Emails to distribute...

I've just finished my email to 'Oh Comely' Magazine...When writing It I was mostly thinking about what their magazine stands for and it's audience and trying to show this off within my work. I found it hard to know how forward and confident I should be...

Hello :)

I'm an image and craft maker living and working in Leeds, I'm just coming to the end of my degree course of Visual Communication. Very scary!

I'm a massive fan of your magazine and feel very lucky to have found it over the past few months! :)

I particularly enjoy the relaxed and happy manner of the articles in it!

A current project that I'm working on has been built upon the subject of Beauty Ideologies and challenging this idea of 'beauty'. I've been making images and wooden brooches, discussing these ideas. The main focus on my image making is to laugh at the stereotyping of genders and take the pressure off for women, laughing with them, encouraging them to relax a little more about how the look. It's something I'm really passionate about and so I've done some work with the magazine in mind and wondered if you thought you could use it or would like anything else?

I've attatched a couple of images, but you can see more of my work on my website at... www.clairebellia.co.uk

Thanks for taking the time to read this :)

Claire xo

I've sent it and now I await a reply...

Designs for large Handmirrors...

Well these are my final drawings for the big cutter they have down in woodwork, I've got a trial one I'm doing on MDF on Friday, to see how the engraving work and if I will need to go over all of it with a pyrography pen.

I'm thinking that the size of them will be about 80cm tall...however, because of their awkward shape I will need to stick two pieces of wood together, fusing them well and then also stick them onto a layer of MDF to strengthen the whole piece to then be cut. It's going to be a long process but hopefully worth it!

The plan is to then have 3 of these with bits of my narrative in them...

Final Sticker Designs...

Here are the final designs...

...and some photos of the final stickers...

I'm not to sure how I feel about the shiny gold backed ones as I think it changes the feel of my brand slightly. I'm very happy with the pink ones and I've very slightly changed the tone of the pink on the printed image sticker from what it was last time as I think it complements the sticker colour more and also makes the image pop out a bit more.

The final final stickers can be seen in my final work!

Sticker Designs...

Well the first lots I've designed are using the lady which I painted which communicates well, my practice and style of working...

However I put this together in illustrator and it doesn't look right and the words are to small...although I've been thinking whether I really need the words on the sticker as anyone who has their jewellery bag sealed with a sticker will get a business card inside their bag with all my details on anyway. Therefore I can either take the words off or have the words on for design aesthetics and it doesn't matter if you can't read it to well.

A problem I came across was trying to hide the little dashes from distorting the key images which needed to be in front... I had to work to find out that I could create a new layer and use the pen tool, to then kind of mask the area off and then shuffle around the layers for it to work...

Although from printing them and looking at them more, I don't like them and want to try different images... as iconic the lady is above to my style I have other work that would look better on a circle sticker. The image of the lady is more beautiful when she's big and the image looks forced and bizarre on a circular sticker, make the image look very rectangular and blocky.

Business Card Prep...

So...from the blogpost I did before on business cards, the other two were a bit of a flop, I constructed the second idea with the peep-hole, but it just wasnt time effective and I couldn't bind the edges well enough!

With this in mind I began on a 3rd design and I'ts now my final design. Preparing some bits for the final business card, decided that instead of a slightly boring front (the hand-drawn lady coppice title below). I will go for the key image on the front and have simple type on the back, hopefully looking professional but crafted.

FRONT

BACK

The last image out of the four, just above, is the one I've finally chosen, the weight of the lines seems to complment the image on the front and works nicely...I have now printed the negatives and will take it to print over the next couple of days!

Final Decided Brooch Narrative:

'A Series of brooches telling a story. Named 'Ages of Womanhood', It tells the story of a young girl who grows up to be obsessed with her appearance, then to fall in love for it to just fall apart. Feeling broken and upset, she finds herself feeling indignant and pretty hateful towards men...'

I have cut a couple and found that the lines need to be a little thicker, especially on the girl with the gun. I will thicken the lines and also bring the laser closer to the wood.

Adjustments To Brooch N Desgns...

These are the images I took to my crit today and it was really useful to hear peoples responses...

It drew to the conclusion that they didn't need to have symbols to emphasise anything, it would be nicer to make the images bigger and fill the frame instead! Also that the lady for the 2nd brooch (No.2) as pretty as she looked maybe this idea of 'appearance' needed to be exaggerated a bit more and so I will redesign it... I will make the 'lovers' bigger and will change the 'arguement' brooch.