Animated Cards!

Hello everyone!

Sorry it's been a little while, it's all been super busy on my end getting sorted for Christmas and whatnot :)
First of all, I wanted to say A HUGE THANKYOU to everyone that voted for me in the Lilla Rogers Global Talent Search. Unfortunately I didn't make it through to the next round, but keep your eyes peeled because I'm going to be doing a lovely Christmas giveaway to say a proper thankyou to everyone for their support!

I don't know if you've seen but the lovely folk over at Jeego have been animating some of my illustrations up for E Cards. Here is a lovely one made using my Elephant and Penguin illustration.

:)

Louise x

Global Talent Search Round 2!

Hello!
Well the weekend has passed, I have drank wine and recovered from my uber busy week last week!
And now I'm ready to share my GTS entry for round 2 with you guys! I was super busy in the run up to this and so I didn't get as long as I would've liked to spend on this but it doesn't matter, I still had fun with it.
The brief was to create a design that could be used on a tote bag to be sold at a farmers market that involved fall/autumn activities in one way or another. 
This one took me a while to get my head around, autumn for me means, jumpers, walks through the colourful woodland and bonfire night. (It's my favorite season!)
I knew that I didn't want to do anything too obvious and so started drafting out some sketches, then this one happened.....

(Sorry about the image quality, I draw quite loosely and lightly in my sketchbook.)
This one for me was all about the joy of Autumn, and when I'm outside this is how happy I feel inside. There is nothing I like more then a big cosy scarf and cardigan too!
This was the one!
Then I couldn't decide what colours to use either, I played around with darker colours... 

I was in love with this palette for a while but I just couldn't imagine it on a tote bag and I just wasn't 100% on it. I tried a dark purple background but that wasn't meant to be either.
And I also had a lot of playing with composition to get text in, not to mention I was trying to pick between the phrase of 'Dance amongst the leaves' and 'Love Autumn'. Here's one tried and failed attempt at that...

At this point I went away from the computer and hid for a while because I was struggling to see past the brown background but knew I didn't like it.
Then after lots of tea and tweaking my entry was finally ready...here we go!

So as you can see, I lightened the palatte,  changed the text and added a few more bits here and there :)

After spending time away from this I can say that I love it and I'm happy with it no matter what the outcome of this next round. Sure I'll be a little disappointed if I don't make it through but I've seen some of the other entries and they are stunning. Everyone has worked so so hard and I want to extend a good luck to each one of you!

In this semi-final round the final 5 will be picked by a panel of judges and the 6th finalist will be chosen by the public vote. The public gallery opens for voting on the 3rd September until 9th September and the results will be announced on 10th September!! So if I hope you'll vote for my entry when the time comes and for now I just have to try and forget about it and not stress ;)

Louise x

Stockist News & Talent Search!

Hello hello! 

I've just realised I haven't shared my good news with you guys on my blog (it has been all over my social media though so I'm sure you've seen!) .....I made it into the top 50 in the Global Talent Search!!
The blog post with my journal entry is just below. This was such a huge surprise when I woke up and with sleepy eyes scrolled through the final 50, and wait...was that one near the bottom mine?! Oh my god! 
This is a huge deal, there were over 1,500 entries and from over 30+ countries, I still can't quite believe it. If you click on the little icon below it'll take you to the blog post with all the top 50 in it.

So, the next brief has been sent out and today is the first day I've got time to get started on it, cross your fingers for me! I'll keep you all posted with progress :)

In other news I have quite a few new stockists to announce but up first about a month ago my work got accepted into the beautiful Emporium Art Gallery in Lichfield!!
They are now stocking a selection of my original mixed media pieces and screen prints!
I'm so pleased about it, and it's a very calming wonderful gallery that is perfect for my work so I'm hoping things will do well in there :)
Here's a little pic of some pieces in there..

