Card Design

Tester and Cards

Recently I have sent two Thank You cards to both my grandparents. I came up with the idea to make my own using just plain cream card with the use of watercolour for the card design. Both of these card have a similar design but have a different range in colours. I tried to incorporate there favourite colours with the card being both professional and aesthetically pleasing.

Tester for Walk in a Field

The first card is called Clevedon Sunset which features the colours red, orange and yellow. It is influenced from my stay in Clevedon where I witnessed many sunsets. It is one of the best places in the UK to take a picture of last rays of the sun. This makes the seaside town perfect for any photographer wanting to capture a stunning sunset.

Clevedon Sunset

The second card is called Walk in a Field and is influenced by some fields by my house on a nice sunny day with no clouds in the sky. I chose to have a two toned blue sky with a green field in the foreground. I chose this design as the recipient of the card is into gardening. I thought the image on the card was very relaxing unlike Clevedon Sunset which has more energy. I am pleased with both designs as they are simple yet very sophicated.

Walk in a Field

Summer Bucket List

Due to me feeling a little bit homesick and not wanting to waste my summer I have come up with 20 things for me to do during the holidays.

1. Sort out my laptop

Due to my first year at uni, I have been quite overwhelmed with the whole experience. This leading to me not filing my documents properly. At the moment finding something on my Mac is like finding a pin in a hay stack. Although I have a feeling that I will be putting this task off for as long as possible due the time it will take me to sort it all out and with it being a boring task.

2. List stuff needed for my new house

Since I am moving into my new house soon with my nearly all new housemates I feel I need to write a list of stuff that I need to buy or pack. Although before I write a list, I need to view the property due to me not remembering exactly what my room looks like!

3. Create 5 pieces either in Photoshop or Illustrator

I want to create new pieces of work so that I can put them in my portfolio. Also this gives me a great chance to learn new skills and show off the ones I learnt this year.

4. Do 10 drawings

I would like to try different things to draw as I find it quite challenging as I am a perfectionist so I easily get annoyed when a piece isn't going my way. I feel that if I can do 10 drawings that I would be proud to put in my portfolio it will be very worthwhile and I might pick up new techniques.

5. Sort out my music on iTunes

Whenever I am in the mood for certain music and put my iPhone on shuffle it always seems to pick the wrong choice of songs so to stop this, I hope to get rid of some songs and create multiple playlists for different moods.

6. Be able to run for 10 minutes without stopping

It would be my dream if I could run half marathons in the near future so I feel I need to start somewhere by training myself to run for a simple 10 minutes. Seeing as I have never run before I would feel very pleased with myself I could accomplish this goal.

7. Make a uni year book

To help with me feeling homesick of my uni lifestyle I plan to create a book with all the pictures of my first year in so I can look back any time. I hope to do this after every year.

8. Create at least 7 posts for the blog

To keep me busy I would like to write a blog every week on a Thursday. I have planned out on my calendar what the subjects the following week post is about. This will give myself a week to research and plan my blog. Wether I stick to it we shall soon see….

9. Write some resolutions for my next year at uni

To become a better student and live my life full as a student I would like to write some resolutions that keep me on track for the year. This hopeing in a end result of good grades and some memories.

10. Start to fill my design inspiration book

Yesterday I brought a plain book so that I could fill it in with inspiration of designers and their work. I hope by the time september comes it has some content in there. I feel this will help whenever I feel unmotivated or am stuck with ideas on a project.

Book of Inspiration

11. Fill my recipe book

Seeing as I am just starting to fill in my Recipe book that I got from Christmas I have decided to look for some simple and cheap recipes that i can cook when I am back at uni.

12. Have a face mask once a week

Due to me not having any me time lately to myself I feel that I need to get back into the routine of having an hour where I can relax and have a face mask.

