Process- Nature Girl

 

Today I thought I'd share another peak into how I put images together. I use photoshop for image making far more than I ever thought I would. I still prefer a totally handmade image but you can't argue with the the efficiency of working digitally, especially when you're on a tight schedule! 

This is a companion piece to the Nature Boy image I did for Toska (which i also coloured to make a print) that I put together last night for a group exhibition at Edinburgh College of Art. I started out with the pencil drawing you can see above. And then.....

This is pretty much my entire process in eight steps. After editing the image so that it was neat and tidy I coloured each section and then added the flower layer as separate line drawing. After that hid all the other layers except the flowers to focus on colouring them with no distraction. Once this was done I decided it was far too dense with the purple top behind it so I switched to a light spring-y colour with some floral textile pattern on top of it for added interest. Once I'd finished I realised I'd forgotten the birds (which also feature in Nature Boy so I felt I needed them so that they'd match) so had to hastily chuck those on top! And voila!

I'm no photoshop expert by any means. I mostly make it up as I go along and I'm sure there are far easier ways to do things! But I think its interesting to see how other people work (I really enjoy watching Jez use photoshop or illustrator...its really hypnotic and relaxing). It might kill the mystery of the image a bit but working out the jigsaw is pretty fun!

'Don't let blogs get you down!'

Today I've decided I'm going to break with my usual blogging formula and share with you some stuff i've been thinking about recently. Apologies for the length of this post. Feel free to skip this out!

Every now and again (more so around graduation time) I get emails from students asking for advice on being an illustrator, for tips on promoting and selling their work and that kind of thing. I don't mind getting these emails (I'm really flattered anyone would be interested in what I have to say) and I try always to reply (inevitably some slip through the net) and I make an effort to be honest and open with my answers. Nevertheless sometimes I can't help but feel a bit of a fraud when I send out enthusiastic 'illustration is wonderful' emails as a response. Don't get me wrong I sincerely love illustration as an art-form and I love drawing; if i didn't draw I'd certainly go mad, but the act of being an illustrator? Well thats not always so rosy if i'm honest and encouraging students to do it can sometimes feel a bit deceitful because, you know, it can be kind of tough.

 The problem when starting out, or so i've found, is the transition from working in a busy studio environment with classmates to chat with, bounce ideas off/watch youtube videos with to working alone (probably from home). Its not a particularly fun switch to make. Most of the time its not the conversation you miss but the sensation that someone else is in the room, getting on with their work just like you are. Its a kind of camaraderie I guess. So when you're working on your own you have to find new ways of keeping conversations going, of ensuring your not totally isolated. And so in shuffles the internet, and with it comes twitter, flickr, blogger, tumblr and all the others. A big friendly gang to help you through the solitude! And they do help. I enjoy getting friendly tweets from other illustrators, reading blog posts and looking at sketches and things on flickr. Its a decent enough approximation of a shared workspace…only…without the other people actually being there.

 The thing is, and here's where problems arise, its easy when reading blogs and twitter feeds or nosing through flickr accounts to felt totally bewildered by the output of others. I have had many occasions when I've been looking at the work of other artists and ended up feeling utterly wretched and incapable, as though what I do could never match up and thus why should I even bother? I think this is a common enough feeling (certainly from talking to other illustrators it seems to affect a lot of us) and its one that isn't usually conducive to positive thought. With blogs you only see the outcome, the flawless painting, or witty drawing and none of the stress that came before it. We tend not to share the struggle to come up with ideas, the frustration of those times when the pencil is just not our friend. I, for example, showed you pictures of the book (Mrs Dalloway) that I recently completed for the Folio Society but I neglected to mention the months and months of stress that went into it. The myriad drafts and re-drafts and the days when I'd cry (honestly) about not being up to the task, after which I'd find myself back in bed with Bronte and a bar of chocolate trying to forget I'd even tried. We don't share this stuff because its not fun to write about and its even less fun to read about. But as a result do we perhaps we paint an unrealistic picture of what its like to draw for a living? So when, as a reader, you try and draw something and it doesn't work out you measure yourself against the apparent success of others (rather than against your own goals) and decide that you can never match up (by the way i'm using 'you' to include me as well…i'm not talking specifically about YOU) despite the fact that you have no idea how many goes it took for them to get to that place! 

