Heart Rain

I had a sudden burst of inspiration tonight. I sat down and made some sketches to clarify the idea, I ended up with a couple of sketches that I like so I'm going to try to do a series of images about love and hearts with my favorite color palette; red, white and black.

This is the first image in the up and coming series:

Heart Rain

Some people walk around wishing their true love could fall from the sky...

This image is of course available at my artflakes.com print store

Until next time
Anita Night

Flora

Time for a new update, yes indeed. I've chosen to post my newest image. it's just a little something I've been playing around with on my spare time. There was no plan for this, but it was very fun to do. It's nice to just do something that doesn't have any specific requirements every now and then.

I put it up for sale on my Artflakes.com gallery. So if anyone needs a little piece of art they can feel free to check it out and order a nice canvas print or a little poster.


I haven't been able to update this blog a whole lot lately. Basically it's been really busy trying to ready the apartment for the check out procedure, preparing for graduation and packing down all of my things. I do try to doodle a little bit, but it's hard to find the time because every day I spend 6-8 hours on my illustration projects.

Hopefully once I get settled into a new apartment back home in Norway I'll be able to update a bit more.

Until next time
Anita Night

Perky Pug

It's sketch of the day time again!! or it would be if this was last friday. I was going to put this image up here but I haven't had the time and it sort of slipped my mind, but here it is now

*drumroll*

The Perky Pug

He was originally made for a Q&A round at my Norwegian blog. My friend RoseDoll asked if I could draw a pug. So I found a picture of her little dog Morfar which in English is translated into Grandpa, and used him as reference.

I think he ended up looking great even if I didn't trace the outlines first. This was made freehanded. I just looked at the reference and drew. Which is how it should be done of course. I sometimes feel like a cheater if I trace things, even if I just trace a little bit, but sometimes I will do it if it will save me time on a deadline and I'm not in danger of infringing anybodies work.

Anyways, hope you like it

Until next time
Anita Night

Achievable goals...Not such a bad idea...

What better way to start the post than with a happy drunk pirate ^^

Ok, so I totally lifted this idea of my friend Vinter over at Lazy inhouse illustration , and she in turn was forced to do it by her boyfriend.

The name of the game is as you might have guessed: Achievable goals. Things you want to accomplish during the coming year. It got me thinking, do I know what my goals are? Surprisingly enough I kind of had a mental list, but writing it down makes it more real and forces you to do more than just thinking about it.

Here is my list:

1. Set up illustration business and apply for government funding.

2. Take business classes so I don't run my own business to the ground within the first year

3. Buy a new drawing tablet and Painter 12...And then learn how to use painter..

4. Explore other niche markets in the illustration market besides fantasy and Sci-fi art. (editorial, children's books, packaging or licensing)

5. Maybe set up a "drink and draw" sketch group (creative people gathering somewhere like in a pub and enjoying some nice beverages while sketching and socialising). Because let's face it, illustrators tend to be way too solitary and some social stimuli must be good for our creative mushy brains!

Most of that actually sounds coherent and semi -intelligent. So not too shabby if I might say so myself.

I don't know if I'll be able to actually achieve all of these goals but they should be within my grasp if I push myself just a little bit more. We'll see.

Until next time
Anita Night

Thoughts on personal style

As I mentioned in my previous post about the New Blood exhibition I had a portfolio review with some very nice ladies from a company called Artworks. I asked them about their general thoughts on my artwork and where they thought I belonged in the industry.

My portfolio is not a graphic one, it is a portfolio filled with a lot of pencil drawings, ink and acrylic illustrations and heavily rendered fantasy artwork. I don't use photo montage or collage techniques and I'm not into designing fonts. Basically I am not a graphic designer/illustrator hybrid like a lot of illustrators seem to be these days. I was afraid that they would take a look at my things and say: what the hell is this? Funny enough they seemed to like it, and they seemed to be especially fond of my pencil drawings. However they would never be able to use my work for their company, as they used a very specific and, surprise surprise more graphic style.

They told me that my portfolio looked very different from the other things they had been looking at during the day. Their opinion was that I most certainly had a niche market style, and that I should focus on children's books and licensed products and the fantasy art market. I was not unhappy to hear it. Those are after all my preferred markets, I was just happy to know that someone thought I had a niche where I could belong. That is the positive thing. Moving on to the negative, because let's face it there are always positives and negatives.

