Rose Lloyd

Casapueblo

2012-01-05T09:39:00.001-08:00

It may seem as though my holiday was all to do with art but I was just lucky enough to be going to places that had some really interesting work to look at.

Casapueblo is a museum studio of the artist Carlos Paez Vilaro. This is the Carlos with his

friend Picasso in 1957.

This is the Casapueblo museum and studio that Carlos built by hand with the help of local fishermen. It sits on the cliff side at Punta Ballena in Uruguay.

These are the most recent paintings by Carlos. He is now 89 and still paints at Casapueblo, he was actually there when we went but unfortunately we did not see him.

La Boca

2012-01-05T08:45:00.000-08:00

This colourful street in Buenos Aires was in the La Boca area. I had read about this area and really wanted to visit it. There was a lovely atmosphere with street artist showing off their tango skills, outdoor restaurants with live music and tourist type shops. La Boca is also known as the artist area and there was some really interesting work to be seen. We liked quite a lot of the work and decided to buy one of the limited dry point prints shown below.

Christmas is coming

2011-12-01T06:10:00.000-08:00

I was chosen to create an image for Its a shape Christmas and given the shape hexagon. This is the image I created but I do not know which date on their advent calendar it will appear

Own your own colour

2011-11-06T02:08:00.000-08:00

I bought this colour in memory of my sister and its for a great cause, have a look at the website

http://www.ownacolour.com

It tells you what your donation will buy when you get to the donating stage.

Finished Sculpture

2011-11-05T09:01:00.000-07:00

At last my sculpture created in memory of my lovely sister Carol is complete.

There is a reason for every item used.

When I saw the tall slim vase I thought of Carol.

The balti pan was because she always loved a good curry.

The willow pattern was because she use to buy me bits of willow pattern she found in junk shops.

Carol would have found it funny that I gave her big feet as she had large feet and found flip flops the most comfortable things to wear and if they had a bit of bling even better.

The necklace was a bracelet she persuaded me to buy in a supermarket in France.

This leads me onto her earing which is a small key from her house in France and its on her left ear as Carol was left handed.

Carol always wore glasses and seemed to always peer over the top.

Finally the rose is a link to me.

Bric a Brac Character Developing Stage

2011-09-17T05:56:00.000-07:00

It's amazing what you can create out of a balti pan. I didn't think I would get this far with the project so soon. The watch eye is still working but for how long I don't know!

The next stage will be tricky... will the weight of the pan tip over the sculpture when I secure it in the vase?

Bric a Brac Next Stage

2011-09-16T08:01:00.000-07:00

The next part of this project was to attach the vase to some feet in flip flops. I wired up the base of the vase, made the feet and flip flop template out of polystyrene and wire then began to sculpture in cement. I have put sand inside the vase and I am keeping my fingers crossed that the cement does not expand too much and break the vase.

I am working on the balti pan while this dries out slowly and will put it together next week.

Bric a Brac

2011-09-10T09:56:00.000-07:00

These are the start of my new project...a follow on from Bert. The vase was from a car boot sale, the copper pipe from my son in laws garage and the balti dish from a junk shop. I got the copper pipe riveted onto the balti dish as I haven't the equipment to do it myself. I have had a really enjoyable day turning this junk into a soon to be treasured piece of artwork. Lets hope the finished piece turns out as the image I have in my head.I have also bought myself 12.5kg of air dryed clay which I intend to sculpture as part of this piece.

A Different Way of Illustrating

2011-09-09T08:08:00.000-07:00

Went to see Louise Gardiner's work at Quarry Bank Mill in Style today. She had some lovely pieces of work, I particularly liked her illustrative work. The very decorative pieces were very accomplished embroidery but were too complicated for my liking. I like work to have a sense of fun which I think these two images have.
Lousie's sketchbook was beautiful and very spontaneous. The exhibition finishes 10th Sept but she has her work on http://www.lougardiner.co.uk

Gold at the AOI Images 35 Awards

2011-08-29T08:01:00.001-07:00

At the Association of Illustrators Images 35 Awards evening I received the Gold award in the Advertising category for my image "Spring Family Concert". The event was very well attended and was held at the Bankside Gallery

Spring Family Concert

The exhibition is well worth visiting as there is a great selection of works from some of my favourite illustrators such as Matthew Richardson, Andy Potts and Gary Parsons. In the New Talent category I really loved Christopher Knight's image "A Blue Day".

Bert

2011-08-21T10:43:00.001-07:00

We now have a new member to the family his name is Bert. He is made out of part of a drain spout, I am going to put a fern in his head and screw him to the wall.

