Art by Design 6

Here's a group exhibition I'm in at Kinokuniya books in the city. The artwork I put in it is a revamp of the poster I recently did (post below). There's a larger image here. The show is on from the 17th October to the 13th November and organised by Naomi Solomon from happyend designs. Thanks Naomi xxxx.

Positive Posters 2010

Positive Posters is an annual competition for graphic designers. This year's them was 'Optimism'. Above is the poster I submitted (you can see a larger image here), or you can view all the other entries here.

Back from a long blogging break!

Almost a month off line - that's a record. Moving house, renovations, phone line problems etc etc. Here's a couple of pics for an upcoming exhibition about collective animal nouns. I chose ' a kaleidescope of butterflies' and my friend Anna did 'a tower of giraffes'. You can see a larger view of the butterflies here.
xxxx

Work in process patterns

Here's a couple of work in progress patterns. The top one's made in 3D, and the bottom one was made by pulling apart bits of typography and making them into shapes in illustrator. Also here's a link to a fantastic blog I found today called BibliOdyssey. It's got lots of old world calligraphy, maps and scientific diagrams. I'll post some images from there later. xxxx

On My Desk

Lately I've been thinking about the Giant Pink Sea-Snail from Dr Dolittle, and strangely enough I couldn't find an image of if anywhere on the internet. I'm sure it's out there somewhere, but in the meantime I made my own pink snail, and did lots of different texture mapping on the shell - then turned it into a wallpaper.

If anyone can find a pic of Dr Dolittle's snail can you let me know? Thanks to Kootoyoo for hosting On My Desk. xxxx

On My Desk

Here are some fabric swatches I got back from Sublitech. Some turned out well, some didn't. The octopus print on the top left bleed too much so you can hardly see his legs. Have to print it larger next time.

And below are some Dodo birds I did a while back. I accidentally clicked on an old email today and was reminded of them. I'm gonna make some more 3D birds soon, so I'll be able to re-use his head and turn it into a different shape.

Thanks to Kootoyoo for hosting On My Desk. xxxx

More Sausage Dogs

In my spare time the other day I decided to trace out the wireframe of our 3D sausage dog. It took ages but it was really relaxing. Also for work I did a photoshop rendition of how it should look knitted. The first sample came back looking awful, so I thought it might help the ladies knitting it to get it right.

Original doll graphic

And here's the original image we sent the Peruvian women to crochet the doll below. I did the graphic in Cinema 4D. xxxx

Recent freelance stuff

Lately I've been working for Hayley Allen, who used to run Skipping Girl, (cute bags above). Now she's starting a new business called Tika. It's being backed by miners in Peru, who have a strategy of putting money back into the community promoting fair trade practise. The merchandise will be made by Peruvian women using traditional skills of knitting and crochet. So I've been designing fun stuff like toys, cot blankets, socks, scarves, dolls etc. As stuff gets launched elsewhere I can post it here. So here's the splash page I did, and I guess I can post the sausage dogs as Hayley's used them as her Facebook profile. They're 3D models that will eventually be made into toys. More to come later. xxxx

Talking flowers

Quick Friday afternoon collage - done in 3D and illustrator. xxxx

Too Much Detail - Not enouogh Time!

A couple of posts down is a work in progress image of a peacock. It's taking ages because I'm tracing the tail out strand by strand. Just so I can visualise the end I've posted a similar image. It's a Do-Do bird up a tree that I made for a gift card. The finished peacock will be in this style, probably up a tree too, only much brighter. I'm imagining I won't post it for a few more weeks as I have a very active 9 month old baby boy. I have to remind myself not to do such detailed work in this stage of life! xxxx

Work in progress

I'm in the middle of making a peacock in 3D, and tracing the tail in Illustrator. It will probably take a few days, so here's what I've done so far. xxxx

Red Moon

We had a red moon here last night, which was pretty. Apparently thousands of people flocked outside last night to see it. It was on the front page of all national newspapers today, and the Age ran this quote: "I think we have an innate need to find out a little more about where we fit in the cosmic scheme of things," which is true. Anyway, I spent the afternoon making silly collages. The above moon photos are plagarised from Google images and the collage below is made in Cinema 4D and Illustrator. xxxx

Octopus forest

There really is nothing on television any more. Instead we both sat in front of our respective computers and tapped away. To make matters worse our internet provider has slowed us to 64K (dial up speed), so net surfing is really frustrating. (&^%*^$^!!!) So I re-rendered the same tree I used in the collage two posts below, and pulled out an octopus from a pattern I'm working on to make this strange little 'octopus forest'. Computers really are taking over television! I just put this picture on my 'Site coming soon' page for my website anna-lisa.com.
Click to enlarge. xxxx

More spider's webs

The post below reminded me of this graphic I made a while back. It's on my list of images to potentially get made into cards. Anyway - it's funny looking back at past work. At the time I was convinced that the grey background (above) worked the best - but now I look at it again I think I like the colours better. I'll have to poll my friends before I go to print. You'll see more detail if you click the images to enlarge xxxxx

Chris Kerr

I just found this great image (I'm in love with the colours) by Chis Kerr on the bezembinder blog. It reminds me of the idea I had in mind for one of the images from my last show. I wanted it to be like an underground ant-farm community - but as you can see it ended up being an above ground image. It's fun to revisit the progress prints though. You can see more of Chris Kerr's work here, and the final images from mt last exhibition here. (Except you'll have to excuse the messy web page!) xxxx

Wrapping paper in progress & Johnny's cute 3D image

I got a couple of steps closer to finishing the wrapping paper designs when I tiled them the other day. The 3D render took 40+ hours!! So until I'm completely happy with it I'll do the layout in Photoshop. If you click on the images - that's the size they'll be printed at.

Also, I had to post this character Johnny made for the paper today. He's so cute! For those of you who don't know him, he's an illustrator/cartoonist at the Herald. When he's not drawing by hand he uses the same 3D software as me - only he's much faster and cleverer than I am - and his renders never take two days!

Baby Shower Invite

Happy Mothers Day

Tomorrow is my first Mother's Day, which is quite a milestone. For the sake of memories I decided to post the invite I did for my baby shower (next post), when I was full of anticipation and had no idea of how life with a new baby would be. I must admit I was terrified. I thought I'd be struggling with sleep deprivation and post-natal depression.

Now it's almost six months later and I couldn't have hoped for a better summer. I managed to skip the baby blues which I've really gotta thank Johnny for. He takes Lukas for 3 hours each morning so I get to sleep in - and was lucky enough to have a happy, cheerful, easy baby.
Thanks Lukas!!

I've made some bright, 3D flowers, and you can tell from the colours and squiggles that this whole motherhood thing has been really fun so far. I couldn't decide which picci to use so I posted both.

Happy Mother's Day to my mum and all the other great mum's out there.
xxxx

Graphic washing machines

I found these graphic washing machines (below) on the blog at aphic.com, and also over at Print and Pattern. It reminded me that about a year ago I was helping Johnny with a freelance job, and had to make a washing machine in 3D. I must have had some down time, because I started putting patterns on the washing machine and at the time thought I was going mad. Obviously not that mad, because as you can see below, LG and the Designers Guild in the UK have got together and put out this colourful range of white goods. Above are the one's I did. (I got the below image from aphic.com)