial idea for my Global Talent Search entry, of course I ended up scrapping the idea and just drew something!  The following is part of what has been submitted.  The deadline for entries is this coming Monday 18/08/2014, then the waiting begins!  The shortlist  of 50 entries is released on 26/08/2014.  Out of what is possibly a few thousand entries, it will be hard for the judges to pick just 50 people to go through to the next round.  There will be a public gallery later in the competition, once the top 50 have completed a second submission, and it will be interesting to see the sort of work that makes it through.


With the entry put in for the talent search, I've been able to rush a submission for this week's Illustration Friday.  It's been a while since I've done a portrait, and I wasn't entirely happy with this one.  Also, because of being rushed, I wasn't able to rough out ideas for the background as I would have liked to, so what's there is my first attempt.  I don't think I really conveyed the space theme very well!  The topic for this week was King, so I was going for a universal feeling.  A king needs to have a mind on the big picture, but an eye on the details.  And yes, that is G-Dragon.  Well, an approximation of him anyway, as I said, not entirely happy with it, but it's done and I can move on.
I'm getting a solid picture of what SoulStrike is going to be, and I'm looking forward to getting it into reality.  Chainmaille is still definitely on the agenda, as well as clothing, posters, stickers and accessories.  Stay tuned!

Til next week,
Emma

Wednesday 6 August 2014

Liliflora is VIP

The first brief was released yesterday for Lilla Rogers Global Talent search.  The theme is 'little Terrariums' and can be used as a basis for a piece of wall art with pretty much no limitations on medium, style or intended market.  Great for artistic freedom, not so great for those of us who second-guess pretty much every creative decision we make!  Despite this, I do have a fair idea of what I'd like to make, and have even created a moodboard (which I rarely do), to keep me on track with colours.  The pic here was taken with my iPod in pretty poor light, so it's not too accurate, but generally a dusky pink, a sage green with gold and dark brown details is what I'm going for.  Oh, and the lovely paisley images are not going to feature in the finished piece, although I love paisleys, it was just that the colours were right!


I have a few empty embroidery hoops beside my desk, and had seen this idea on Pinterest:

All I did was use a fat quarter I bought recently, and folded it to make a pocket.  The excess is pinned at the back with dressmaking pins, because I want to use the fabric in a project later and didn't want to cut it.  It took about 30 seconds.  I think I need more embroidery hoops and some wall hooks, as I  may have just found a way to display my fat quarter collection!
 

The title of today's post refers to my Illustration Friday submission for this week.  The theme is 'peace,' and obviously I decided to draw one of the ways that I find peace, which is to draw!  Sitting in a cafe with a mocha and just drawing roses my way,  with the incredible G-Dragon on my iPod is a great 20 minute escape I try to steal when I can! 


Don't know who G-Dragon is?  Neither did I until I caught the Hallyu Wave in about September last year!  Hallyu refers to South Korean popular culture, and the king of that culture is the amazing G-Dragon.  Rapper, Singer, Writer, Producer, Model and the leader of the most popular K-pop group, BigBang, as well as being a solo artist in his own right.  Just check out the video, and see how many Tim Burton references you can count!  BigBang fans are called VIP's (hence the title of this post!).


Deadline for GTS submissions is 18/08/2014 (G-Dragon's birthday, hmm I sense a theme to this post!), so next week, as well as hopefully finding time to still complete an Illustration Friday submission, I hope to be able to post some cryptic, semi complete pictures of my entry.

Emma