Letraset Colouring Challenge

After my post yesterday, this follow up is to post my entry to the latest Letraset colouring challenge. The template is yet another masterpiece from Carlton Hibbert at Patterns For Colouring.

Click on the image to enlarge it.

Although the tulips would normally have me reaching for my brightest pinks and yellows, as it's September I thought I'd see what I could do with just an autumn palette.

The closing date is this Wednesday, September 21st, with sets of Letraset ProMarkers up as prizes. I've seen some of the other entries, they're all amazing so it's a good job the winner's chosen at random!

Keep Calm and Colour In

This post is my contribution to Speak Out With Your Geek Out week.

It's coming up to the first anniversary of my laptop power supply burning out. From October to January I was warped back in time to the 1990s when we didn't have home computers and had to make our own entertainment.

All winter I dabbled with paintbrushes and sewing needles, I tore my hair out over 16x16 Sudoku puzzles, I read magazine articles I'd shoved into a bulging "read me" folder. Yet the thing I ended up hankering for the most was a book that had been gathering dust in a cupboard for 15 years or so.

Don't be fooled by Little Miss Cutesie. She's on a break from curing cancer.

I would have been at art school when I bought this, being initiated into the joys of graphic design. Unlike fine art, a designer needs a logical, problem-solving side to their brain. The sort that gets a kick out of a 16x16 Sudoku, indeed.

Altair patterns are based on 10th century Islamic mathematics. They work on the principle that a simple repetition of very small basic shapes (triangles, squares, hexagons, etc) can add up to create incredibly complex patterns. The Altair templates (developed into their present form by biologist/geometrician Ensor Holiday) can be coloured in a countless number of ways, creating a vastly different pattern every time. This book contained 2 copies of 8 different patterns.

My 2 interpretations of Altair pattern No. 10.

Altair colouring pads can be bought from all good online book stores or your can download 3 free ones from the Tinkering Times blog. There's also an Altair Pattern Designer application on Facebook and you can check out other pattern fans' efforts on Flikr.

Having finished off my Altair book, I found 2 excellent value pattern pads in Wilkinson's. They're not available in all branches but I've also seen almost exactly the same book in Ryman's.

The designs are very different to Altair but they still offer a huge number of challenges regarding colour combinations and repeating shapes.

Some colour schemes choose themselves, such as this peacock-inspired pattern.

Or pick a couple of pencils out of the box at random and test out a combination you would never have thought of, like the pink, olive and grey used here.

A tip for best results: Place a sheet of scrap paper between each page of your book to stop your masterpieces smudging into each other!

My other favourite resource is Patterns For Colouring, a blog by designer Carlton Hibbert in which he shares his own geometric patterns for all to enjoy, along with contributions by guest illustrators. There are currently 201 images on there to suit all ages. Simply download the files, print them out and get those pens and pencils working! I'm printing them out at A3 and at some point would love to get them framed and on my walls.

A stylised garden design prompted this study in green.

A rainbow spectrum can be a good starting point for a colour scheme.

I interpreted this as an abstract sunburst.

A guest design by Steph Baxter, which I later framed for my niece's birthday.

As much as I enjoy creating my own artwork, I still find it just as creative to take someone else's outlines and put my personal spin on them. I can experiment with different colour combinations, layouts and repetitions. It's mentally and visually stimulating, keeps your mind sharp and improves your hand-eye co-ordination. By adding even a cheap frame you can transform your finished designs into unique works of art to brighten up any room. Or why not take them off the page and use them for greetings cards or needlework patterns? In fact the only rules are respect the work of the original artist and don't use it to make money for yourself.

So if you're looking for a low cost, rewarding hobby, dig out that neglected pencil box (or, for quality and value, I recommend a pack of 24 Crayolas), get a nice shiny new sharpener and unleash your inner brilliance. Whether it's for a calming 5 minutes alone or an afternoon with the family, colouring doesn't have to be just kids' stuff!

Advent Calendar - December 17th

The schools start breaking up tomorrow so here's something for idle hands.

Click the danglies.


(2011 Edit: Link updated to an alternative site.)

Work In Progress - Button Bags 1

So, after I was rudely interrupted by gorgeous sci-fi logos (oh and don't get me started on the new Will Young video - wowza!) it's time to get down to what this blog's really about - discussing my latest projects.  You know the sort of thing: ideas, inspirations, plans, progress, snags, hopes and fears (aargh, enough with the Will thoughts!)

They say you should look for a gap in the market, and I've been looking at making something that everyone is being encouraged to carry with them these days - reusable shopping bags.