I have some more new stockists to announce over the next few days so keep your eyes peeled and if you are interested in becoming a stockist of Louise Wright Design then feel free to drop me an email lou.illustrator@gmail.com

Louise x

Global Talent Search

Hello! 

I've been dawdling around with my GTS entry and not posting it, purely because I've seen some of the entries to this competition and they are stunning! 
But it is time!!
Basically the brief was to create a journal cover for Paperchase using inspiration from vintage playground imagery.
What a struggle I had with this! It took me over a week to bite the bullet and get drawing, and far longer to begin to get something I liked.
(I banned myself from woodland animals for this too, nothing like a challenge ;) )
I'm really pleased with how it came out, and who ever thought there would be a unicorn in my portfolio!?

And here is how I presented it for the competition! 

I would love to know what you think, and eeeek the final 50 get announced soon, there is a teeny tiny chance I might be in there, right?

Louise x

Make Art That Sells Week 5 (final week!!)

Hello hello!
As you may know last week was the final assignment for MATS (sad face!) but Lilla was determined that we should go out with a bang! The mini threw me a little (a lot) this week,  Lilla told us to document a collection of ours. Now I don't really collect much that I could use so I put off doing it which was silly because I didn't have the full week to work on it since I was taking a much needed weekend off to celebrate my birthday!
The main assignment came round and to be honest I freaked out about this one a little bit. Aimed at the Gift market we were to create a 'hyper lush' zipper pouch design!!
I've never really thought of my work as hyper lush and lots of the examples showed use of real flowers in there and these beautiful, busy works. I felt really out of my depth....
Not leaving myself enough time to play I started working on something I wasn't having all that much fun with but I didn't have enough time to throw away and restart and I really didn't want to not submit for the final week!
So I'm going to show you what I submitted and I'm doing this with my new found confidence from the course, I'm showing you art I don't like!
Based on my little collection of elephants bought back from India..

There it is!
I put it out of my mind for the weekend but when Monday rolled around I knew I had to go back and make it better haha.
So I started again from scratch and had fun with the work I was creating and it's amazing what a difference it made to how I felt! Fun art!!
So here is my new hyper lush design based on my small collection of animal figures dotted around my desk.
What do you think? :)

I've not long watched the final video from the course and I'm sad and elated at the same time, I feel like a different person for doing it and my work feels very different too, very sad to be done on my little journey though.
Into the big wide world for me now! 

Louise x

Make Art That Sells Week 4

Hello hello!
Well it's been a SUPER busy busy week! Week 4 of Lilla's course was all about wall art, something I've never really done before, we were told to crack out the collage collection and only focus on using two colours which were allocated by star sign.
My star sign is Cancer (yep, it's my birthday next weekend!) and so my colours were pink and yellow......yeah I thought the same too, don't feature very heavily in my work do they?
Anyway, I had SO MUCH fun with this assignment, I cracked out the paint, bought some canvases and it was just such a weight off my shoulders not to worry about the final outcome so much and enjoy the process. As Lilla tells us - 'People buy your joy'..
For the first part of the week I worked on two pieces to loosen up as it were...

This was my first attempt, but Lilla has specified that the piece was abstract, and I didn't really feel that this was abstract enough.. 

I began to settle into the assignment and it was after this piece I went out and bought some canvases, how could I not?? :) I was having far too much fun!

I worked on 3 canvases simultaneously. One I still haven't scanned yet, but here is the smaller one and then the one I submitted to the Flickr group is next!

What do you think??
I had so much fun in this weeks assignment, so you never know more canvases might be creeping into the house... ;)
 

Louise x

Make Art That Sells Week 3 & Art Market!

Hello!

