Website

I have just finished publishing my new website and it can be found at:

(www.laurasharpeillustration.co.uk) - although please bare with me as it may take a few hours until it is live.

When I conducted my website research last semester I looked at various illustration websites and the sites I liked the most were minimal and had a good sense of style, they also included some hand rendered type which I really liked too.  I have kept my site simple and included around 9 images and some hand made type - the same as I used for my business cards.

At this stage I don't feel clear about how to define my style as I am still exploring and I feel that I am still discovering the work I want to make as I have worked in 3D for such a long time but I have chose not to include it on my site as I want to move away from this way of working for while.  I feel like the end of uni is just the beginning for me and the site is work in progress.

Josser - Secret life of a Circus Girl - Nell Stroud

I think I have become a bit obsessed with the Circus the last few months!, I finished this book by Nell Stroud about her life in the Circus and it really was fascinating how hard they work day in day out in rough conditions, yet they are driven by their lives in the circus ring, they mentioned how their life is their art.

''Perhaps the whole of my circus career has been this: a search for authenticity.  But it occurs to me that this might be a characteristic of human experience known to all: a search for a place where we can stay and know that we belong''

I loved this quote, reminded me of myself! It's also what the theme in my project is about... letting go, and being who you want to be in a place where nothing matters.

Polish Circus Posters

I have been looking at polish circus posters as I love the bright colours, quirky look, use of type and the characters that appear in them, I would like to attempt making a circus poster of my own for my final show, the posters have also influenced the way I make my characters. They are beautiful.

Mixed Media Influence & Art Journals

I have always loved the look and hand crafted feel to any mixed media art and can remember making art journals with my older sister when I was younger, and I don't think I ever grew out of it! I started applying a more mixed media approach to my work for the current project, this happened shortly after my Guru Sam, suggested adding texture/marks to my collage work.

Ever since then I have enjoyed making my characters and backgrounds by collage and adding acrylic paints/marks to them to create more of a mood and slightly enhance my style.  There are so many different techniques that I have yet to learn and pennies to invest on materials & tools, although a lot of the imagery and paper can be sourced from old books and magazines.  After graduation I want to unleash and go mad with making lots of mixed media journals and applying them to surfaces such as candles, canvassed and greeting cards and then seeing how they sell.

Art Journals are really fun and expressive as you can just let go and juxtapose anything and create images by chance, and I think this is what I really enjoyed when creating my Circus Art Journal book as my sense of place, it really gave me lots of ideas and I didn't feel scared or reserved as I normally do when carefully placing a collage on the page and holding back. 

Below are some inspiring images that are just beautiful.

Rimmel Advert (Colour Rush) 2014

My final outcomes for my MP will be a photographed shoe set and a short animation that will act as a mock-advert to tell the story of the colourful Circus world that these shoes live in.  I have looked at the wacky videos of Jeff Keen as it's the feel that I am aiming for in my animation.

Another video that caught my eye was the current make up advertisement for Rimmel Cosmetics featuring Rita Ora.  I love the bold use of colour and how the cosmetics are animated themselves, I also love how they have combined film and hand rendered illustrations with mark makings, it really has given me some inspiration.

I am still in the process of looking at a sequence and also need to talk to my tutor about the scale of the frames as I will be using I-Stop motion and then AE to edit afterwards and I need to ensure that I make the images the right size...it's all go - 2 weeks to go!.

Portfolio Update April 2014

Today I made a few amendments to my portfolio. I have included some images from my current project Circus that are a little more in context and show a scene rather than the character on it's own, also some of the images were a little pixelated and I have taken these out as they look poor quality.  I have re worked my horoscope images by placing them onto backgrounds.

I am still not happy with my portfolio as it now looks the same due to the work all being from my MP.  I plan to re amend my portfolio after university and start new projects, however I can see that it is a work in progress and I now this part of the learning curve.

Mad House Image

Fyshbol who have recently launched in London find, buy and sell creative works online directly from artists, designers and sellers.

One of my images 'Mad House' appears in their online gallery on their social media sites Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, It's just a nice little feeling to see it out there!.

Twitter

I have been using twitter for a few years and I find it useful to connect with other Illustrators and industry people.  I also have a page on Facebook and I will also be joining Tumblr, Etsy and any other relative site after graduation and working on some new work to use on them, I like to see other illustrators and artists work as it's great inspiration!.

Link to my Twitter page: https://twitter.com/laurasharpe_

Making Pictures

Finally after 3 years I am starting to rather enjoy making pictures and bringing elements together.  below are two images from my MP 'Circus' and another image of a Bird Collector.

Circus Shoe set photographs

Below is a final image of my Circus Shoe set, I used a filter to achieve dark shadows behind the characters and a dark blue colour filter to achieve the night like background to make it appear more atmospheric.

Circus

I have started to play around with composition to put my work into context as this lacks in my work and also the feedback I received in London reflected this.  My tutor showed me some vintage circus images from Barnum's Circus and it has really helped with thinking about scale, background and making pictures rather than characters on their own looking lonely!.