Fribble battle!

Work has been taking up quite a lot of my time, unfortunately. However I've still been squeezing in some design work as and when I can.

I'm trying to work on a website idea with a friend, it's got some bare bones now which technically I need to work on as soon as I get a few hours to properly put some focus down. I think the weekend is the time to do that one.

However, this week I've been trying my hand as a contestant in the first ever Fribble Battle! The concept is that 8 contestants enter in a contest that lasts a week, 3 rounds lasting 24 hours each, with a day in between for voting/judging. Long story short (details are available on the website here if you'd like a look) - I managed to scrape through round one! Round two is now in the voting/judging stage, and having seen the other entries (anonymous until tomorrow) I'm very much doubting I'll make it through, but it's been great fun, the short deadline was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. 24 hours start at midnight in America, which I think is about 6am here. By the time I'd get home to start my entry it'd be 8pm here, giving me only 8 hours of my 24! Luckily they'd put in a provision for the Internationals like me, so technically I could've tried planning stages out before I got home.

Not with my brain :) Worked out in the end though. I recommend it to all, keeps you on your toes. Must get back in the swing of contests to work to someone else's brief. Just as long as I get some more time....

LOTS happened!

Ahhh, so much to say!

It's been a very busy few months, but the last few weeks especially have some major milestones in my creative career.

Back on the 18th July I joined the "Portobello Market, London" group of the Worldwide Photowalk. I had a brilliant time, photographing people as much as I could as it was an area I knew I was wary of. It felt much safer doing so on a day where lots of other photographers were off doint the same thing, especially in an area like Portobello Market which is PACKED with tourists and shoppers on a Saturday. My portfolio of shots from the day is found here on Flickr.

At the end, we could pick two images to enter into the associated competition, and each walk leader then picks one photo from their group selection which they submit to the next "round". Imagine my surprise when my photo was picked!

I was really proud of my photo, I call her "Purple lady". She was a stall holder, aware her photo was taken as it would surely have been hundreds of times a year by various visitors to London passing through. The instant I took it I knew I loved it. The composition and colours from the view on the camera just made me "know" it was my favourite, and luckily viewing it on the PC later didn't change that. Phew!

Well, some time later, and the winners were announced of the Worldwide round - nearly 900 entries, whittled down by Scott Kelby to 11, one overall winner and 10 runners up. I scrolled down his blog page and got the shock of my life... there was my Purple lady, a runner up! Hee made the following comments about it:

"When I look at this image, I just want to know her story. She looks like she’s led a fascinating life, and has amazing stories to tell. I love the flower in her hair, the look on her face, and the wonderful lighting. I even love the coffee cup—it all adds to the story. The colors work so well together and the composition is spot on. The shot, and the subject, have an awful lot of character. I wish I had taken it."

Ahhhhh!!! Amazed!

Surely that's all? Well no... on a slightly less grand scale, but equally important to me, I was contacted by a guy called Chad who was interested in using my Phoenix Rising From The Smoke image for his band's album cover. My image has a Creative Commons license, so although that technically gives permission for others to use, I love that people contact me too. I like hearing from others, especially if they're interested in using my work. Long story short, I'd offered my services to clean up the image and edit it to their album cover idea and so after a few weeks of emailing back and forth, we reached a result him and the band were pleased with. I really enjoyed working on it, frustrating at times, but exhilarating doing it for someone else. It meant a new dimension when looking at my work, it wasn't just for me, it had to fit the needs of others and I had to interpret the brief given.

I hope the guys go far, check out their Myspace page here - good luck Paradigm Shift, p.s. remember me when you're famous! ;)

Then, finally, there's the ongoing story from my last blog post about the DVD cover. Again, email correspondence to discuss the design and make a few amendments to better suit the product. All source images used were checked for commercial use, and only a few days ago through the post came my own copy of the DVD - complete with cover using my design.

It's been a very, very busy time lately! As a result I decided it was about time I fixed my site properly to make it a portfolio... and after weeks of struggling with a layout I finally reached a point where I could update the URL with the new version. Still needs the "projects" page - where I'll describe some of the progress with commercial endevours, but for the moment I'm pleased to have a better place to show off my work.

The new Sarahg.co.uk - available here!

Anyone else out there wanting to work with me? Please get in touch :)

Update update update

Update needed! Really. Sorry about that - the world has been a bit busy recently!

With weather being an unusual variety of heatwave for England, it's been heavy heads trying to work through daily tasks. That's not to say nothing has been done, quite the opposite. In the last month I've been working on designing a website for a friend/colleague, as well as some examples of stationery designs which could be of use. This resulted in a neat little payoff which I plummetted in my usual style into other things, notably some more mini easels which work beautifully to display small canvases. My first ever mini canvas painting of a cheery giraffe was recently listed on Etsy.com, testing the water... and shock horror it SOLD!