The negatives is that I don't really belong in the other industry niches. Fantasy art exists almost everywhere, but it is not a big industry and I am a bit worried about being able to get the right amount of work or the right type of work so I can pay bills and afford buying food, you know the necessary stuff of life. So I have to wonder whether I should try to branch out some more and try to do more graphic and commercial looking artwork so I can get jobs in more well paying parts of the illustration business, or if I should just keep concentrating on the things I do now and the things I am apparently adept at or good at. There is no easy answer to this question and I am not sure I have a good answer to it either.

My current plan is to keep focusing on the fantasy and children's art and hopefully I will be able to make it my bread and butter. On my spare time I want to experiment with different styles. Maybe try doing some editorial illustrations and maybe some poster designs. Things like that should help me broaden my horizons a little bit.

If any of my followers have ever come across this problem in their professional life and have found a good solution to it or if you just feel like weighing in, please do so.

New blood 2011

New Blood is a London based exhibit held at the Old Truman Brewery in brick Lane every year. Here Universities from all over the UK come to show of their students work. Not everyone gets to show their things at the exhibition. I find it to be a bit elitist but what can you do. I was lucky enough to have some of my things represented at the show (a bit surprised to be honest).

Below are some pictures of the booth that the University of Wolverhampton had set up. I thought it was very nice and interactive, but a bit too cramped. Our stall was not among the biggest to be honest. Both the graphic design department and the illustration department was represented which was nice. I would show you pictures of the rest of the exhibit, but I actually forgot to take photos for a while so sadly I don't have any.

Here is a rack of the business postcards all the students had gotten printed.

This is a close up of my card:

At this mac you could leaf through some of the artwork that was not exhibited on the walls or on the portfolio table.

Here is my portfolio on the table:

After standing guard at the stall for 4 hours or so I was quite happy to get outside for some fresh air. I also got to visit Lulu and Lush also known as fairygothmother.co.uk. By accident I discovered that their store was two minutes away from the New Blood exhibit. I have been wanting to visit their store for years after ogling their wares online. Sadly the store was not as impressive as I had imagined, although they did have a lot of really cute burlesque underwear.

I did have a portfolio review while I was at New blood but I'll talk about that in my next post as I have quite few thoughts on the matter.

Until next time
Anita Night

University of Wolverhampton Degree show

Our degree show was held in June, it's a whule ago I know, but I forgot I had these pictures laying about and so now I'm actually bothering to put them up on my blogs.

below you can see me posing in front of my panels. I didn't have a lot on my wall, I would have put up more of my fantasy stuff, but they weren't a part of my university artwork so I couldn't put them up there. I did however slip some of them into my portfolio.

Here you can see my panels without me cluttering up the picture:

Some close ups of my work:

Book covers

Poetry book artwork

Some doodles from my sketchbook and some children's book spreads:

Going into it I had no idea how a degree show worked really. We didn't really do it like this in Norway when we graduated. It was interesting to see how many visitors actually came to see the show, the building was packed on opening night. People also came visiting the following days as well. I don't know how much good it did me and my work in the end. I didn't really get much feedback from people or any job offers for that matter. At least I participated though. You can't win if you don't compete and not attending the show wouldn't have gotten me anywhere.

All in all it was a good experience and I also got to see all the stunning stuff my fellow illustration students had been working on.

Until next time
Anita Night

Buy My Art!

I recently got invited to open up a gallery at www.artflakes.com. It is a site offering a Print on demand service. I can upload my art to a personal gallery and then people can order them as prints. I retain all my rights and I get a 25% cut of the selling price.

So if you are interested in purchasing some prints just press the banner below and it will take you straight to my Artflakes gallery.

Support a poor artist just starting her career, buy my art! ^^

P.S. if there is a piece of art you are interested in that isn't in my Artflake gallery just drop me a line and I will add it for you.

Until next time
Anita Night.

Goblin pilot

So this guy started out as a character sketch for a children's book I have been working on, but I ended up using a different concept that went in quite a different direction.

I still really liked this sketch. He has a certain charm about him ^^

Maybe I'll re-use him later in another illustration or maybe I'll just color him? We'll see.

Until next time
Anita Night