I don't know what the solution to this is. I'm not even going to pretend to know the formula for a healthy working attitude (if I did I'd let you know. Honestly). BUT I think in owning up to the fact that, sometimes, I place unrealistic expectations on myself to always create perfect finished pieces- that maybe some of you might feel a bit better about doing it yourself and I hope that doesn't sound patronising…like 'well if I do it then surely you do'. I just want to say..i do it too…its always good to know you're not the only one! 

And the winner is...

Winners! from Lizzy Stewart on Vimeo.

Thanks to all who entered. For those that don't have the patience another video the winners are Umbrella Head (1st) and Caitlin Shearer (2nd). If you two could email me at lizzy(at)abouttoday.co.uk with your address I'll send you your winnings!

For thems that wants it Toska is on sale here

 And you can get Living Things from Little Otsu!

In the last week I added new prints, cards and badges to my shop.

(check out all the truly horrible faces I pull with my eyes shut! a girl definitely doesnt need to see that!)

Giveaway!

Giveaway from Lizzy Stewart on Vimeo.

I'm doing a giveaway of both Living Things & Toska. Leave a comment & win (as the video says).

p.s things I have since realised about video blogging- the face you pull before filming is important so that you dont end up with a frozen crazy face on your blog which is what I have. You should brush your hair first. Also- plan, at least a bit, what you might say. Why did I not think of that?

Mrs Dalloway for the Folio Society

 

Last year I spent a fair few months illustrating Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway for the Folio Society. Ten illustrations neatly bound in a very nice hard-back book, printed on lovely paper, put together with typical Folio Society attention to detail! Its out next month but here's a sneak preview of some of it. 

 The whole process of illustrating the book proved to be a steep learning curve for me. Lots of drafting and re-drafting and research and late nights, a far cry from my normally quite relaxed approach to illustration. I'm not going to deny that it was an incredibly stressful process, one that frequently left me feeling a bit (for 'a bit' read 'utterly') useless but in the end I'm quite pleased with how things turned out. I feel like the way I work really evolved during the project and I definitely honed my photoshop skills along the way! There are plenty more images to show you but I think I'll share the full illustrations once the book has been officially released. 

(Today is the 70th anniversary of Virginia Woolf's death. If you haven't read any of her, frankly sort of revolutionary, novels maybe now is a good time to try one! I loved Orlando as a teenager despite being faintly baffled by it!)

Upcoming!

This week I'll be heading down to London town for Pick Me Up at Somerset House. Jez and Evening Tweed are exhibiting in one of the rooms again alongside other splendid folk like Nous Vous and Nobrow showing off what they do. As well as checking out what other people are up to I'm also taking part, albeit in a much smaller way. I'm going to be doing some drawing as part of It's Nice That's One for One project. Alongside four other artists (including my pal Richard Sanderson ) I'll be drawing on Thursday 17th (between 2.30pm and 9pm) and Saturday 19th (between 10am-2.30pm). If you come along you'll get to witness me frantically scribbling, stressing and screwing up paper first hand. Drawings made at the show will be for sale there and then! If you're in the area do come in a say hello. Friendly faces will be much appreciated.

As a result of my trip south (i'm heading home for a few days too) any shop orders placed between Wednesday 16th and Sunday 27th will not be shipped until the 28th!

Thank you!

 I just want to say a massive thank you for your response to my Toska book so far. Putting this book out felt like a fairly massive risk for me and its been really nice to get such a lovely reaction in the first couple of days. I'm really flattered and very grateful for your wonderful support. 

   The orders are being sent out and few of you have even got them already it seems! I'll be posting orders as quickly as I can so please bear with me! As well as my etsy store you can pick up a book at the ever magnificent Analogue Books here in Edinburgh, Comma in Oxford and (shortly) Here Gallery in Bristol. More stockists to be confirmed soon!

Thanks folks!

TOSKA

 

 At last! I finally get to share something I finished a while back. Toska is a b&w litho printed, staple bound, 20 page book filled with illustrations that I drew during January of this year (in two weeks in fact, in a flurry of inhuman activity). The concept for the book is based on a quote from Vladimir Nabokov on the uniquely Russian sensation of 'Toska' and whilst the book has no narrative I hope you can at least spot a kind of vaguely tangible theme.  This whole project is the biggest thing I've done on my own since my degree (and definitely the most expensive!) and involved me tricking myself into thinking I was confident enough in my work to spend a load of money printing five hundred copies of it! Eeek! This really has been a fairly huge leap o' faith for me.

