Macmillan Children's book

http://www.catherinerayner.co.uk

For my next brief, I had decided to go out of my comfort zone and pick a children's book to illustrate. I could either create my own short story or use an out of copyright story such as the Grimm's Fairy tales stories. It has to be 20 double pages, including a front cover. This is a lot of work and I need to really buckle down get on with it basically.

Issues

• I need to find the right story for me. One that I'm interested in and one I actually like. if I don't like it then I think an onlooker will be able to tell as the quality of my illustrations would suffer.
• What style do I want ?. I need it to be consistent throughout and look good and professional 
• I have to create work that suits a particular market, so I need to change my style and think  differently about the way I'm creating and want the work to look like. i.e unlike the work I had created before which was for a more adult audience. 
• This is a lot of work so I need to manage my time properly 

Parkinsons Charity Event

The other night myself and my university class, had organized a charity event for Parkinson's Equip. We sold our original images we created for the poems and issues book. It was an fantastic night, raising lots of money and awareness for Parkinson's Equip.

On a personal level I was very nervous about showcasing my work to random people I had never met before and I was stressed about whether my work would sell. I didn't have to worry though !! as someone bought it. This was the first piece of work I have ever sold and the person that bought it told me he was interested in it and loved my style of work. It was a great confident booster personally and it has encouraged me to try and get my work out there more. The most important thing though was that it raised so much money for such great charity.

Mental Block

Ive just started a new project and am having a complete mental block with it. Nothing I am doing looks good and I dont like it. I think I'm looking at other artwork to much and then trying to compare it and do it like that. I need to be more confident  in my own ability and do it my own way. Yes they will influence me, but Ive to to work in my style. 

Rant over !!! 

Inspirations- Daniel Adams

A few years ago I worked at a gallery/shop for photographer Wolfgang Webster. I learnt a lot of valuable advice on industry, art and what it takes to make it professionally. I even got to learn how to make my own frames for photographs I had taken. One huge benefit though was that I got to meet artists who were trying to sell there work through Wolfgang.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/local-news/fine-art-lover-sir-alex-861473 

I got to meet a local artist called Daniel Adams. Who is one of the nicest blokes Ive ever met. He's very down to earth and was even asking me what I thought of his work. He has a moving story- attacked by a gang he suffered a stroke and from that used painting as a way to overcome some of the difficulties involved in that. 

He created these very interesting and almost cartoon like paintings of scenes in and around Stockport and Manchester. Alex Ferguson eventually ended up buying some of them and Daniel became a success. It was great to see and hear about Daniel and his work. 

Past Work- Exploring Manchester

Not posted in a while !. This is a piece I created a few years ago when I walked around Manchester and explored different buildings. I like to go on random walks and find interesting things, getting lost most of the time. Manchester has some beautiful buildings old and new and being from Manchester I feel a strong connection with the city.

Final image - Hands

This is my final image for my 'Options'. The idea behind it was to capture that sense of isolation and being lost. I quickly sketched a drawing of a man in ink and it came out really good. The loose flowing almost scratch marks work well. I have become a lot more satisfied with how I use a dip pen now and I really like the marks that I can created with it. The colour scheme helps to balance the image out for me and overall I hope the people at Parkinsons equip really like it. 

Design Process

Being part of the design team was very stressful, having no idea of how to design or about layout in my own personal experience I felt that this was a real challenge. Working with other group members at times was a struggle as i felt that everyones opinions weren't always listened to and the design as a whole struggled from that at first. Through lots of hand work especially in terms of composition I felt that we got there in the end with a very well put together design.

Our criticism were that it didn't look professional enough and layout was and type wise it wasn't right. We made sure each page had more of a collective feel and group feel. The type was changed swell with size made smaller. The lecture of type was very useful here.