6th February 2012 -
I've had a blog on my website for exactly one year now and have only written ten entries including this one. I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing...
Up to London tomorrow. Managed to traverse my way through all the snow today to get to uni and hand in last minute work before they pack the van this evening, ready to take all our stuff down to London early tomorrow morning...
Nearly there!
5th February 2012 -
The Masters course is almost officially over. There have been a lot of changes since I started it and I had a whole wad of work when I handed it all in...
Putting up exhibition work in London this week. Incredibly nervous about it all and will be quite relieved after this week is through. For those of you who are interested, and would like to know when my colleagues and I will be exhibiting our work, I can tell you that the dates are as follows:
FOYLES GALLERY IN LONDON
Wednesday 8th February- Wednesday 15th February
RUSKIN GALLERY AT ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE
Wednesday 29th February - Wednesday 14th March
There is a link, on my 'links page' funnily enough, to the MA website where you can see all the wonderful work that has been created by us over the duration of the MA course. It's well worth a look if you haven't visited it already. It's been quite a stressful time getting everything together and, even though, as artists, we are doing things that we love and enjoy, there is an awful lot of effort, determination and energy involved in what we do. I don't mind being the first to say that I've been quite overwhelmed by it all and I know that there are others who feel the same way.
'Drained' isn't the word...! :)
Thank you to everyone who has wished me 'goodluck' over the last few weeks! And if you're coming along to see our work then I hope you enjoy it!
Bye for now!
3rd January 2012 -
Wishing you all a very Happy New Year, and hoping you all had a peaceful, enjoyable Christmas, I lovingly refer you back to the first sentence of my previous entry. It is the day before hand-in at university and I am writing this at 09:41 am. I should be working but I'm finding it hard to get going today for some reason...!
Since my last entry I have manged to purchase Adobe Photoshop cs5 (a design/editing program on the computer used by artists and designers to help them with their work), a brand new A3 printer/scanner, a new A1 drawing desk and I now have my own, albeit messy, room to call my studio. It's very exciting and I consider myself very lucky as it means that I no longer have to haul all my work over to uni to use the computers - I can just step a yard to my left and I have everything I need.
That having been said, it's been quite stressful getting all my images together. I have learned so much in this last part of the course and I'm really quite sad that it's all coming to an end. My work is changing and evolving rapidly at the moment and I'm not afraid to say that I'm a little anxious about exhibiting my work in London next month (assuming, that is, that my tutors deem my work good enough to be exhibited!) It's always good fun seeing your own work coming together but it's also frustrating when it doesn't seem to turn out as well as everybody elses seems to! I've had a hard time trying to get the colours of my print-outs to match the colours of the original pieces. One of my main characters, Dig, has tea-coloured fur and it's a nightmare trying to print him off the computer in a way that doesn't make him resemble some sort of citrus fruit...sigh..! but what can you do...?
No, seriously, if you do know something that may help me with this then I'd love to know...
Anyway, better crack on now as my portfolio won't assemble itself and the hour for hand-in approaches!
1st November 2011 -
Seriously, I really don't know where the time is going. I have every intention of regularly updating my site but it doesn't seem to really work out that way...Sorry to those who keep complaining (mum!) :) I'm having such a good time working on my MA; I'm currently working on illustrations for Peter Pan and Wendy as part of a series of images aimed at older children. After a long talk with my tutors it was decided that it would be beneficial for me to focus on well-known works by other authors - such as Peter Pan - to help demonstrate the way that I work and how I interpret other strories. Mr Call is still the project that I very much want to focus my time on but, at the moment at least, it is having to take time out whilst I bulk up my portfolio with things that publishers and agents are much more likely to want to see...
Things are really busy this end but I promise that, over the next month or two, there will be a massive influx of imagery! How jolly exciting! So watch this space. Really, this time. Honestly.