Well it has been a super busy week! And as ever I've promised I will do a blog post about it and so I've taken 5 mins away from all of the work with my cup of tea to reflect...
First up, week three of Lilla's course! Picture Books!
The mini assignment was to draw snails and practice hand lettering of 'The snail and the rose tree'. Wanting to get stuck in and not have to worry about the big assignment until Wednesday I (like most other people in the class) did not rush out to go read the story. Instead we focused on drawing snails, and some veryyyy cute snails were appearing in the facebook group! 
I had never really thought to draw snails before and so this was a bit of a challenge for me, and also you know how fond I am of my dot eyes on my characters, lilla said there was to be none of that, eyes needed to connect with the children reading it.

- A few cheeky photo's of my sketchbook!
Then Wednesday rolled around and the big assignment was set - to illustrate a front cover or inside spread for 'The snail and the rose tree' and the text was provided.
My god it was a tough first read, I think it shocked us all a little bit. Lilla urged us to interpret it in whatever way we liked and suited our styles. 
During this project I had told myself I wasn't going to use photoshop but instead go back to my collage style and work with that. I didn't have very long due to other commitments that weekend (The art market) so I got stuck in. Stopped. Freaked out. Started again, created a double page spread. Looked on the facebook group at all of the amazing work that was being produced. Started again!
It was a stressful week for me because it took me such a long time to get over the initial challenge that the text set.
In the end this is what I submitted to the flickr group (and Lilla reviewed it in her video of the works!! - I feel so honored!)

It's something I will be coming back to after the course to have another look at though!

Now, last weekend I was of course at the Art Market in Holmfirth, a market I've heard a lot about from other traders, and one supporting affordable art. I took 100% original work with me in the end, I never really get the chance to do that so I couldn't resist! ;)
I wanted to make my (3 meter!!) stand look as good as possible and so I got hold of some wood for the sides so I could hang artwork from them too!
Turns out painting that took forever, and it rained outside so I had to do it inside haha (I do have some bright ideas don't I?)

So, wood all painted, car loaded we set off Saturday afternoon down the market, set up and traded between 8-10pm.
The venue was lovely, as were all the people who stopped and chatted to me!
Here is a photo of my stand :)

Can you spy some originals in there?
Early Sunday morning we came back to the fair (I say early, it was 10am so late for me!) ready for a full days trading and I had a commendation waiting for me on my stall!!
I didn't see it to begin with haha, another trader had to point it out to me- It really made my day so thankyou Victoria at the Art Market for making me feel so welcome! Also its really nice that all the effort I put into getting set up got noticed and appreciated.

All in all the Art Market was just lovely to attend and I will be applying for the November one so I might be back you never know Holmfirth ;)
I was also interviewed because of my award so watch out for that beauty! haha. Never was any good at having my photo taken let alone being filmed!! 
I have new work to share with you too but this is a very long blog post so I'll wrap it up here tonight and I'll be back soon :)

Night!
Louise x

Back to school!

Hello folks!
So I've got some exciting news to share with you all, I've gone back to school! :)
As an early birthday present I've started on the fantastic Lilla Rogers 'Make art that sells' course, it all ties in perfectly with the AOI event I visited in London a week or too ago based on image licensing. I now know what direction I need to be heading in and the course run by Lilla is helping me to get there. (Fingers crossed!) 

It's just been 2 weeks of the course and although I was away for the first week the whole thing is already so so inspirational, the classroom is FULL to the brim of talented and supportive creatives and I just love being a part of that.
I never want it to end!
Each week of the course focuses on a different area of the market and this weeks has been Home Decor, we were set an assignment to use a more modern take on floral and translate it into a circular plate design. 
To begin with I began with LOTS of sketches and drawings using different materials, here's a teeny snippet...

I started with inks and pencils and brush pens because I didn't want to get too bogged down with colour, instead focusing on the shapes of seed pods and unusual shapes.
I then scanned in and played around ALOT on the computer with them (I think me and Illustrator are slowly becoming friends)
and I wanted to share with you some final plates and what a collection might look like....:)

Squee! What do you think??
I had such fun with this assignment, and I can wait to start this weeks work...Picture books! 
I'm still messing around with plates so some more might sneak in ;)
Louise x