What inspires my creativity

I thought that I would give people an insight into the kinds of things that inspire me to create the things I draw and illustrate. My inspirations include nature, weddings, my dreams, food, crafts, and architecture. Since describing them all in one post would be like writing a novel, I will only be talking about one today and will discuss the others in my next post.

So the first thing that tends to inspire me is nature. Ever since I was a baby about 1 or 2 months old, I have been going camping with my parents. Also for about 13 years I was also a part of Girl Guides of Canada. So that means a real up close relationship with the world around me. It is quite fascinating how much really is in this natural world. The colours that I associate with nature are blue (lakes, oceans, the sky, rain and water) and green (leaves, trees, grass, shrubs, any other kind of greenery). It was nature that inspired my latest portfolio design and the newest comic creature, Mr. Owl.

Now as much as I love green and blue, I also love flowers and by golly nature is full of flowers in so many colours and shades that there is an endless array of colour combinations. Lets not forget that said flowers also come in many shapes and sizes as well. One must truly see the complex structures of nature's treasures and scientists are only just getting to know the inner workings or nature. The tip of the iceberg as you will.

The most important thing about nature and how it inspires me, is not just the beauty of it but the feelings that it invokes. Picture this, standing in the middle of the forest no cars nearby and you just close your eyes and just listen to the symphony that is nature. It all starts with the wind as it blows through the trees causing them to crack quietly as they sway with its motion, jostling the leaves that make a soft rustling sound. Now we move on to the chirping of the birds in the trees as they speak and sing to each other, as you hear the occasional flap of wings as a bird moves from tree to tree glancing down at the strange creature below them with a silly smile on their face eyes closed, face turned up to the sky (yeah that's a pretty picture I know). Then beneath the sounds above you hear the jostling of the shrubs and bushes at your feet, the murmur of crickets, the croaking of frogs and perhaps if you are lucky you can hear the sound of a deer crashing through the brush fallen twigs breaking beneath their hooves. The base of this symphony of course is the sound of the burbling of a nearby creek as it fluidly slides across the rocks and pebbles that make up its floor. That is just an example of what I picture in my mind when it comes to nature and there are many more scenes I can see in my head.

When I designed my webpage, I had that image in my mind as I worked to put it all together. I was looking for a clean and fresh theme for my webpage and nature seemed to fit the bill perfectly. The basis of the design itself is the fact that there are no straight lines in nature and that is reflected in the design of the tree and the leaves and the owl perched on the branches. The circles that make up the bottom of the website are pretty much representative of the fact that nature is a never ending cycle. The straight lines that do exist on the webpage are quite simply a connection to the man made world where we are capable of straight lines even though we ourselves come from nature.

I will leave off here with a suggestion. The next time your stuck in artist's block go stand in a park and let nature inspire you. In my next post I will go over my next inspiration, weddings.

Status update

Hello everyone,

It is now time for a status update. So I have put up the two remaining photographs onto my website. I was slightly delayed in putting them up as I was designing a PDF portfolio for a few job postings. Now that they are done I will start working on the other projects I have in the works, including the image of Lord Kirrath that I am currently illustrating in Adobe Illustrator.

I will keep you all posted as to my progress in my work. As for my organized workspace, it is definitely working good for me and I feel a lot more productive. Organization is a great way to be productive.

That is all for now. Enjoy that lovely rainy weather we have going on and here's to the sun coming back soon.

Ochiba~Con Poster and spring cleaning progress

Hello again my friends. Yet again it is a sunny yet cool day and I again have an update on the Ochiba~Con poster. I have posted it on my website www.andreapalmerdesign.com and i have also posted it on my DeviantArt account, tweeted it a few days ago and put a link to it in my LinkedIn account. http://alleria855.deviantart.com/art/Maple-372444832. So now that it is complete it is now time to get back to editing my two photographs for the website and get back to my latest illustrator project.

As for the spring cleaning, it is also now complete and things are much better organized and there is more space and it will be a much better work space for me.

Spring Cleaning and Ochiba~Con Poster Design

Hello my friends and here we are again. It is a lovely sunny day bit on the cool side but not bad. The Ochiba~Con poster and postcard is done and once I am sure it has been finalized I will be posting it on my facebook page and my website with proper credit and copyright disclaimers. One must never forget copyright disclaimers.

Along with my job search I have also been doing a bit of reorganization and some spring cleaning. Having a proper clean and organized workspace is important when it comes to working and designing and I have been checking out a few video blogs that have been giving me a few ideas on how to better organize. So I hope to have all that done in a few weeks. 

That is all for now.

Ochiba~Con pro bono project

A few days ago a friend of mine told me she was in need of a graphic designer to design some advertising posters and postcards for her Ochiba~Con convention.

"Ochiba~Con is an annual Japanese culture and anime convention held in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, enriching the local community by providing education on Japanese Culture Arts and Films through specific events. Ochiba~Con is a division of Northern Anime Festival"

Work is going real well on the project, however I have had to put my personal projects on hold until the work is done. If you are interested in checking out the convention check it out here. http://www.ochibacon.ca/

Work update and thoughts

Hello everyone,

First off I would like to express my condolences to all who have died and been severely injured during the Boston bombings, the fertilizer explosion in Texas and the earthquake in China. It has sadly been a very deadly week in the world, and my thoughts are with everyone who has suffered a loss this week. 

For the work update, aside from making changes to my resume and cover letters, I have added two new photographs to my website and hope to have two others up very soon. I am also still working on my latest project in Illustrator involving a man in a suit of armour. With any luck I will have it done soon and I will be posting the sketch on my deviantart account soon. There are still two more photos I would like to post and they will be posted hopefully within the next few days.

New web design complete

The new web design is live at www.andreapalmerdesign.com. I will be adding some new photographs to the site as well over the next few days. Now I can get back to some new projects that I picked up recently, including the cafepress.ca idea that I have been wanting to see if I can get into.

End in sight

Alas the new website is about done. Tried some fancy stuff for the portfolio page using CSS and now I am close to getting the gallery all done and pretty. Then it is quite simply a matter of posting the new site to  my domain. 
I also got to work on a new piece which will hopefully start as the first piece of work for cafepress.com. I want to get a few pieces done so I won't be opening the store for it until i've at least got those pieces done. It should be an interesting experience to say the least. Will keep everyone posted. Once the website is up I will add the facebook page in addition.

Status Update

Alrighty so the new webpage is coming along nicely. Just have the links and portfolio sections to finish up and I am hoping I can go live with in the next few weeks and at the same time get my facebook page up too. I also have some new projects in the works as well. Mainly I have been toying with the idea of selling illustrations on products from Cafepress.com. Got a new illustration on the go as well. Should be an interesting few weeks.

Anyway hope everyone had a great Easter weekend, more soon.

Back to work on Webpage after a small hiatus

Yep the website is back on track after a small hiatus. My uncle died so there was a little bit of bereavement time, but alas life must go on and I must get back to work. My webpage has been migrated to its new server so I will be able to start updating the webpage real soon.

New Webpage under construction

The new webpage is now under construction. The main layout is complete and about ready to be moved into Dreamweaver so I can start on the actual linking and html stuff. My web domain is currently under a migration so I don't have access to updating it yet but I do hope to have my webpage up by the end of February with any luck.

The new design is very light, airy and nature in theme. I am using green and blue as my colour scheme with patches of white. Should look good once I am done with it.