The here and the now (and the soon)

Warning... this is going to be a blog with NO PICTURES... oh no!
But please bear with me, I hope it will be interesting nonetheless.

I just wanted to tell you about a few bits and pieces which are occuring in the near future of my life.

I remain unemployed, however I'm not so down about it as I was in my last blog... I suppose the job which I didn't get just wasn't the job for me, and I'm confident that soon there will be the job for me, and it will be delightful. And in the meantime, there's no reason why my days shouldn't be filled up with fun... Just because I'm signing on doesn't mean I need to spend all day every day sat at home in a guilty gloom!

So with this is mind, I'm going to quite a few gigs, travelling over to Bristol for this, doing various small freelance jobs (most of which I still can't talk about, hence the disappointing lack of pictures), and generally keeping myself busy.

At the moment I'm 'home' for a few days. Until I moved out at 19, I lived in the same house my whole life, and my parents have now decided to sell it, so I guess I'm sort of here to say 'Bye house!'... Although honestly I feel little sentimental attachment to the actual house, much more sadness about the friends who I won't see as often any more.
Although I'm totally coming back to visit lots. Who could keep away from the city that never sleeps... Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch?

Ok, I lied about no pictures. Anyway.
The true point of this blog is to tell you about what fun I'm going to have this Saturday night...
It's time for the annual White Night events in Brighton!

Basically, in celebration of the clocks changing, and the extra hour of night we're all granted, there are loads of incredible performance/arts/interactive sort of events running throughout the whole night in Brighton City centre, many revolving around interesting usage of light and sound and colour.

Sounds like awesome fun right? Well imagine how delighted I was to be specifically invited to one of them, in my blogging capacity, to come along and generally ramble and chatter about it. How delighted? Very delighted.

The event is hosted by Art Republic gallery, the Art Prints and limited edition prints store. (Incidentally also where I bought the frames for my degree show from, so I already have much affection for them... they were lovely) along with Ink__d and Wet paint productions

I'm going to take a little bit from their press release here, as they can describe it better than I ever could...

"Jubilee Square will be transformed in to an open air exhibit with huge illuminated blank columns dominating the scene. Street artists including Req, Pinky, Snub23, Hutch, Mishfit and Imbue will paint and spray freehand on them throughout the night. Continuing on the theme of ‘illumination’ the centre piece will be a digital graffiti wall, allowing artists and the public to create instant works of art.  Elsewhere in the square there will be L.A.S.E.R. tagging - where members of the public will be able to ‘light tag’ plus street art related short films will be projected on to the wall of myhotel."

Now basically, all of those artists are people I'm well aware of (And if you live in Brighton, you probably are too), as their work is to be seen all over the streets... seeing them work live should be pretty amazing. Not to mention in an illuminated context... As a child (and still to this day), I'm the kind of girl who gets excited and starry eyed walking through the lighting department in B&Q... that will be NOTHING compared to the joys of White Night. Total overstimulation awaits me.

And while this is the event I've specifically been invited to, there will be a ridiculous amount of other amazing things going on in the city centre that night, so I'm going to be having a good long wander round and soaking it all up. Doubt I'll stick it out through to the 'dawn chorus' (Although it does sound delightful)... but it will definitely be a late night!

If you're in Brighton, you should definitely be out and about that night. No excuses!

Back to patterns

Well, I'm still busy with various things.
I'm a little bit sad at the moment because I'd set my heart on a particular job, spent ages on the application form, did a really good interview... then didn't get it, because the other candidates had more experience.

I know, I know, it's the old cliche, but how am I supposed to get experience if no one will give me a chance?! I've done several internships, but now the time has come when I really need to get a proper job and start paying the rent like a grown up. And I don't just want a job to pay the rent - I want a job because I know that's what I need to feel fulfilled on a day to day basis. I'm at my happiest when I'm busy, preferably being creative, but generally just working and earning enough money to live!

