Crisp, brilliant and sparkling though the last few frosty days have been, I have to admit to being pretty much over the winter thing now, thank you. It’s just too damn cold for sitting hunched in an almost entirely sedentary, Quasimodo-esque fashion at a drawing desk trying to coax illustrative magic (or even a half-decent pass at submittable Masters artwork) from the end of a paintbrush. Tormentingly, the subject of my final (well, for assessment purposes, anyway…) project is high-summer, seasides and the pleasures – and perils – of attempting to enjoy a cooling, icy delicacy in the open-air.
Unfortunately, most of the stuff I’ve been working on over the last week (OK, 3 days… Christmas and affiliated festive fixtures pretty well annihilated opportunities for productive work over the first week of the ‘holiday’) is still unfit for exhibiting to even the most forgiving eye – much less the entire inter-web – so I thought I’d share a piece from about a month ago that I completed for (my page of) the exhibition catalogue that is to accompany our degree show in February. Incidentally, not the medium in which I am working up final sample spreads (for the project from whence this image originated…), but featuring brush pen (a new favourite – or at least high-ranking – drawing tool) and further experimentation with digital colour. I thought it might exude a little summery warmth for anyone else whom might be suffering – with stoic reserve, or otherwise (like myself…) – through these chilly conditions, and conjure a little whimsical daydream of balmier times ahead 🙂
Please excuse the crop marks…
On the subject of the exhibition catalogue, I would also like to say a HUGE THANK YOU!!!! to everyone whom supported our Kickstarter fundraising efforts in order to help us produce this artefact and run the degree show (both of which, owing to a lack of university funding allocation for the same, are student-financed enterprises but critical to our collective future success [fingers crossed…!]). We were absolutely blown away by the generosity of friends, family and interested observers: the totalizer reached an incredible £3,265 before the project bidding window closed back on 8 December. Your kindness and support has been instrumental in securing a gallery ‘home’ for the show in February (about which, more details to follow in the new year) and in enabling production of what promises to be an absolutely delicious catalogue that publishers up and down the UK will (hopefully) find utterly irresistible! 😀
Well, I shall let you get back to your “Twix’tmas” (thanks, Darren Redick off of Planet Rock – the soundtrack to my coursework this week…) and any remaining mince pies. This will almost certainly be my last post ’til 2015, so I hope you all have an absolutely crackin’ one!! Happy New Year, and thanks for visiting in 2014! 🙂
AP x
amanda's pencil post 