Family

2011-08-21T10:35:00.000-07:00

My daughter Sarah asked me for a poster type picture to go on her wall. I rummaged through my collection of photos and came up with this. It Looks quite good in a white mount and black frame.

Illustration Friday - Soaked

2011-05-23T00:15:00.000-07:00

When I saw the topic soaked I knew I had suitable illustration in my file. I produced this about a year ago just for fun.

Jaume Plensa

2011-05-21T06:12:00.000-07:00

A wonderful exhibition in wonderful surroundings with a special friend is the best way to spend your Friday.

It has been a long time since I felt so moved to tears by an exhibition.

I could upload so many of my photos but I strongly advise anybody who reads this blog to visit the exhibition, it finishes 25th September

Jaume Plensa Yorkshire Sculpture Park

These are just a few of my photographs.

This work has stillness, silence and serenity, which evokes a spiritual, almost religious, atmosphere and the beautiful, highly marked alabaster appears to glow from within. (this quote is taken from the YSP exhibition guide)

Plensa describes these figures as 'fat angels': suspended from the gallery walls, they are fixed and constrained by their heavy human bodies. (this quote is taken from the YSP exhibition guide)

Yet another failure

2011-05-18T08:18:00.000-07:00

Does it get easier the more often it happens? I should not call it failure the judges are just not on the same wavelength as me. This was the turned down entry for Creative Review's 2011 Illustration Annual.

Never mind I've still to hear from another two competitions.

Failure

2011-05-16T11:13:00.000-07:00

Anna Violet has persuaded me to start blogging again.... so here we go.

Failure, well I am sure we all experience it at one time or another but when do we call it a day and how do we handle it?

Creative Review have a good piece on their blog

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2011/may/berghs-fear-of-failure

I like what Milton Glaser has to say.

This is my most recent failure, again I have failed to be selected for The Serco Prize for Illustration. They choose a first, second, third and fifty illustrations to be exhibited in the London Transport Museum. This competition is organized by the The AOI

http://www.theaoi.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=269&Itemid=47

The winner is Anne Wilson and her image is below. I think her image is very eye catching and makes a very good poster.

This entry from Andy Potts has been chosen for the exhibition. I have always liked Andy's work.

Being CRATE ive

2010-04-15T08:37:00.001-07:00

I found this image from a link on a friends blog. Have a look at the blog below there are more fun images. Don't you just wish you had come up with such an original idea... I do
http://www.thisblogrules.com/2010/03/huge-crate-man-invades-australia.html

Illustration Friday Linked

2010-04-12T05:34:00.001-07:00

Not the most obvious link...a cat and baby birds leaving their nest.

I am always worried when birds nest in our garden because I have two cats.

Illustration Friday Dip

2010-04-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

Ip Dip Dip my blue ship

sails on the water

like a cup and saucer

Ip Dip Dip

you're not IT

This illustration is a little bit different from my usual style, but I have enjoyed doing it

Sanding down sculpture

2010-04-05T08:56:00.001-07:00

I took my idea for my sculpture from this illustration I created for the BBC Philharmonic Manchester.

I think it looks more like a snowman than a bird! but when it is off the base and maybe in a nest it might look ok

I have spent quite a few hours over Easter trying to get my sculpture smooth but have not succeeded. This is a learning curve as I think the cement was not mixed properly. The next one I make I will certainly be getting the finish a lot smoother before it begins to dry. I was thinking I could use the same tools I use when trying to get icing flat on a cake!

The eye of the bird has also not been as successful as I hoped because I did not use enough colour before it was fired. Although the idea of putting white plastic tubing through the middle of the sculpture so the light would shine through has worked well.

Cement Sculptures

2010-04-01T05:19:00.001-07:00

What fun - a trough full of sand and cement and 3 mad women. Maria, Ann and I have spent several days making cement sculptures. We started off with wired polystyrene and secured them on bases and then the fun began. Polystyrene can have a strange effect as the video shows.

They are now at the drying out stage and we will have to spend days sanding them down.

I will post more photos when they are finished.

(Notice the packet of choc chip boosters, necessary requirement for sculptors)

Illustration Friday

2010-03-28T07:58:00.000-07:00

Rescue is this week's topic for Illustration Friday.

One already in the pot - please rescue the other two.

Illustration Friday

2010-03-11T08:02:00.001-08:00

I thought I might try entering Illustration Friday as it will give me a mini brief to work to each week. The topic this week is Brave and I thought a beach hut leaving the ranks to go snorkelling is very brave.