Toska is now officially on sale for a rather reasonable £6.50 and the first fifty orders will recieve the postcard pictured above as well as their book. I really hope you like the images below (I won't show you them all as it'll spoil the surprise) and that maybe they might tempt you to invest in the book!

Been Listening

Yesterday I went to see one of my all-time, desert island top ten,  favourite bands The Decemberists play the Barrowlands in Glasgow. Having seen them a healthy handful of times (the first being in 2004 at a rather strange church hall/social club in Bristol) I knew what to expect and, of course, was not disappointed. Few bands know how to do all-consuming, heart-swelling joy like the Decemberists. This wee illustration (for Eastwing) is based on me remembering discovering them as a eager teenager desperately lapping up new music in her bedroom.

Anyway doing this got me to thinking about my music consumption (this might be a long post) From about aged 14 to 21 I was a rabid seeker of new music. I read magazines and blogs and visited record stores weekly, thoroughly raiding the racks for obscure treats. When I moved to Edinburgh from Plymouth (where decent live music was hard, nay impossible, to come by) I feverishly attended gigs both here and in Glasgow to ensure I made the most of my proximity to good live venues. Briefly I even co-ran a club night, dj-ed and organised gigs. I was obsessed (and, as any devoted indie fan usually is, I was probably a total music snob).
  In the last few years this has waned somewhat. I buy fewer albums and never really read music blogs anymore. The days of visiting Pitchfork on a twice-daily basis are long gone. In a way that's a relief. My poor computer is grateful of the hard-drive space and having my ipod on shuffle is less of a risky business now that I know that everything on there is from a carefully curated selection of favourites rather than my entire music collection. For the past couple years I've stuck to releases from tried and tested favourites (Grizzly Bear, the Mountain Goats, Radiohead, Why, the National, St Vincent for example) and made way for only a comparative few new finds (DM Stith, Ramona Falls, James Blake, The Unthanks, The Dodos and a few more). I suppose this is part of growing up; no longer needing to sum myself up with a music library, neglecting my mix cd making and generally feeling like its ok not to be on top of whats new/cool/going to be Pitchfork's album of the year. I'm ok with that really, I can't afford to buy records like I used to! But a part of me doesn't want to give up too soon. I still am still floored by good songwriting and I will never fail to swoon at good use of a brass section on record. I guess what this boils down to is what do you fine folk recommend? What albums have had you in raptures recently? What's gotten your toes tapping and your head bobbing? Only the best please. I need quality goods to lift me from my rut! GO GO GO!

Spring!

Spring has very nearly sprung here! Hurrah for blossom and daffodils and other springtime wonders!

CAKE!

Yesterday was my birthday (24) and my friend Verity made me this beauty of a cake. It was absolute torture to cut into! I feel like a monster ruining its lovely face! Tastes pretty super though so i've gotten over it!

Whilst I'm here I also want to let you know that you can currently get 10% off in my etsy store with the coupon code SPRINGCLEAN2011 just fill in the box at the checkout page.

London Zine

For those that were interested I now have some zines of my London Sketchbook over on etsy. I've only made 15 for now so act fast and so on!

The Lion's Laugh

If you follow me over on that there twitter you might have seen that I was posting progress reports on an image I was working on. For those that don't dabble in twitter (you wise souls) I thought I'd post up my screenshots here for you to nose through. They're not groundbreaking but sometimes its fun to share the way an image is put together. Plus at school we were always taught to 'show your workings'!

P.S thanks to those who left lovely comments about my sketchbook project! Much appreciated. Its nice to get a good response to something personal and less 'polished'. I'm debating making a small run of zines but only if there's enough interest so if you'd be interested in one then please let me know! There's nothing worse (there's lots worse) than living amongst stacks of homeless zines.

London- A visual diary

  
A couple of weeks back I went to London for a few days to catch up with friends and fill up on art and history and big old buildings. Rather than take photos as I usually do (and never really look at again) I decided to record my trip in a little sketchbook. Today I finally got round to scanning the pages of the sketchbook to show you. I thought it might be interesting to share some less polished work and spur of the moment sketches. This is the whole sketchbook (I havent edited anything out...regardless how dodgy the drawings are) and it just shows how erratic my drawing can be, the styles are all over the place! I did also write pages and pages of rambling, nonsensical notes, which you'll be pleased to hear I'm not posting for fear they'll bore you to death.

