Nail Art On Another Level

 

1911

theillustratednail

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Pretty crazy but oh so cool. 

Enough said. 

Beci Orpin's Lovely Pop-Up Shop

Over the past 2 weeks I had the opportunity to do a placement with my favourite Melbourne-based designer, Beci Orpin. Never would I have even dreamt that this would be possible, since I've always thought that independent designers probably don't accept work experience students anyway. I remember rockin' up to class one day and it turned out that she was the special guest speaker that my lecturer spoke about! Hearing how she first started to where she is today was absolutely inspiring. After the talk, somehow I secured a placement with her. I don't remember being as stoked as I was then in my entire university life haha, since she is, afterall, one of my design heroes :) I won't hide the fact that one day I'd like to be just as awesome as she is in design. 

First half of the week was spent at her home studio. Kinda surreal how I didn't get to just work with her, but to actually get to know her family and even her cats and....her son's goldfish. 

Second half of the week had us working at the studio/ shop of Harvest Textiles, as Beci is having a residence at their shop. Got to meet the Harvest Textiles bunch and also designers like Emily Green and Dawn Tan, who both work at a space within the shop itself. 

Beci's pop-up shop has been opened since last week. It looks really cute and it's definitely worth a visit. This week's opening hours are:

Monday 27 June - Sunday 3 July, 12- 4pm

The closing party will be this Sunday, 3 July 2011, 1- 4pm. So do pop by and say hello to her. She's so friendly! Not to mention everything she has in the shop is absolutely adorable.

Address is Harvest Textiles, 512 Lygon St, East Brunswick. There is eftpos/credit card facilities too. 

Some shots of the shop :)

 I love this embroidery!!

 Work space

Beci at work

The placement was really good and I enjoyed every bit of it. One thing that I miss now is.....

 .....her grey little kitty, Tio. On the last day of my placement he came up to me, snuggled on my lap and fell asleep there :( ....and he kept purring as I scratched him. Think he totally surrendered to my charms coz it had its neck extended and belly upwards...

Tio....my first cat-love :(  

Oldie But A Goodie

We all know that pencil, gouache, watercolour and ink have been used for centuries already. Yet one thing that I love most about these traditional drawing medias is how artists nowadays can still produce beautiful and contemporary illustrations with them. 

As powerful as computers can be in helping illustrators produce artwork now, still, a humble pencil gives an edge to an artwork that the computers can't.

In this post I just wanted to share some boards that inspired my work for the post just before this.

The illustrations here are all not mine but works of many talented illustrators that I greatly admire.

 Works of Kelly Smith, Bec Winnel and Laura Laine

 

 Works of Krista Hout, Lorelay Bove and Catherine Campbell

Works of Kelly Smith, Catherine Campbell and Laura Laine

Gotta Love Digital Printing

When I was over in Sweden last year, one of the most valuable experiences I had from the exchange was being able to print digitally on fabric. 

This was a student project which allowed the students to have complete freedom and reign over what we wanted to experiment and achieve, as long as it is textile related. Some of my friends tried embroidery and knitting. I chose fashion illustration, something that I first did when I was 14 years old. The entire process was just soooo fun!! I loved every part of it!! Loved researching and reading blogs of illustrators and had much fun just drawing, experimenting and learnt that even a tiny stroke to the eyes or mouth (for example), could greatly alter the facial expression or look to the illustration. 

This project was meant to spread out over a period of 2 months but I had to condense much of the experimenting and designing leading up to the final outcome to just 2 weeks...because I squeezed in half a week of traveling to Spain into it with a friend, which was fun :). The 2 weeks after the trip basically saw me being stuck in my room the entire time, playing and re-playing all my Pixar movies whilst frantically sketching. My friends were so nice to even cook for me during that time! Love them to bits. Too bad we're now all scattered at different parts of the world now :( 

My desk in the midst of design- chaotic

I put together the illustrations into two patterns. Here's the final outcome!

Tedious project with lots of work involved, my design diary for this was thick as. But oh so worth it :)