I found this site, carrierbagshop.co.uk, which sells a wide range of blank bags.  I bought 5 samples of their cotton shopping carrier bags and I'm currently experimenting with decorating them with buttons, beads and sequins.  Then I'm going to carry them round town, firstly to test out how well they hold up to being manhandled, but it'll also give me a yummy warm glow to walk about showing off my work!  I'd love it if someone stopped me and asked me where I got it from, in which case I could say I made it and give them my card, but we're all far too British for that to happen.

What I love about this idea is that each bag would be entirely unique.  The bags cost just a few pence, as do the decorations.  The real cost of the item would be the labour needed to create it.  That's where I fall down because I always think people would be put off paying too much if I was to charge the full hourly rate for the time I spent making it.  So more research needed into similar items on the market and how much they sell for, methinks.

The nice thing about this product, though, is I can make it in my spare time, watching the telly.  It's not like I need to devote a 9-5 career in an office with loads of specialist equipment.

So here are the designs I'm working on (click on the photos to see the details more clearly).  Now you can see why I'm a bit obsessed with Union Jacks:

As well as the red sequins in the diagonals, there will be red buttons in the St George's cross part and blue beads/sequins/small buttons in the triangles.  The white parts will be left blank, to let the design breathe.

I've been sewing the sequins on in short horizontal rows on this bag.  For the next one I'll try long diagonal rows and see which one I prefer.

This format also lends itself to two other backgrounds, onto which I've just tacked the shape for now:

The blue bag will have the red and white sections filled in and the red bag will have the blue and white sections filled in.

I can extend this idea to many other flags, providing they're quite a simple geometric design.  So that can be tricolours such as France, Germany and several other European countries, crosses like the Scandinavian flags, or those which consist of diagonals, circles, etc.  If I can find some star shaped buttons of an appropriate size, that would allow me to tackle other countries such as the USA and Australia.  More complex flags could be a possibility if I could find sew-on motifs for the country's crest or whatever it is I need.

My second design is a heart which is a simple shape but which would be very eyecatching when you see it in the street:

I've just put a line of pink buttons on for now because I thought it might look a bit flat if I did it all in red.  So the pink acts as highlights, I'll add some dark red/purple down the opposite edges as shadows, and fill the rest in bright red.

The final design in my test batch is a flower based on a Dandelion I created using the Bodoni Objects font at college:

 

Bodoni Dandelion by ~ValWoodhouse on deviantART

Bodoni Dandelion: The Bag.

This one will be slightly different because it's following a line rather than filling in a shape.  So for this I'll probably be more consistent about the size of buttons I use.  As you can see, it's based around 2 large fancy buttons for the base of the stalk and the centre of the flower.  The rest will be just be small green buttons for the stalk and leaves, with yellow, pink, orange, red, purple or whatever else takes my fancy for the petals.  Each petal will hopefully be 2 small buttons with a matching medium sized button in the middle.

Except for the flags, other designs can be put onto any colour background.  I just happened to have ordered samples in black and natural.

One of the joys of creating these bags is the randomness of sticking my hand in the button bag and seeing what comes out.  There's so much geometry and planning that goes into the designs, I like something totally unpredictable to balance it out.  Some parts, such as getting into small corners, are dictated by the size I need to fill.  Other than that it's just going to be the fun of letting the pattern do its own thing.

My red buttons, including teddy bears and ladybirds off my niece's old baby clothes - aah!

Once I've created the bag I need to test its durability.  As I mentioned, I'll be using it to do the job it was intended for, so I can check how well it works as a shopping bag.  I'm a bit concerned about the stitching on the inside of the bags, this may snag or fray with use, leading to decorations falling off.  For that reason I'm contemplating adding a lining to the bag once it's decorated.  This means I'll have to source some material - either full sized pieces or maybe scraps which I could turn into a patchwork.  This has the bonus of adding to the recycled, eco-friendly feel of the bag, but has the downside that it's extra work and therefore extra labour costs to pass on!

As for the decorations themselves, for now I'm buying some cheap stuff from the greetings card shop.  Strictly speaking they're for use in paper craft so it remains to be seen how durable they are.  If the idea takes off I may splash out on some metal sequins, in particular.  (I had to test out how well those red plastic sequins coped with hand washing, when the white bag had a close encounter with some ham and beetroot on toast.  A couple of them got a little creased but the bag stands up to some gentle cleaning, I'm glad to say!)  Other than that, job lots of buttons and beads will serve me fine.  Ebay seems to be the best place to get them from, a lovely big random bag for a couple of quid.