Valentines

This is my Valentines image for the Eastwing front page. No hearts, no flowers, there's not even any red! I am useless at holiday themed illustration.

Lonely planet

I did this illustration just before christmas for January's issue of lonely Planet magazine. I totally forgot to share it with you! The article (which goes in the gaping hole in the middle) was by musician Nitin Sawhney and was about how he is inspired by the music he's encountered on his travels. 

Skies

I have a new giclee print in my etsy shop. It features one of my favourite quotes from D.H Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterly's Lover'. I hope you like it folks! If all goes to plan there'll be more new stuff added soon soon soon!

Red Rabbit

I just got back from a trip to London but I thought I'd point folks over to the Eastwing site where all us eastwing illustrators have drawn rabbits to celebrate Chinese New Year. This red fella is mine (sorry its a bit wee! its only a little thumbnail for the front page).

  Hopefully I'll post some stuff from my London trip up here soon. I did some sketches and doodles along the way so maybe I'll even be brave enough to share them with you!

Interview

You can, if you so wish, read a wee article about me on the Venus website (please not there's an error and 'You Are The Friction is not yet published).

General Interest

Some things that have peaked my interest of late. Firstly the Tree Museum in Switzerland. Designed by landscape architect Enzo Enea the museum displays 2,000 species of tree, many against walls of sandstone. Doesn't it look beautiful? Like something out of a surreal film. 

Lauren Dukoff takes wonderful photos, mostly of musicians. I am totally drawn in by this image of Devendra Banhart. Partially due to the fact that Mr Banhart is unfathomably attractive.

Trawling the archives of OMG That Dress! for incredible period/folk costumes and forever mourning the fact that such attire is no longer in vogue! Sigh.

For the time being I only have a couple more Living Things Books left in my shop.

Picture Book Report

 

I'm starting again with Picture Book Report. I totally failed to keep up with it last year (four posts in twelve months! Not so hot Stewart.) So i've chosen a new book and I'm good to go. I'm going to be working from Murukami's Norwegian Wood; one of my all time favourites. This is the first image that I came up with; a portrait of Naoko being all cold and sad and lovely. You can see the PBR blog post (where the image has type on) right here. 

Reduced!

 

My red Grizzly bear print is now only £5! But only for the next ONE DAY! Argh!

Beach Walk

 I did this drawing today as part of a larger project that I'm working on at the moment (to be revealed next month if all goes to plan). I thought I'd share this one as a taster of whats to come and to prove that I am actually drawing things and not just posting etsy links the whole time!

January (drawing) sale!

New year equals clear-out. Yesterday I took on the mammoth task of streamlining my wardrobe and today I'm dealing with the piles of drawings taking over my studio. Most of these are the original pencil drawings from my Living Things book with a couple of exceptions. As per usual if you are interested in buying a drawing then drop me an email at lizzy (at) abouttoday.co.uk and let me know where you are so I can calculate postage. I'm afraid I can only accept payment via paypal at this time.

 Deer- £13

 Wolf town-SOLD

 Washing Line-SOLD

 Tattoos- £18

 Bear Head- SOLD

 Deer Town- £14

 Tess- SOLD

Cossack Souslik- £18

Hello 2011!

 Happy New Year all! I hope you all had suitably wonderful holidays. I'm glad to have had some time away from my desk to spend with family and friends but I'm glad to be back now and eager to get going on this years drawings!

For those that are interested my shop is open for business once again. I've added some of my Living Things books for those that want 'em. Residents of USA/Canada I recommend you get yours from the Little Otsu store as the shipping costs will be kinder to you!

Merry Christmas Emporium!

Happy Christmas folks! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday period filled with all manner of lovely things! I'll see you in the New Year!

p.s apologies for failing to keep up my christmas gift guide. Time and energy got the better of me in the run up to my trip back to Plymouth from Edinburgh! Serves me right for setting myself a blogging challenge. I should have known I could never keep up the pace!

(p.s need I say that the title post is a reference to this fine fella?)

Christmas Countdown #10

 

I loooove the seafoam blue colour on this ring by MijiandYou.