13. Do at least 4 posts on my blog about design

Seeing as I am going to go type up my notes that I made in the first year I feel that I might adapt to them and make some more posts about design. This will give me a perfect excuse to do some more research on the topics covered in semester 1 and 2. As well as this it means that I can delete them off my computer but still have a copy.

14. Complete a  charity race

This year i am doing a 5k Race for Life with my best friend. We are both doing it in memory of my Mum who passed away two years ago after a short battle. http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/kathys-angels0 Please read our story and spread the word about raising money for cancer research.

15. See the Olympic Torch

As the Olympic torch is being ran past my hometown I feel that I should go and see it as it is a once in a lifetime experience. I hope to post some photos of the torch on here, just hope someone tall doesn't stand in front of me.

16.  Go out for a day trip with the Grandparents

Due to a couple of health scares with my granddad I hope to have a couple of day trips with them so I can make the most of them whilst they are still here.

17. See all my family

Seeing as I don't see my family for months on end I hope to have a gathering which will probably be at a pub. Though when I say family I only mean my dads side as I am not close to my mum side who I rarely see.

18. Sort out my 2nd wardrobe

Due to me having enough time off and having more than enough clothes that I don't wear I feel that I might sell them so I have extra money to buy things for the new house and some friends birthday presents.

19. Go to the beach at least once

As it is called a summer break I hope to visit the beach at least once where I can dip my toes in the sea even if it is in the rain.

20. Read some designs books

So I am ready for my second year at uni I want to swot up on design books so I can use some of there techniques in my pieces.

Nation Pride

As most people soon realise is that I love one thing. This is that I love the Union Jack. I can even spot a Union Jack either the flag or a product from afar. I fell in love with it a couple of years back. I don't have a clue what I like about it, it could be the colours or that I am a little bit proud of my nationality.

The other day I was looking at some random You Tube tutorials on Photoshop when I came across a video that showed you how to put a pattern on a object. I suddenly came up with an idea to put the Union Jack on someones face which ended up being my dad's. After this thought I came up with another idea of having people from different nationalities with there home flags placed on their face. However a problem soon came up when I didn't know enough people from different backgrounds. Although the one photo I did, I feel looks like the flag is painted on.

Nation Pride

Summer Project

A couple of week ago I finished my first year at uni. Since then I have been having a break so I could continue designing through the summer. Whilst on the little break I decided to write what I would like to accomplish by september. The main project is to build a website that could showcase my design work and also be able to host my blog, so from July I am taking on my project as if it was live so I can get into the habit of what needs to be done for the client. Though before I can build a website showing my work I feel that I need to produce more designs and photography therefore I have set myself a challenge a week to design a piece of work.

This week I deiced to draw an eye from scratch on Photoshop. I choose the eye as I believe this is the only part showing on a body that expresses true emotion. I am very pleased on how it turned out as they effect it has is very different to other peoples work. I created my work by uploading an image of an eye on the internet into Photoshop. Then I added a new layer and selected the paintbrush tool. I made sure the image was closeup so I could add the detail of the eye. I colour picked the colour of the photo and painted it on top. I made sure the skin had a bigger brush size than the eye so it would capture more detail. This took me 2 hour to complete.

The Eye

Mothering Sunday

As everyone knows that in Britain today is Mothering Sunday, a day where we show ours mum what they mean to us. For me it is a day where I reflect on all the memories of my mum and wish that I could talk to her just one more time. Soon to be two years ago my mum passed away after a short battle of cancer, this is when I saw my mum in her finest hour. She faced such a scary thing yet she did not think of all the negative things, instead she planned her own funeral and made sure we had one last trip to London to see The Phantom of the Opera.  Here is just 5 of my best memories;

My beautiful mum

1. Chapel Porth

One time when we were on holiday in Cornwall, my dad, mum and I were playing with a football on the beach. Suddenly my mum tried to chase after the ball however she managed to trip over the ball and fall face first in the sand. What made it even funnier is that she left hand marks in the sand where she slipped over.

