The Fairy Melusina

I had a crit yesterday and Rob seemed to like my book so that was cool. I haven't had a good crit in a while so I was very happy. It is really almost done now. I just need to re do one page and design the front cover and THEN put it all together which I am dreading because I am not good at stuff like that!Mrs Needleskin in the bathroom^ Melusina has been having fun with the bubble bath!This is the scene where Melusina is having a party in her cardboard castle at midnight and all the other banished fairies are coming out to play.
This is Mr Needleskin inventing in his workshop^ I think the character position looks a little bit stiff but oh well.

I spent a lot of the day today helping out for the CU exhibition tomorrow. I had to paint the boards white and wear one of those massive boiler suits. I am just exhibiting my Death of a Cupcake book again because I can't think of anything else! Oh and I got absolutely SOAKED last night walking home from going out. It was horrible icy rain and I looked like a drowned rat. An emo rat because my eyeliner had run everywhere. My coat was dripping on the back of my door for ages. None of that was very relevant was it? never mind. But ACTUALLY that reminds me! Yesterday my Camille Rose Garcia book came in the post! :) I love her illustrations. I especially like the little blue octopus character with the emo eyes (see theres my link!) I would recommend 'The Magic Bottle' to anyone!
Melusina again^

The Fairy Melusina

I can finally upload some of my double page spreads for 'The Fairy Melusina' book!
These are just prototypes of how it's going to look. I know there's still some spelling mistakes in there! lol.

I'm hoping to have finished all the pages by the end of the weekend so that then I can put the book together. I want to try and bind it like we were shown last week. I can't wait to finish it now though. It's taken so long!

The Fairy Melusina

I am still working working working on the pages for my 'Fairy Melusina' book. This^ is the cardboard castle that Melusina lives in, in the attic of a tall green house. I can't upload any double page spreads yet cos my scanner isn't big enough.
This is the one other single page illustration I've done, where Melusina has stuck multicoloured feathers to Mrs Needleskins eyelashes whilst she is asleep.

Sketches

A couple of sketches I did over the Christmas break^

Sugarcube Castle

Adam went home today and so i have been TRYING to tidy my room. I hate tidying. It needs to be done though because I can barely see my floor! We decorated the Christmas tree at my Grandmas house on Wednesday with red and silver stuff and my Grandma had some BATTERY OPERATED FAIRYLIGHTS!!! Really nice green ones! I went to Wilkinsons to try and get some to wear out clubbing but they had all sold out :( So i found some on ebay instead :) I love battery operated fairylights!
I also found some of my old foundation course work and scanned it into my computer for back up. I made this castle out of sugarlumps for a project over a year ago now and it has inpired me to make another one this holidays so I bought 6 packs of sugarlumps but havn't managed to start it yet. I think I will use dolly mixture in this one as well to make it more colourful. I'm thinking I will encorporate it into our Christmas project too.I really want to do a Christmas photoshoot of some people sitting down at a table and then photoshop them into the castle but I am not very good at photoshopping :S I wish I was tiny enough to fit in here...
I think I will put BATTERY OPERATED FAIRYLIGHTS in the next castle! lol

Illustration City!

This was so cool! Some people even made cars and street signs and there was a tramp and a garden with a camp fire and a tent! Looking inside the houses was really fun too.
I especially liked this one^ I don’t know whos it is though so I hope they don’t mind me putting it on here.
I also really liked this one^ because it looed like an actual PROPER miniature apartment. Really realistic with the carpet and the lamp and everything. I THINK it was made by someone called Natalie in 3rd yr but I’m not sure…
Yet again I do not know who made this one ^ but I liked it! The same goes for this one:
Can't remember who did this one either but it is really cute:
I t was a shame that the fairylights in my apartment did not show up because the light was too bright in the room but never mind.

Rob Shadbolt did a kind of leaving speech and said it’s going to be weird for us next year because they probably wont get a replacement for him until the summer so they are going to have to share the tutors round more :S. He also told us to judge our work against the professionals and aim high and to think outside the artschool cos its a small world.

Anyway tomorrow is the last day of term and I am going to go Christmas shopping to take advantage of Norwich and the better shops that are here before I go home on Sunday!

Snow Queen

We had our crit for the delivery project today. i was a bit annoyed because I knew I could have expanded my idea more by putting intruction leaflet things inside the pill boxes to explain more what they were about and to make it more interesting but I didn’t because I had got bored of the project which means I still have to finish it off now grrr. But anyway I will look at paracetamol intruction leaflets in the Christmas holidays or something. Also I THINK the tutors preferred the illustration on the box of depressants to the the box of happy pills.

I know everyone was pleased with the boxes I sent out with smarties in them though. They all texted me the next day to say thanks for the happy pills lol Norwich post is fast! Other people sent theirs to really interesting people, people they didn’t know like art directors and supermarket chairpeople and other famous illustrators. I wish I could have another stab at this project now. I don’t feel like I did my best for it at all!

Rob was surprised that none of us had ever heard of Charles Addams who created the Addams family and he told me to look him up because I might find his illustrations useful.

Carol brought in some REALLY nice cake for part of her project and we all got to eat some :) I think it was lemon and ginger? Anyway it was yum.

I have been working on my ‘apartment’ for tomorrow. I started off my using snowflake wallpaper becasue it was the paper I had the most of so I decided I would make a house for the Snow Queen or Jack Frost although it’s more of a bedroom really rather that a whole apartment. It’s all blue! a colour I barely ever use or wear… but it has FAIRYLIGHTS in it!!! Which makes me feel Christmassy

The outside of the apartment^ plain and boring like it is meant to be. We were told to do it in black and white.
Peeping through the window^

Close up^ It looks very blue when the fairy lights are on...
Looking through two of the outside windows^
An overview of the whole room^
Th wardrobe wit her dress hanging on it^ Also her slippers and stillettos.
The dressing table with her perfume and CROWN on it!
I really enjoyed this once I got into it and I was surprised at how quickly I managed to make it, esp the furniture becasue I did the whole thing in almost one day. I am excited to see what the towers will look like tomorrow. I will take pictures.

Death of a Cupcake

26th November 2008

Today i spent all day printing my Death of a Cupcake book to put in the christmas show. I have priced it at £3.50 but i have never done this before so i am testing the waters. I guess I will find out if i have put the price up too high or whether i could even price it higher? They take 33% commission and the books cost 50p each to make so its not like i will be making that much of a profit on each one. I was thinking of putting a ribbon round each one but i ran out of time. I went into the gallery today and everything seems to be almost up. There’s some really good stuff like handmade dolls and christmas cards. Im looking forward to the opening tomorrow night.

Hello World!

My name is Harriet and I am an illustration Student at Norwich University College of the Arts. Ultimately I want to become a childrens book illustrator. I love drawing and painting and taking photographs.

I also like cupcakes and glitter, stripy stuff, fairies, snowflakes, barbies, pvc boots/coats, storybook witches, seals, magic stars, glow stars, fairylights, smarties, tutus, false eyelashes as long as your arm, butterflies, stargazer make up, carousels, unicorns, my little pony, massively high see through heels, midnight glitter teaparties, red and white spotted mushrooms, christmas, mermaids, baby pink hair, the circus, ice, very cherry jelly beans, white face powder, rainbows…

My favouritest ever game is dressing up.