Fiona Banner

Stumbled across the artist Fiona Banner through It's Nice That blog, whilst doing some research for my alphabet summer project. Even though she's at artist she does some interesting things with type. She seems to turn the conventions of type on it's head, making you question why you had never thought about it that way. She also seems to focus a lot on war imagery and machinery; using drawings of various planes, tanks etc. to create her 'The Bastard Word' alphabet.

Some of my favourites are 'Black Alphabet', 'Portrait of an Alphabet' and 'Full Stops'. (All shown above) Hopefully her work will prove as some useful inspiration! x

http://www.fionabanner.com/index.htm

www.itsnicethat.com

*loser alert* MT masking tape

Japanese masking tape, sad I know, but how can it bad sad when it looks so good? Lot's of lovely colours and patterns which can be used for a variety of different things. I'm planning on using mine for sticking up pictures in my new house at uni! I'm lusting after the tartan and black and white sets (not shown) x

http://www.masking-tape.jp/

Cote D'Azur France

Just some pictures I took on holiday on some of the more interesting and less touristy aspects of where we visited! However, I sadly completely forgot to take any on my Diana Mini which was ready and loaded up with a black and white film, gutted. Hope you enjoy! x

Apostrophe design

In my last blog I posted info about the Apostrophe design competition for a winter themed cup. my idea was to do a detailed illustration of a scarf or other piece of winter clothing that would wrap around the cup and look as it the scarf was keeping the hot drink within the cup warm. I drew the outline my hand; first in pencil then in fineliner. I wanted the illustration to be as detailed as possible with each individual thread shown. I did not colour the illustration by hand as I thought this would be easier to do later on in photoshop. Below is the original drawing which i scanned in...

I then coloured in the scarf using the Apostrophe pink colour. Below is how far I got. After the long long process of individually filling in each 'stitch' I decided to print and make a cup mock up to see how it was working. But from doing this I found that it really wasn't an effective design. I like the illustration as a 2-D image, but when applied to the cup format it no longer really ends up looking like scarf. So I have decided not to enter the competition. Im going to put this down as a colossal waste of time, but a lesson none the less!!! x

Apostrophe

The small coffee shop chain Apostrophe (mainly based in London) are holding a design competition. The brief is to design a take away coffee cup to be used in the winter season. The winners designs will be used on cups between November until January 10/11, they also get £500 to spend on art supplies and a years free coffee! I think I'll give it a go! x

http://www.apostropheuk.com/

Diana Mini

I gave into temptation and bought a diana mini from lomography. I decided it was time i learnt how to take photographs and with the diana being a VERY simple camera, I couldn't go wrong! But I was mistaken. Its not that it's hard, more that i'm very unpracticed when it come to film photography. Ah well, at least most of the shots ca me out in one way or another. Here are some of my favourites x

Bunting

As I am on a very logn summer break, and un-employed, I decicded I would try my hand at making some paper bunting out of old maps. I think this new infatuation started when I saw this...

(It's a random window in Amsterdam, jealous of the pile of globes)

So i decided that as im definatly too poor too afford REAL globes of all sizes that I would channel my new love in a new way- bunting. pretty school fete/kids party I know, but I like it makes any boring wall more exciting instantly.

I found these maps in one of the local charity shops. The red and cream one is an ordinance survey map of the Torquay area and I think it's from 1946. Im not sure how old the other one is but it was slightly cheaper so im guessing not as old, its a 'Bartholomews revised half inch contoured map' of Exmoor. I used the old map of the two to make the bunting.

It was easy to make, just used a template I made of two triangles joined together and drew around it loads of times on the map then cut them out. I then folded them so they would hang over the sting. I measured the string and started using a bit of PVA glue to attach the flags at even intervals. I needed a bit more glue to stick the two halves of each flag together as the folds of the map were making them hang crooked and bent. Below are a few photos of them hanging in my room, I think I need to find a better home for them !!! x