Me and Mum in Cornwall

2. After pub parties

Me and my family used to go to this pub every Sunday to have nice meal out. However when it shut my mum always wanted more of a talk with my family so she would insist they came back to our where we had more drink. Halfway through the drinking at our house she would bring out party food for people. This always amazed my family that she was so organised. She was always a true hostess.

3.Crazy golf

Another time on holiday in Greece I persuaded my family to play crazy golf. Halfway around the course my mum suddenly tripped over a brick that was used on the sides, now my first instinct was to start crying which I did but then I saw the funny side. If that wasn't bad enough is at the last hole where I went for a big swing though the problem was that my mum was standing close behind me so I managed to hit her on the head. After that game we always called crazy golf an extreme sport. 

4.Mum's alcohol advice

When my mum drank which was at any occasion she used to give off great advice to my family. This used to humour my dad and I greatly. Although now when I drink I seem to carry the same habit!

Mum and her dream bottle

5.Garden evenings

When the summer was here me and my mum used to sit in the gardens with candles on the table and a glass of wine. This used to be so nice as it made you feel really relaxed after a hard day at school/work. One time she drank so much baileys that she got the talcum powder and was waving it in the air trying to catch it.

Instagram

For a while now I have heard a lot about Instagram either with friends or on celebrities tweets. Until this week I have never had been really bothered to what it was until I saw a friends photo which had a nice effect. I had seen this effect before when using a Kodak Instamatic camera. Sadly my camera no longer works which is a great shame as I have always loved the effect it gave on my photo's. So when I saw the effect I immediately became interested on what it was. To my luck it was an application that I could download on my phone for free and use the digital filters it provides on my phone camera. Though that was only half of the application the other half is where you share your photo's to the community of other users which also gave you an option to publish them on a social networking site such as Facebook and Twitter. Since I downloaded the app I have searched on the internet on how to achieve these effects on Photoshop where I can add them on after I taken the photos on my digital camera. The results were great and was very easy to do. However I am going to try not use this effect to much as I feel all my work will look the same. Here are some snaps of a sunset walk through my hometown using Instagram.

Here is my view from my halls of residence kitchen

Here is my local cathedral

This is a street just off the high street

Sunday evening in the high street

Catherdral in teh afternoon sun

Spring

Daffodil

Five things I love about spring;

1. Sunshine = Warmer weather

After months of drab weather there is nothing better than being outdoors soaking up the sunshine that is at the perfect temperature. This also means that I can go for picnics or sit outside the pub with a nice cold coke catching up on all the gossip with my best friends. The last couple of days I have had all the windows open in the house, with the radio on, and the sun shining through.

      2.  New life

With new animals being born this time of year, I also feel like I have a new lease of life. It is standard for me every winter to go in a hibernation mode where I just live my life with actual living it. When spring comes around I always feel more inspired to create card designs, take photos in the sun or just do some drawings. 

Contrast

     3.  Fashion

When wearing a coat with loads of layers and don't forget scarves, gloves and hats it is nice not having too wrap up. As well as being able to move more freely it is nice to show off my clothes, which I have brought for people to see. I also love the fashion colours this time of year as they are normally fresh and clean like this year bright pastels are in. I always remember that when I was little the colours yellow, green and brown where in fashion so when any says spring these colours always come to mind. 

     4.  Days are longer

With the nights slowly getting lighter this means that I have more energy at night to do stuff that I haven't felt like doing such as reading a book, bake cakes or take photos of sunrise/sunsets. Though this generally means that I am not going to bed so early so I am make most of the day. 

     5.  Flowers

New fresh flowers are now in bloom either with the tulips or daffodils that brighten up my student kitchen and makes it smells nice during the day.

 Here is some pictures that proves that spring is just around the corner. When taking these images I used an artist eraser to hold the daffodil vertical so I could take pictures at different angles. I felt that the yellow colour stands out from my blue desk making it look stunning yet simple. 

'Spring Awakening'