Amazed, not only money for design work but also an artist. Together with the cover credit for a photoshopped image which was seen on Flickr by a Dutch production company who approached me wondering if they'de be allowed to use it for a cover of their DVD, well it's all a blur.

Would quite like more hours in the day to get everything done, I'm a little behind in my photoshopping, and with the weather so warm the oil paintings have been put on hold (too sticky to concentrate on painting) - but am still keeping up with the daily Flickr photos which at the very least means I'm doing a bit of editing daily.

Finally, the 50th issue of Photoshop Creative is now out, and at least I managed to enter a pic on their "50" theme which got printed, see it on Flickr here.

All in all, I'm feeling a bit more positive about all this design & art work. If only I could make it a bit more of my main income...

Ooops....

I am completely rubbish at keeping blogs up to date!

Creativity has been occuring, just not at the scale I'd like. Photoshop/computer has been acting up recently which has been driving me crazy and to tears in equal measures. Despite this, small moments of activity have got some pleasing results.

Recent projects include oil painting. I got myself some water soluble oils a while ago, as well as some small 8cm squared canvases, perfect for starting out and getting a feel for the medium again. I must say I'm really enjoying painting again - must learn patience, I tend to try and "finish" a piece in one evening regardless of its size (some 8" square canvas board was also acquired). Square seems to be a nice shape too, not sure why but I find it easier to work on. To try and practise I've been asking friends to name some album covers they like. This tends to be a good start as it doesn't mean they're thinking there's an end product, it's just a random question. The resulting painting for Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother" (Amazon.co.uk link here) was a bit of a surprise as I hadn't expected it to turn out as nicely as it did, even if I do say so myself.

Once I've let all the existing pieces dry a little I'll take photos and add them.

Website - no progress since last I'm afraid. It's in the pipeline, but it's harder to motivate the little free time available to redoing something that is effectively done (just not to the coding I'd like). It's on my list of things to do, so eventually there will be more to tell.

Another thing on my agenda is logo design! This started as a friend asking if I could do some ideas for a new logo for a band he knows. "Ok" I thought, why not, good practise! Did a few little designs quickly to give a bit of a suggested range of styles on only one font as I had little idea about the design they were after so easiest way to get feedback is see what they like of a suggested pallet. Got their feedback - and realised this is a slightly bigger project than anticipated. They're a signed band, not major - yet! A tour in America is due. "Hmm" was my next thought. Rather than a fun little logo for a few friends in a garage somewhere, this evolved into a proper band hoping to use it around the world! Legal minefield when I started reading up on copyright regarding the use of images and fonts. Royalty free images are generally ok for small work, but a big no-no for logos, and font work isn't much better! Have now set myself the task to read up on law & design, as well as now having to work on a logo using entirely my own creative endevours rather than just some images/fonts edited in photoshop. Eeep!

Lastly, I should mention the 365days project I've joined on Flickr. Basically, it's an idea where you take a self portrait (be it your shadow, a portrait, a photo of your hand, etc - just as long as it's YOUR composition and YOUR picture of YOU) every day for a year, edited if wanted, and uploaded. Having a general dislike for myself in photos, this was a challenge at first, but it's now become something fun. Even the bad photo days have Photoshop to rescue them, and I'm really liking the resulting portfolio of images - available here on Flickr. I highly recommend the project to anyone, even if you do your own take on it. It's a nice little way to ensure something creative is set for every day.

Revive and restore

Yesterday I was determined to create something in Photoshop. I fired up the PC, had the latest PSC forum challenge theme: "Restore", and did some keyword searches for stock images. I was ready!

Four hours later, I'd uploaded some pics to Flickr, done the washing up, resorted my files on the computer, toyed with buying a 42" LCD TV in the sales (still tempted... but don't need a new telly so pointless spending the money even if it could help boost the UK economy), watched a movie, prepared turkey leftovers and looked after a sick kitty. Back to Photoshop for me...

A few more hours later, and the image was complete. As usual, it's not what I expected when I started, but I'm more than pleased with the results:

One small step for me, one giant leap for the future

At long last! The website is coming underway nicely. A hiccup in the CSS coding has finally been fixed thanks to help from a CSS-whiz friend. Overall it seems to be doing what I want now, and so I just need to adjust a couple of colours to make them easier to read and then it's down to the nitty gritty of actually putting proper content up.

As it stands, I'm going to put a bit of everything up, as I'd like to see what it looks like "full", but once it's all there and working I'll edit it down to the pieces I'm happiest with and prune out some of the less inspired moments of genius.

Now I'm at this stage, I'll hopefully get myself back into a bit of actual Photoshopping too. Finished off some ticket designs for a Motocross presentation dinner, so am in need of a new project to tackle.