Ideally, though, I would love to be able to use recycled materials as much as possible.  So if you have a tatty shirt with reusable buttons you're chucking out, a box of beads or some old sequins that could be given a new life, please get in touch with me and I'd be happy to take them off your hands.  I can't pay a lot but I'd certainly refund your postage.  In particular, I need them in bright/dark red, white, royal/navy blue, yellow, green, pink and purple.

If anyone has any experience in bag making or sewing in general (i.e. more than me, which is none) I'd appreciate some feedback about my ideas.  Any tips on how to make them practical, rather than just a work of art, would be especially welcome!  If you can point me in the direction of similar products so I can check how much they retail for, that would be very useful too.  Of course, if you like what you see and want to place an order or discuss how to take the idea further, I would do the cyber equivalent of kissing your feet, whatever that may be.

The comment box is down there somewhere, waiting for you.  Thanks!

College Was An Education

Having spent over 10 years doing freelance desk top publishing, I thought that would be my niche on the Graphic Design course.  As it turned out, I found that my DTP was actually hampered by various bad habits I'd picked up over the years.  To my surprise, I mostly enjoyed doing the more illustrative briefs.  I tackled a lot of different techniques and, although I wouldn't say I have a signature style, I do like stuff that's brightly coloured and geometric or uses creative typography.  I have a quirky sense of humour which I like to shoehorn in as much as possible, but I also enjoy projects that tackle hard-hitting messages.

I'd already been using Adobe PhotoShop since 1994, so I'm really proficient in that.  At college I got introduced to Adobe Illustrator and now I find that's my software of choice.  During my desk top publishing career I used Quark XPress but their licences were too expensive for the college, so they used Adobe InDesign.  It may have been more convenient, but I don't think it equipped us well enough, as most job advertisements specify Quark.  My knowledge of Quark is rusty, having used nothing more advanced than version 5, but I'm confident that I could get back up to speed with it pretty quickly if required.

We did an introduction to web design, so I know the basics of Dreamweaver, Flash and ImageReady.  We didn't really get into HTML though, or look at anything more complex, so I don't feel well equipped to go into a job in that field, unless it was something pretty junior that I could learn the rest of the process from.  I'd still like to do some web work of my own, such as an online portfolio and shop.

If I had to pick a weak spot I'd say it was 3D.  It always has been.  I could never get the hang of woodwork and metalwork during the brief introduction we got of them during my 1st year at senior school ("There you are girlies, that's a chisel.  Now get back to the kitchen and don't call us sexist.")  At college we did one 3D packaging project.  I had a great idea but it kept dropping to bits so don't expect to find that in my portfolio.

My freehand drawing's also a bit too rusty.  Surprisingly for an arts course they didn't actually teach traditional art techniques, they just expected us to know them (although the younger students who came up through the National Diploma course did get that training).  I'd like to get back up to speed with my drawing and painting, because I've got some ideas that will require it.  For now, though, I find I have to prioritise my digital work because it's quicker to do and I can easily upload it to whichever site it's aimed at.

I'm also dabbling in a bit of sewing.  Again I'm no expert but I do enjoy the tactile nature of fixing on a button or doing various embroidery stitches.

Val's On The Blog (OK that's the lame joke out of my system)

Hello and welcome to my shiny new blog.  A place of creativity, positive thinking, ambition and hope for the future.

Which is why I'm going to start off with a bloomin' good rant.

I'm good, dammit.

Talented, creative, hardworking, likeable, reliable, witty, intelligent, articulate, sympathetic, a quick learner, an all round good egg and the most gobsmackingly beautiful female never to have won Miss World.

Okay, one of the above is a lie.  But all the rest hold true.

So why is it that I haven't had any work for over 12 months?  (I'm not going to count that crummy typing job that expected me to be on call 24 hours a day and have the speed of some sort of Typomatic 3000 robot.)

Cue wibbly-wobbly effect as I take you back to the start of the story...

"Val, you're a good typist, fancy helping me out with a job?"

Back in 1991, those were the fateful words from my friend that started me out on my love affair with desk top publishing on the Apple Mac.  The job happened to be a monthly circular for the local council that my friend had ended up doing as part of his community arts work,  but he wasn't very fond of it and was keen to pass it on.  I liked the smell of his money, managed to perfect the job within a couple of tries and very soon found myself handling the whole account.

I got on brilliantly with my client.  He got me more work from his own team and also passed me on to another department who gave me a welcome couple of months' work every year.

So that's how the 90's passed.  A small but loyal band of clients, keeping me busy enough for my liking and really appreciating what I did.  It wasn't a spectacular career, but I made a reasonable living.  The wolf always kept well away from the door.

