Puzzled

This word of the week is puzzled, I thought of so many things to do, which went off the word puzzled as in a game or a puzzle. I went with the emotion of being puzzled. 

My inspiration for this word of the week is an image from an unknown artist.

I really like how there is other things going on in the image, but still the main focus is the woman in the middle.

I was going on the emotions side of puzzled, so in my first thumbnail, it is an image of a girl looking calm but confused, in my other thumbnail, it would just be eyes with the confused eyebrow raise or even being concerned. 

I went with the girl for my final design.

I started off by drawing her face and body, I went through a lot of colour schemes and ideas but I finally decided on pastel colours!

I thought she seemed quite lonely, so I thought some sketched roses on the side would look nice.

This design would look good on a tshirt! 

Thanks!

Sara Stroud

Downtown Hamilton Interview

Interview with David Brace

b contemporary

Fine Art and Custom Picture Framing

We just wanted to know what made you get into the industry?

He explained to us that it was just a natural step to him, as he started out as a fine art student, and being a painter.  He started working with artists directly.

How long have you been doing this for then?

 Since 1990, this gallery is a year old, previous gallery for 10 years, part of the art gallery of hamilton, and bouncing around all over the place.

What age did you get interested into this?

David started to get interested in art when he was about 12 or 13 years of age.  Started pursuing it more seriously by taking courses in highschool at around 14-15 years of age.  Only applied for art schools, he ended up going to Queens, but applied to oca, guelph..etc. 

Why do you have your business in Hamilton?

Lots of reasons: I grew up here, I like thats it's an emerging culture, it has percolated in the last 10 years or so, just the right place at right time... lots of really good artists, lots of good interest now.

Do you get a good amount of Traffic here?

A fair bit, yea … the street is changing a lot, especially on weekends I get more people.

How do u choose your art work/ the art that you put into your gallery?

Artists that go back 20 years that he's known, he calls upon them..

"Andy (Warhol) whom goes  back to late 70's , he's been showing for a long time"… David's been asked to show Andy's work … he's ben sent art through mail, e-mail all over the place .. if he's interested, he pursues,   then he talks to the artist-basically gets to know them and knows if they have a good connection then,  takes the next step by booking shows.  

Your artwork is very interesting, is there a specific genre that you call it?

David: Andy comes off as a pop art background.   He has several 12 yr+ pieces in his gallery. Andy's portraits show Young people in the emerging scene.   He was kind of part of that scene... and the guys from 'Chromosome'  in the 80's.  General Idea, was 3 guys who made art,  put on wacky fashion shows, and were media hounds.  So Andy documented things, 

Came to mac to teach, showed his students, they loved it and he started documenting some of the people he's seen.

He showed us several artworks of Andy's and they are simply amazing... 

It seems like he's implemented a lot of photography into his works?

David: Andy's always worked using photography - he'd make silk screens ..burn silk screen a silk screen from photograph, and then hand paint and then, pull ink through the screen.

He'd take photograph, layer it with whatever graphic he wants... takes his drawings and take transparencies...  

Basically a lot more digital now...photoshop is the next big tool.

How much do these pieces, on average sell for?

David: Depends on the artist...

Andy is a senior artist who is approaching 60 now..  He's nationally known, and established clientele     

He showed us some pieces from Andy and said, "$3000 for One Ops" -originals  $4500."  

If someones interested in buying his works, do they know to come here?

They do whatever they can to get the word out.. Andy is  on some media networks, all you really have to do is some research...

b contemporary

Fine Art and Custom Picture Framing

David Brace

www.bcontemporary.ca

E-mail: davidbrace@bcontemporary.ca

phone: 289 389 3949

Address: 226 James St., N

Hamilton, ON, Canada

L8R 2L3

New Mind Set

New Mind set logo and story board for an online graphic

Emotional Labour

To me, Emotional Labour is putting yourself through something that obviously isn't that enjoyable, but needs to be done. Like someones job, such as a babysitter, a nurse, or even a teacher. They do their job, but there are parts that are just not fun.

  In this Podcast, Seth Godin talks about Emotional Labour and what it means to him. 

There are so many blogs today that have created meaningful connections to us, our inspiration for today, that help us in any sort of way that we need, and most of them don't get paid for it. I follow quite a few blogs, from tumblr to twitter, everyday I learn something new that inspires and helps me for another day. 

On tumblr, there are millions of blogs that you can relate to, you just have to find the right one. Someone created tumblr for us to enjoy, to express ourselves through images and text. It probably wasn't very enjoyable, fixing every little bug in the system, getting this website to run perfectly, but he stuck it through. I follow 373 blogs, and I love everyone of them. They take time out of their own day to post stuff for others to look at and think about, you can reblog that post if you like it so much and want to go to it another day! There are millions of pictures, text posts, and fun little gifs that can brighten your day! No one is paid to post on tumblr, they do it for fun, for other people to enjoy.  

Twitter is also a blog that many people find connections with. A lot of people have twitter, but it's not as popular as facebook. There are many blogs on twitter that have meaningful words to say just like tumblr, you can also add pictures to show people what you're up to! I follow a lot of inspiring twitters that have a lot of good feeling quotes, and I also follow weird facts which is very interesting to learn some new things! 

Follow me ! here

Being a Graphic Designer you go through A LOT of emotional labour. At the beginning of your career, you will have to do a lot of freelance work just to get your name out there, it won't be enjoyable but in the end it's worth it.  You also have the ability to decline work from a client, but that means you also decline a payment! You need to keep your blogs up to date with things you're working on, and what you've done. I'm new to this kind of thing, and to me it's emotional labour, I forget a lot to post my work onto this blog, as you might have noticed. It needs to be done for everyone to see my work and get me more work and I will keep working on it

Every job will have some emotional labour, something you just are not wanting to do, but in order to succeed those things will have to get done.   

Please come back often to see my updates, hopefully I can get the hang of this and post more for you all to see.

thank you xx

Sara Stroud

Popularity!

Inspiration for this week is "The Cabala" by Albert Pucci. 

I was pretty excited to do this word, so many thoughts came into my mind! From what girls "think" is popular with orange faces, to what society makes us believe should be popular. 

Here are my lovely thumbnails! 

I went with the bottom right one, with what our society makes us believe is popular or "beautiful," everyone is beautiful and more people need to realize this. 

I did this with pencil crayons, and added the text in with Photoshop, because I wasn't happy with my own writing! 

I hope you like it!

Your comments mean so much!

Sara Stroud xx

Suspense!

My inspiration for the word is an illustration by Bradshaw Crandell for Cosmopolitan Magazine! 

For the word "Suspense" many ideas came to mind! 

I went with the jack in the box thumbnail, because as everyone remembers, those things are quite intense! 

I started with a radial gradient for a simple background and drew a jack in the box in primary colours, and added text under it. It's more of a sarcastic little saying, and I love it :)

It's a really simple piece of work, but I liked how it turned out!

Hope you enjoy it also :)

Sara Stroud xx

Forward

My inspiration for the word Forward, is this American Legion Magazine illustration from 1951, artist is unknown. 

I decided to make a poster for Pay It Forward, you can check out the website Here

I found a bunch of nice things to do for people on that website and that started my thumbnails!

I went with the Charity fundraiser poster.

I added a neutral background with a design on it, then added the title, an idea of what you can do, and the date. Then I drew a hamburger and hot dog, showing that a BBQ is something you can do. 

Hope you like it!

Sara Stroud xx