Abracadabra.... Zoomify!

Progress update: The site now has content!

One picture, the self portrait, has been added with the aid of the "Zoomifier", which is a handy little export function in Photoshop that allows you to zoom in to picture on the site. This was mainly a test of what on earth it actually did, but it seems like a pretty cool little gizmo and for some pictures could be a quirky asset. I'll have to see how it looks once I get some other things up there, see if it looks cluttered or not. Time will tell...

A cold week followed by Bacon

This week, I have mostly been suffering from a cold.   It's been exhausting, I've wanted to play on Photoshop as the next issue of PSC came in, plus I'd realised Freewebs were being idiots so needed to switch web hosts which meant I wanted to sit on the computer trying to iron out more things on the site.  None  of this happened, as by the time I got home I pretty much flopped into the couch with a blanket to rest.

Yesterday was a little different, and involved a trip to the Tate Britain with friends to see the Francis Bacon exhibition.  This did the job and inspired me to get myself in gear, and so lots of money was spent on a Bacon book and another Design book to pour over. 

Been spending the morning uploading photos, so no progress on PS or the web site yet, but I did manage to make a very messy mess with oil pastels on canvas, resulting in a self portrait that isn't really anything like me, but I like it anyway.

Life 1, Photoshop 0

Bah. I've not had the chance to really get down to some PS for a few days now.  Destractions have included creative endevours of a regular type (pen and paper... the shock!) as well as a large dose of life getting in the way, but it's not been forgotten.

The artwork 'offline' counts, I think.  I'm trying to do a taster diploma course in Graphic Design to get a feel for the whole thing, see if I'm comfortable following it further in life or if PS should remain as more of an enjoyable hobby.  I'm hoping the former, but we'll see. Long way to go yet.  My first "homework" is to practise quick drawing by making sketches from a TV programme.... at least 5-8 in an episode.  Am therefore trying to find something that lasts longer than 30mins and doesn't always show people on screen... my most awkward of sketching moments!  I've so far got it to about 3, I get distracted by the show and the realisation that my sketch looks absolutely awful and requires a heck of a lot of cross hatching to cover up the imperfections.  Still, I'm going to try and keep it all whether it's good or bad so hopefully I'll see progress soon.

Be free, my Minis...

I turned the logo into birdies.

Not bad...

Today didn't go as planned

I had high hopes. An entire Sunday, with no plans. After yesterday being quite a successful PS day I thought today that would continue.

FAIL!

I watched a lot of bad TV, and in my defense I did install some new brushes and plugins onto both laptop and computer, but no actual creating has been done. Which is why I've sat down at 9:00pm in the hope of one glimmer of inspiration... and so far all I have is this:



I call it "The Monotony of the Everyday" in honour of today. I think the lightbulb fits quite nicely....

Fat Cats

Nearly forgot, I did have some more positive Photoshopping today - following on from a past PSC forum contest entry I did, where I edited a pic of my kitty Joey looking a bit "plump" (top) I gave it a go on another pic of a podgy puddy-tat. Results in the bottom pic.

One day, I'll look back on all this and laugh...

That's the hope anyway.  Some point in the future I want to be something.  Something better than what there is now... and to do that, I'm entering as many competitions and practising as much as I possibly can!

It's still not anywhere near as much as I want to, but as long as I get a few hours a week and create a couple of designs then I'm happy.

Recently having acquired some new plug-ins for Photoshop, it's a struggle creating anything when the mystery of new buttons and filters must be explored.  Not to mention brushes... I'm not sure I'll ever get my head round it all.

To start off, my current Photoshop projects are as follows:

• Design tickets for Motocross Presentation Dinner
  
• Enter MiniSpace competition
  
• Set up portfolio website (also learn CSS... ah..)
  
• Enter the September PSC forum challenge (theme: Movies)
  

Motocross tickets is going quite well, leaving it to my usual last minute before needing a first draft I put together 7 designs with slightly different elements, all based around the clipart I'd been given.  Colours and tweaks will be done when I get more back from Penny and the motocross organisers.

MiniSpace... now this is where things are looking up.  Having spotted a design competition on this as an advert on Facebook a while ago I spent a long while kicking myself when I remembered to go back to look, and found I'd missed the deadline by one day. ONE day! ARGHH!!!  Then weeks later I saw the advert again, and this time there was a new competion - design a background wallpaper for their website.  It's a nice site, looks like it will continue competitions for designers.  You can preview entries and if you're registered, vote for them.   The top 3 win prizes.  I very much doubt I'll even get in the top 100 - but that's why I need lots of practise like this.  My profile is here.  I've started trying to get ideas but it's going to be a long process...