I can hold my hands up now and admit I got complacent.  I should have spent more time advertising for new customers, but I didn't.  So when all my word-of-mouth work dried up around the same time I struggled to get anything else because I'd learned all my skills on the job and hadn't got the bit of paper to say I was qualified to do it.

Bills needed to be paid so, when my last client did the dirty on me in quite spectacular fashion, I couldn't afford to carry on and I turned to the good old world of office temping.

Again, I didn't have qualifications for the job, just loads of typing practice, the ability to pick up new skills quickly and a massive dollop of common sense.  Soon I was one of the most in-demand temps in town.  Someone who could turn up, get the hang of what was being asked and get on with it.  For one job, I got hired for a day and ended up staying 15 months.  For another, I was the only temp who didn't quit after a couple of days.

Temping was a nice compromise.  When I wasn't earning the corporate buck, I could stay at home, do arty things and plan to get back into the world I really loved.  Eventually, though, family difficulties meant I had to get something more reliable and I found myself in a permanent part time job with The Government Department That Shall Remain Nameless.

The job itself was fine... when I was allowed to do it.  In the 13 long months I was there, it changed completely, to the point where we were expected to sign new job descriptions.  Life was one long diktat passed down from On High, the staff turnover rate was astronomical and any sign of initiative from an underling like me was stamped on like a bug.

When it got to the point where Those On High told over 20 of us they couldn't guarantee where we were going to be working or what job we'd be doing in a couple of months' time, more than half of us put in our resignations.

I'd always planned to leave at that point, anyway.  I wasn't enjoying the job, I desperately wanted to go back to college and I'd saved up enough money to cushion me a bit through the course.  It was August and I wouldn't get another chance for 12 months so I took the plunge and enrolled at my local college for a HND Graphic Design course.

Going back to full time education was a daunting prospect.  How would I get on with all those youngsters?  I'd come from a workplace where I was considered something of an outsider, the arty one who didn't have a lot in common with anyone else so they didn't exactly bust a gut to find ways to relate to me.

I'm glad to say that, very quickly, I realised going on this course was the best thing I could have ever done.  It was a brilliant group to work with, everyone was really accepting and I wasn't even the only mature student.  I loved all the projects and considered myself to be a pretty good all-rounder.  It was so liberating to get my creative juices flowing properly again!

I'll skim over what I learnt for now as I think that deserves a chapter in itself.  Let's just say that, 2 years later I emerged, armed with a HND in Graphic Design, sharper, more confident, totally clued up, inspired and ready to take on the world.

Meanwhile, over in America...

A bunch of greedy bankers (in both the literal and rhyming slang senses of the word) were busy lending money they couldn't afford to people they knew wouldn't be able to pay it back.

The credit crunch (and which smart alec thought of THAT name?  It doesn't soften the blow if you make it sound like a biscuit) had well and truly taken hold.  Jobs like Graphic Design were now seen as a luxury and it was totally an employer's market.  They could pick and choose who they wanted and the one thing they could insist on was experience.  So how, pray, are you supposed to get that precious 2 years' studio experience if you can't find anyone willing to take on someone straight out of college?

I always had the feeling I was going to find it an ageist industry so I never really set my heart on getting into some swanky top-end design agency.  I now get the feeling I fall between two stools, having done both design and admin.  If I apply for a design job, they could be thinking, "if she was THAT good she wouldn't have had to spend time office temping and going back to college in her 40s."  If I apply for an admin job, they could be thinking, "her heart won't be in it, she'd rather be designing."

The truth is, the one thing I've NEVER lost faith in is my ability as an artist.  I go back to my opening statement.  I'm good, dammit.  I'm not arrogant when I say that, I'm confident.  I know I could walk into any of those jobs and do them brilliantly.  I can say with 100% certainty if only someone would show a little bit of faith in me, they would never regret it.

So whenever I send off an application and never hear back about an interview (because companies are so rude these days - if I've taken time to craft you my best letter, it's the least you could do to mail-merge a standard "thanks but no thanks" rejection to allow me to move on), all I can do is chant out the mantra...

...it's...

...their...

...loss.

I don't want to be sitting here waiting for someone to embrace me to their corporate bosom.  I want to be DOING something.  I've been self employed before, I'd love to do it again.  The thing is, I've a debt the size of a small African country so it's impossible for me to get a loan or take too many gambles.

So that's why I'm here.  This is me doing something.  This is where I'll be telling you what I'm doing and you, hopefully, will respond with encouragement and suggestions and cold hard cash.

Next time I'll tell you a bit more about what I can do, and in the top left hand corner of this page you'll find details of where you can see and buy some stuff already.  For now, I've taken up enough of your precious time.

Rant over.  Thank you for reading.  Have a nice day.