13th September 2011! -
I really don 't know where the time goes! At the moment I'm getting on with my Masters Project, the final part of my Masters degree Course in Children's Book Illustration at Cambridge School of Art ARU. It's been a busy few months hashing out ideas and, even as I write this, I'm still a little unsure as to how it's all going to turn out. Hopefully, everything will work out fine. It's quite nerve-wrecking to think that in less than six months it will all be over...a bit sad too. Today I'm going to head out into Cambridge and start sketching from life - something I'm going to strive to do much more of over the coming months. I'm working a lot in dip pen and ink at the moment and have just dug out my old rotring pens with the intention of becoming better aquainted with them. With any luck, I'll have a bit more work to put up on my website before too long...Watch this space...
20th June 2011 -
Hooray! I've officially had 1234 visitors to my site so far!
i'm often asked I'm sometimes asked Somebody asked me once how I put my website together. I would like to answer this question now by saying that I built this site using MrSite.com. There is a link at the bottom of every page of my website www.mrsite.com and they are definately well worth a look for anyone looking to start a website for anything. This site was built using the blue-boxed version two of Mr Site's 'takeaway website' and there are dozens of other little add-ons you can buy afterwards. I think Mr Site is fantastic and it is so incredibly easy to use - it would have to be because I wouldn't be able to use it other wise; anyone will tell you that I'm not very sucessful when it comes to computers. I end up crashing most of them. Mr Site even has a live-chat section so that the operators can help you with any little problems you have in putting things together.
I would also like to thank my brother, James Oliver, for buying me the Mr Site 'takeaway website'. James will be the first to tell you how he hasn't yet been thanked for buying me such a generous gift and so, in an attempt to end any bitterness over the matter, I am thanking my younger brother James for all he has done to enable such a wonderfully beneficial site to come into existence.
There. I said it.
Happy now, you?
I bet he doesn't read this for months either...
13th June 2011 -
I'm not quite sure where the last month or so has gone! A lot's happened since my last entry. I finished my dissertation on Rupert Bear and would like to thank John Harrold for taking the time to answer my questions and helping me with my queries. John was the illustrator of Rupert for over 35 years, and I know I speak for many Rupert fans when I say that his work is greatly missed. I entered into the Macmillan Prize this year - I didn't win but we had a total of, I think, five winners from Cambridge School Of Art so we did pretty well this year! I'm still working on my Mr Call stories and will upload work for them onto the site as soon as I have anything worth showing, I promise. I'm trying to make my website a bit more organised at the moment. I'm trying to insert more work into my portfolio and see if I create a gallery. I'm not really sure what I'm doing...Please bear with me. Thank you to everyone who keeps asking how my work is going and for taking an interest in what I'm doing. I'm sorry I haven't updated my site sooner!
12th June 2011 -
I've decided that rain should be illegal on sundays and that flimsy unbrellas should be banned. That's all I have to say today.
3rd March 2011 -
At the moment I am working on Mr Call for my Masters Project. I am going to be re-illustrating the first story and illustrating the other two that I have written. The second book, 'mr Call and The Jounrey of the Dream-Gazers' , is the book I am working on at the moment as I have already written the third book 'mr Call and the Revelations of Truth' . Didn't plan to do it in that order - it just happened! For the illustration that is currently on the homepage, I used watercolour pencils and Turpentine to blend the colours together. I do the initial drawings on paper, scan them in and print them off onto A4 sheets before colouring them afterwards. I then take the finished drawings and scan them in where I put them together on photoshop and maybe tone them a little more. I don't like relying too heavily on photoshop and this is still a new way of working for me but I like the end results. I am also working on Dig at the moment ( a little armadillo character ) and have been using the same techniques to create him with the hope of entering him into the Macmillan Prize this year. I am also writing a dissertation on Rupert Bear and how he has influenced my life as an artist.
6th Feb 2011 -
I have just added a 'blog page' to my website and will be updating it further over the next few weeks. I've never had a blog before so I'm not really sure what to write. University is going very well - for all those who are interested - I've just started the last year of my course and we are currently working on our Master Projects and our Diploma Reviews. Our Diploma Reviews consist of an 8,000 max word dissertation and I am writing about Rupert Bear and how he influenced my work as an artist. For my Masters Project, I am primarily focusing on figure drawing whilst trying to maintain an open mind for my final outcome. I already have a pretty good idea of what I want to do but I'm being encouraged to keep my options open at this stage. I'll be adding more entries whenever I have anything more to say :) ...