Tests and stress

I keep changing around that lino print I posted in my previous blog entries. Still wasn't happy with the placement of the table in the background; it was partly sitting behind the smoke/smell, which just didn't work well.

So thanks to the wonders of Photoshop and lots of fiddling around, I changed it again. I think this works better, no? Also made the red a bit more orange, so it doesn't come across as being too aggressive. This is aimed at small children after all heh.

Re-reworked image.

I'm also fiddling around with text placement and different fonts, but I'm really no good at this. Contacted a graphic design teacher to hopefully help me, but so far no response. Wish I was good at typography!

Typography test (and failure).

Also have a big presentation about this project tomorrow. So very nervous! Keep your fingers crossed for me please! =P

Lino progress... and non-progress

So I managed to finish my lino prints after working on them all of Sunday night. Only to find out the prints weren't all that great, but I thought I could redo them if needed.

What's worse however, is that now I got told that the background didn't work with the image. I can see why, but I wonder why it wasn't pointed out when I showed my sketch.

The sketch.

The actual lino (touched up a bit in Photoshop).

Few differences between the sketch and lino, but most of it is similar. I lost a bit of my motivation after I heard I'd need to do it all over again, especially as this takes so many hours to make. But I decided that instead of making a new lino, I'd just fiddle around with the scan in Photoshop and see what I could do. This is the result for now.

Reworked image.

Not sure it really works yet. There's less focus on the background now and it doesn't take away as much from the characters, but it still doesn't work I think. Any ideas what I could do to improve it?

Sidenote: these are actually two pages in a book (so a spread), with the left side being kept open for text, as is shown in the sketch.

Late night working

So it is now past 4 am, and I am still awake. Why, you ask? Because I've been busy printing my linocuts. This was going to be my first real try at printing in colour. And boy did I make some mistakes!

First of all, I made the mistake of first printing the black lines and then printing the colour on top of it. Of course that didn't turn out too well. Well the black print itself seemed fine.


Then I had to redo the entire inking process, which is a bit of a pain as I have limited space to work with and have to clean my place again after every colour I print. =(


So I then started over again, deciding to make at least two versions, and doing each colour separately (whereas before I did the grey and red at the same time). Everything went fine up to this point.


But then it was time to print the black on top of the colours... And since I'm doing all of this manually, it's kind of hard to line everything up properly. Resulting in my colours being all over the place, but not where they should be.


The woman now kind of looks like The Joker from Batman. I'm hoping I can fix things a bit once I scan it and put it in Photoshop... if not, I guess I'll have to start all over again.

Let's just hope I learn from my mistakes. =P

And now it's 4:30 am and I'm off to sleep!

Hello!

Welcome to my blog!

If you're wondering what I will post on here, I have to admit that I don't really know yet myself. =P

But I'm thinking I will most likely use this blog to post my art and work progress, sketches I make, ramblings about art and school and all that fun stuff! So if you're interested in my art (or in me haha), keep checking this blog.
I have no idea how often it will be updated, but I'll do my best to keep things interesting. =)

To start things off, here's a snapshot of my current workdesk, where I'm busy cutting out a lino for an illustration. The flowery glove is there so I don't cut my fingers haha.