Well, I'm not going to let it get me down, I just need to keep busy with my own projects, some small freelance jobs, and carrying on applying for work.

Anyway, these are kind of a sideline from something else I've been working on. I've always really enjoyed creating abstract patterns, and then finding applications for them... so these are just initial stages of something I might continue with.

And now for something altogether more creative.

Here's a little project I've been working on... not going to say exactly what or who for yet, but I've been commissioned to illustrate a 'green man'. My initial instructions were three colours only. I approached it in the way that seemed most logical to me, and produced these three initial ideas.

The client asked for something darker and more abstract, so I changed them slightly to these two variations.

The client still didn't like them, and I was on the point of giving up, but decided to attempt something never done before by me... a 'painting' in photoshop! Around 6 hours and 28 layers later, I came up with this. Honestly... I don't like it as much as the vectors, it's no longer only three colours, but the client is happy with it, so there we go! (And as my first time ever using brushes and suchlike, with no tablet and what is widely acknowledged as the worlds fastest tracking mouse... it can't be too bad.)

The client asked that I add some extra leaves in either side... and possibly this is the finished product.

And there's an insight into something of an unusual project for me. Oddly enjoyable though, and certainly took me out of my comfort zone...

I think I'm in love with Wired Magazine

Funny the games life plays with you. My last blog was about going out with cool people and playing with lego...

This blog is about... well, going out with cool people and playing with lego. Except different cool people and different lego.
Well, I say different lego... at the Creative Review Tweetup, the grand prize for the evening was a lego construction kit of Tower Bridge. (Ages 16 and up!) I didn't enter my name, because frankly the thought of it intimidated me.

But today, fate led me into the arms of a legoey tower bridge destiny, as I joined Wired Magazine over at their HQ on Old Bond Street for some construction action.

This came about thanks to my internship with World of Interiors magazine (which is still delightful by the way!). World of Interiors and Wired magazine are both published by Conde Nast, who also publish Vogue, Glamour, Home and Garden, Easy Living and others.

Wired's test Editor sent an e-mail round all of them, asking whether anyone had any interns spare to come over and help with a feature they were doing about construction kits targeted at adults. Mainly Lego. And because the guys at World of Interiors are awesome, and could sense my palpable enthusiasm, they let me have the day off to go and join Wired.

So this morning I strolled over to Old Bond Street, and was sat down at a big red table with five or six other interns/boyfriends/random people drafted in to help. We were presented with a lego Taj Mahal (6000 piece, age 14+), lego Tower Bridge (5000 piece, age 16+), and a crane construction kit which wasn't made out of lego.

I decided to take on my old nemesis Tower Bridge (mainly because another intern had already got going on it a previous day). After two hours hard graft (which admittedly consisted mainly of rummaging through 5000+ tiny pieces of plastic for 'One of those beige thin ones with only three bobbles and a twiddly bit at the end') I had made remarkably little progress.

 (Pic stolen from Wired)

Although it was delightful fun, it was also quite frustrating, and reminded me just how little patience I had for lego as a child. Fortunately I'm an adult now, so I manned up, and stuck it out all the way through till I had to leave at 5.30 for my train! That's 6 solid hours of legoing! Probably more than I'd ever clocked up at any other point in my life!

I didn't see Tower Bridge finished, or the Taj Mahal, although have since seen pictures posted by Wired of the plastic crane lifting the final piece of the Taj Mahal into place.

It has been a delightful day, the main realization of which being the Wired are AWESOME (although I already knew that) and I would actually love to work there. (Despite knowing that not every day involves lego!)

My internship with World of Interiors finishes tomorrow... it's been a lovely month, I'll be sad to go! Special mentions for Mark Lazenby (Who originally got me the internship) and Liam Stevens (who has been incredibly patient with my various photoshop trials and tribulations), both incredible illustrators in their own right.

After this, onwards to the rest of my life!