Feeling Accomplished

This weekend I finally framed a picture, one of my biggest inspirations and hung it on my wall with my owl prints. This drawing was made my uncle Donnie when he was in high school. I never got to meet him because he died when he was 18, wayyy before I was born! But I have been told I have his personality and his talent for art. I have always looked to this drawing as well a couple others that I have of his when I am at a lack of inspiration. 

I also  was offered the opportunity to do 2 backdrops for the drugstore I work for on the side! (payed of course!) The backdrops will be displayed during Easter weekend when the Easter Bunny will be at the stores! Here is the easter colored duct tape I bought today for them. 

Here are the other 2 backdrops I have done in the past. First one is my Halloween monster party! The second, if you couldn't guess is Santa's house...haha. I make them completely out of paper, it's so much fun!

Fabric Design:: Bicycles

This weeks contest was a 3 color bicycle theme.
Here's what I came up with!
I thought the old white wall tires would look super cute as flowers so I illustrated the wheel as the center of a daisy. I also introduced a bike bell as a secondary element. This design is super clean (unlike some others that have been doing) and I have to say I am absolutely in love with it!
 

En Spire

So remember that community for creative people my friend and I have been working on? Well we officially have a blog! You should check it out! (and also follow us!) 


We have been getting more followers on twitter daily so thank you everyone for your support! This is one project that won't work without participants!!! 


We are currently getting ourselves prepared to launch our fist contest within the next couple weeks so please keep a look out! It will probably be something simple and more of a promotional/let's see if anyone is interested type contest. 


Again thank you for the support, this isn't just for us this is for everyone! :D

Challenge #3:: Creating my brand

Where to start....

Well in school my professors were always bugging us about "branding" ourselves. I guess I never really got what that meant until after I graduated and starting to look at other professionals portfolios. The insight I gained from this is basically "make everything match" and "make it look good." 

Right now, my portfolio, business cards, resume and letterhead all DON'T match at all... : /

Take a look for yourself >>

When did I realize this was a problem?

1) At my interview...yeah of all places i know! My boss actually pointed this out to me which I was already aware of but he made look even worse than what I thought...

2) While snooping (shhh don't tell) through some portfolios that came into the office that were BEAUTIFULLY designed in every possible way. Everything went together and the designer had neat little branding elements that were breath taking. 

So now what do I do?

1) FIX IT!

This is a work in progress, as things start to come together I will start posting more of this. 

Giving myself homework!?

Hello everyone,


So I have been kind of absent, aside from the fabric designs. Why? Because I have in fact given myself homework, with a little help from my good friend Sam as well. 


We have been brainstorming an idea for a post college online community for designers and illustrators. 


Why? 
Good question. (We like questions)


Well, let's face it getting thrown into "the real world" particularly a "creative world" can be pretty tough to get started out in. It can be extremely frustrating and sometimes a little reassurance from people who know what its like and have been there before can be just what is needed to stay afloat. 


We have so far created a twitter and are in working progress on a blog. Follow us @EnSpirations
We really hope to get some experienced creatives talking to the young just starting out students about the challenges and solving problems that will come their way. (I wish I had more of this when I was getting ready to graduate)
We also hope to come up with weekly contests for everyone to participate in and keep everyones imagination in full gear, so when you do land that internship/job you aren't racing to get back into the creative lifestyle! 


More to come! 
-KM

New Desktop Background!

New background playing around in photoshop :)

Fabric Entry:: Sea Creatures

So this weeks fabric contest theme is Sea Creatures. I thought it might be nice to see the process behind this one.

First I drew a sketch>>

Then I brought my sketch into Illustrator and drew the outline of the character>>

 Then I brought that outline into Photoshop and had come fun coloring. I am not used to being this illustrative so I had a lot of fun trying out different brushes. >>

 This is my end result >>

I am EXTREMELY happy with this pattern. I think I may have found a new style as far as illustration goes...I am defiantly going to experiment more with this style. It almost has a watercolor feel to it which for the sea theme I think works really well. I didn't want to use a solid blue in the background because I felt that it "drowned" (no pun intended) out the fish. Instead I used a soft pallet of oranges and pinky reds to make the blue of the bubbles pop giving that blue water effect.

I find I am really enjoying entering even this simple once a week fabric contest. It allows me to come home and work in a variety of ways as well as allowing me to relieve alot of my everyday stress by getting lost in a sea of creatures : )

If you find yourself sick of the day to day work stuff I would really recommend joining in on something like this. This also goes for the rest of you post college creatives who may not have any other creative work at the moment, keeps your skills in shape and your imagination alive.