Nick Dewar

2010-03-11T07:04:00.000-08:00

I was shocked to read that Nick Dewar had passed away in February. I loved his illustrations and the humour he used influenced my way of working. When I corresponded with him at college he was very generous in the time he spent replying to my questions.

Illustrator Nick Dewar

2009-02-03T14:25:00.000-08:00

I have been corresponding with Nick Dewar he was quite happy to answer questions so long as they were not ones on his website. Most of what I wanted to ask is there, they are worth reading http://www.nickdewar.com/

I like his sense of humour as well as his illustrations.

This is an interesting question and answer, it makes you realise how quick you need to turn your ideas into illustrations.

Q: "What is your creative process, how do you create an illustration?"
And
Q: "How close are your final sketches to the final artwork?"
A: I thought the best way to answer these two questions is by showing you how I work. I took a random week and followed two jobs that I had on at that time from first contact to final artwork. One job is an editorial piece the second is an advertising job.
The first Job was done for the New York Times book review. Just to confuse matters the art director who commissioned me is the venerable Nicholas Blechmen. I have labeled our discourse as between Nick One and Nick Two. I should add that not only is Nick One a real gent and a talented artist in his own right, this is a textbook example of good art direction.
Nick One contacted me on Monday afternoon to ask if I would have time to do a small illustration. It would accompany the review of a book written about "the economy of sushi". I replied straight away and told him that I could do it. He sent through the article, the size, the fee, the due date and told me to have fun!

First thing Tuesday morning I read through the article once to get a feel for the piece and the tone of the writing. Then I sat down and reread the article more closely identifying the parts that already suggest imagery and identifying the articles most important point: that eating sushi is a "key indicator of modernization, a signifier of participation in the globalised economy".
Sometimes if I am stuck with a particularly dense or complicated piece of text I will try and boil the article down to a single word or phrase and illustrate that. Here are the ideas that I came up with...Roll over the images on the right to see larger versions of the sketches supplied to the client.
Nick One wrote back a very encouraging email:
"These all look great.
My favorites are:
Segments of globe as sashimi
Slice of sea on sushi block
World as tuna roll
(And I also kind of like fish skeleton as yen)
Which do you prefer?"
I sat down and looked over the ideas again and tried to evaluate them a little more objectively. Here is my reply:
"I like the globe sashimi, because it succinctly sums up the main idea behind the book. The world as a tuna roll I like for the same reason, but it is either a little more direct and or a bit too obvious (depending on your point of view). The trawler would be fun to draw but is a bit surreal and perhaps not readily apparent what the link to the story will be to a casual viewer (I don't know if this is an important point or not). The yen might be a stretch to make it look good as you have to squeeze a yen sign into a skeleton shape, also as I write this it occurs to me that it may be misinterpreted that the book is about the demise of the Japanese economy. I think the globe sashimi wins out? Let me know your thoughts."
His reply:
"Agreed, the sashimi is perfect.Look forward to the finish.Thanks."
I sent the sketch over to Nick One first thing Wednesday morning, asking if he had any colour preferences. He wrote back that he had no preferences on the colour but to bear in mind that their presses cannot hold more than a 250% combination of inks (in other words, no area should be so dark that the combination of cyan, magenta, yellow an black is above 250%). He also said that the sketch was looking good.
Now all I had to do is sit down and produce a more final sketch. I wanted to make the sushi resemble a Homolosine globe because it made more sense to me that if a globe were spread it out as sushi, it would look more like a Homolosine globe than an orange segment shaped globe. So I had to go away and find a good reference for that. Also I needed to get sushi references to make sure I got the Toro right.
The one artistic license is the band of seaweed wrapped around the sushi. You don’t usually do this with Tuna, but it worked so well as an equator line and it really helped identify the objects as sushi that I included it.

Now that I had his approval on the final rough I was free to go to final.I managed to get the art over to Nick One by Wednesday evening.

Adrian Johnson Lithuana

2008-10-28T12:11:00.001-07:00

This illustration also by Adrian Johnson has a very Polish feel to it

Adrian Johnson's Stress Management

2008-10-28T12:03:00.000-07:00

I like this illustration because of the simple forms and the limited use of colour,
yet it sums up the title and makes you smile.

Gillian Blease suggested we look at Adrian Johnson his website is

www.adrianjohnson.org.uk

Gillian Blease's Talk

2008-10-28T09:47:00.000-07:00

Gillian was a very interesting and engaging speaker who seemed very relaxed and willing to share the techniques she used to get her work accepted by art directors.
She explained that the position she is now in did not just happen over night it has taken 10 to 15 years to get to this point.

Gillian did her foundation year at MMU and then went to Newcastle for 4years studying Fine Art. So the first half of her career was spent as a fine artist until she tried her hand at illustration.

Gillian was lucky to get a residency with ACME in London. Artist Martin Creed had a neighbouring studio and seeing the style and method of thinking behind Creed’s work made Gillian question her desire to become a fine artist.

She added to her life’s experiences by spending six weeks in Japan teaching English.
This experience has influenced her illustration work, as she likes the Japanese way of putting in elements that work together and keeping the images precise. Leaving space creates its own drama. Gillian has always liked simplicity.

The way Gillian entered illustration was by winning a competition and having her artwork published in a magazine. She also did a mini crash course in illustration.
A great idea she had was to recreate illustrations to go with existing editorials
and she sent this with her portfolio to the Guardian. She now regularly sends out mail cards. Also she thinks it is worth getting images into Illustration annuals such as the AIO for good self-promotion. Gillian has been accepted for 2009 and thought it will cost about £500. This may seem expensive but publicity is very expensive and if it is a source Art Directors look at then it is worth it.

The work Gillian produces is usually for magazines, editorial and surface pattern. She also likes graphic design and logos fascinate her but they need to be accurate. She produced about 150 images for recipes in the Guardian and these were then used in a book.

Gillian has worked for

Restaurant Magazine
Daily Express
Letters page in the Guardian
Relations Column
Letters page
Book designs
Waitrose
Blueprint Magazine
Articles for Stephen Fry
South Bank poster

Important facts Gillian said to be aware of
Do not let your ego get in the way
Sometimes you have to be the servant
Sometimes the clients are very certain about what they want
You are not changing the world
Deadlines can be very short
Art directors may say the readers will not get your illustrations.
If you have not had a rough passed you may have to redo the image

I thoroughly enjoyed Gillian’s talk and thought she came across very informative and quite happy to share her ideas.

I found Gillian's images on place mats on this website http://www.jennyduff.co.uk/

Life is going to be tough for an Illustrator

2008-10-28T03:26:00.000-07:00

I was talking to a designer at the weekend who was visiting Vernon Mill Exhibition. He took one of my cards but explained that due to financial constraints he bought STOCK illustrations for about £20. His clients were quite happy for him to do this. It's rather a depressing situation for illustrators.

Sturgeon's Law

2008-10-22T15:09:00.000-07:00

Sturgeon's Law prov.
"Ninety percent of everything is crap". Derived from a quote by science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon, who once said, "Sure, 90% of science fiction is crud. That's because 90% of everything is crud." Oddly, when Sturgeon's Law is cited, the final word is almost invariably changed to `crap'.

French Illustrator from the 1960s

2008-10-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

Tomi Uugerer 1968

I like the humour in these two illustrations but also the design and composition.

Soberingly true

2008-10-20T08:18:00.000-07:00

Yep what Polly says about uk rates is true and is at the root of a lot of 'established' illustrators disenchantment with the industry. The explosion in illustration courses has ensured that the market is saturated and I cannot see this changing. We pre empted alot of this which is why some of our students go on to work as graphic designers or related industries or diversify into surface design. We always wanted students to have more than one string to their bow.That said I have always believed in 'Sturgeons Law' namely that 90% of everything is crap. That includes 90% of the illustrators pitching for work at any one time. The bigger problem is that they (the 90%) clog access to art directors and generally get in the way.

Bienal del Cartel en Mexico

2008-10-09T08:56:00.000-07:00

These images are from participants of the

Bienal del Cartel en Mexico 2008 competition.

It is worth looking at all the different countries styles.

My favourites were the Polish but I also liked Taiwan

Tomasz Boguslawski (Polish)

Antoine Oliver (French)

Eric Olivares (Spanish)

Gorowsui Mieczystaw (Polish)

Chilian Poster Artist Sebatian Kubica

2008-10-04T10:47:00.000-07:00

100th Anniversary of the hospital for nervous and mental diseases in Zabki

Kubica designs many posters to order but he makes also many self-editions as poster art is his passion and a way of transmitting important social messages such as inequality of rights, intolerance, alcoholism, terrorism, war. One of his last social posters is an anti-war billboard, which was posted on the streets of Warsaw last November.

This information came from

http:/www.posterpage.ch/exhib/ex139kub/ex139kub.htm

2008-09-23T12:13:00.000-07:00

This is Polish Poster about Feminists, although my work is not about feminism the image can relate to my work in a visual way. The artist is Bobna Otto-Wegrzyn and I found the image on http://www.polishposter.com/

2008-09-17T09:42:00.000-07:00

My websitehttp://www.roselloyd.co.uk