Puffin Books- Children WIND IN THE WILLOWS

This is the competition I have chosen to make a book cover for, I'm in the process of reading the book at  the moment. The deadline isn't until April and they aren't taking in subs until January. Hopefully I can get the book read and do a lot of development for it between then.

I'll post a pic of the book I own, I've had it since I was 1 or something.  It's a gorgeously printed version with beautiful full page illustrations inside.

Aoc XMAS card

I lied, I'm still here on blogspot for now...btw Xmas card I made for the AOC competition!

Really happy with how this turned out, I may work on making 3 more to make a 4 card set. c: 

Edit: My card wasn't very successful, I need to up my game and aim for a professional quality on my work. 

Moving

I'm packing my bags and moving to tumblr. If anyone would like to follow me there here it is ===>
 pdp-kadivowden.tumblr.com/

Aquarium poster

Surprisingly I'm having a lot of fun making this. Still gunna have to make a few improvements and add ons <3 DOSE FISH

Kitten lettering

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3FG2hNrhVI

I watched the Puss in Boots animation way back in November whilst it was in the cinemas. This cat project of mine made me think back to that but directly the credits of the film where they cleverly spell out the cast with the forms of cats. I briefly tried doing this with cat doodles, but the desired effect was never found.

Final Cover

This is my final book cover for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" I'm really happy with the outcome but I feel like the Typography in this is lacking a bit of spark. :? hmn

Updated book covers

Here's some more previews on the front cover I'm working on for One flew over the cuckoo's nest. I think these work better than the previous. :/ kinda. It's mostly just the colour scheme and typography I need to work on now.

Book cover

Working on a book cover for "One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" . Finding this difficult to sort out, but these are my favorite outcomes so far.

Queen of the kittens Edited coloured

Final versions of Queen of the Kittens! Playing around with colour a lot. As some people thought adding colour to these would bring them to life more.

 soooo is this better? 

http://mrhipp.blogspot.co.uk/ <<----This guys work made me think of ways I could be more creative with colours, mostly with monochrome schemes, colour block and hue awesomeness. In general his colour choices in his works are exciting and current in my opinion. Also his way of incorporating typography into his illustrations or around (as if they are part of the center illustration) inspired my first and last images above.

Sai practicing

Been  a while since I've done anything like this. Glad to finally get back into using Sai <3

Queen of the Kittens Previews

Music in Romanticism: Ludwig van Beethoven.

Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement that started in Europe at the end of the 18^th century. It was a strong reaction of rebellion against political and aristocratic society rules, the industrial revolution that was being introduced, including the rationalization of nature through science. Romanticists wanted to understand the world as a person, through exploring nature, destruction, and ruin. They supported the heavy use and exploration of an individual's expression of emotion and imagination. Some of the characteristics of the movement were equality, questioning the belief of God, as well as having intense intellectual and emotional experiences, such as terror, horror and awe.   Romanticism spread to people’s beliefs, what they fought for and was heavily communicated at the time through the mediums of literature, art, and music.  

Romanticism has influenced many different musical composers such as Richard Wagner, Claude Debussy, Frederic Chopin and Ludwig Van Beethoven. All of these composers come to mind when thinking about Romanticism era musicians with Beethoven being the obvious, along with Chopin, who has had a computer game dedicated to him and his works in 2007. It is a Japanese Role-playing game that features Chopin as one of the main characters and explains his life and showcases his work throughout the game at points. To summarize the concept and Chopin’s role in the game: he is dying in the real world, but he dreams of a magical word where he has to fight together with his new companions against the corrupt. Odd seeming, I know. But this is just one of the examples of how much Romanticist Composers/musicians have influenced and inspired entertainment and the world even today.   

But compared to these other composers, Ludwig Van Beethoven was seen as one of the founders of Romanticism and had more of the expressive colour that characterizes it, than Classical artist Wolfgang Mozart who was one of his greatest influences.  He was a self-driven creative artist that disliked patronage, loved the ideas of Enlightenment and only composed according to his will and talent. Some of his greatest compositions are “Moonlight sonata” and  “Für Elise” along with his famous symphonies. Mozart was not the only inspirational model Beethoven had, he also saw Napoleon as a Hero of Romanticism.

Napoleon was admired by many; they saw him as a true symbol of Romantic ideals and that he was a liberator, a Romantic adventurer! They believed that he would fight and deliver “power for the people, to the people”, and felt that he would change history for the good, through enlightenment and equality.

Beethoven dedicated his 3^rd symphony “Eroica” (Italian for Heroic) to Napoleon, but withdrew the dedication once Napoleon declared himself Emperor of France and invaded Germany. This left Beethoven with feelings of betrayal and rage, in that one action, Napoleon made the Romantic ideals he was symbolized as to the people, who admired him, doubtful, especially to Romanticists like Beethoven and Bryon. It has been said that Beethoven was so enraged once he found out about what he had done, he crossed out Napoleons name from his “ Eroica” score so hard that it created a hole in the page. As you can see in the image below.

 

 

He later renamed  “Eroica” to a title that translates as, "Heroic Symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man" which in my opinion show’s how bitter he was on how Napoleon had turned out to be, but still celebrated the memory of what he started out as. Whilst knowing the story behind the piece, listening to “ Eroica” makes me  imagine the story of a fanciful man riding on his horse into victory through a battle leisurely  and grand.  This is maybe how Beethoven viewed the “Hero” side of Napoleon.

Born in the late 18^th century, Beethoven was a happy child, but his life turned to depression and anger though his 20’s as he was losing his hearing right up to his 50’s when he became deaf. He reserved his self from people and thus his social activities suffered, surprisingly his musical talent didn’t. He continued composing even while deaf; this is when his 9^th symphony was born.

Beethoven’s 9^th symphony has been considered one of the best compositions by critics and is used now for important events such as the fall of the Berlin wall, or the signing of a peace treaty etc. In my opinion this is because of how extraordinary the piece was then and still today, it was the first of its kind to have a choir included, and could be the longest symphony there was, it’s such a busy piece that works, that was created whilst deaf. It was also Beethoven’s last, but he defiantly went with a big finish. Becoming deaf and knowing this could be his last chance I could imagine that he gave this symphony his all, emotions, life, everything.

Whilst I have listened to the Second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 op.125 I find that  the beginning is unforgettable with the drums and violins acting as thunder and lightning, which leads into sounds like the movements of battle, flying, fleeting and running. As clouds break apart to pour light and thunder onto the landscape, I can’t help but imagine a war or a hunt taking place or having to run away from a threat, but in a sense of it being fanciful and slightly joyous. The nature shown through this is exactly what Romanticism is about, but also leads me into thinking about the fanciful violence shown in “A Clockwork Orange”

Many of Beethoven’s works have been used and remixed in Stanley Kurbrick’s film adaption of “A Clockwork orange”. Clockwork Orange is about a young man called Alex who is a gang-leader, that leads his gang on sprees of rape, mugging and what he called “Ultra-violence”, surprisingly he also loved Beethoven, especially his 9^th. Eventually, he finds himself at the mercy of the state, once captured, and try’s to bid his ticket out of prison through volunteering for a new brainwashing experiment designed to remove violence from a person who is a danger to other’s through conditioning. During the film, while Alex is being brainwashed against violence of any sorts, they used the forth movement of the 9^th symphony in the background of the short movies he had been forced to watch. Once noticing this, he strongly reacted to show how disgusted he was that they should use such a wonderful thing in relation to such violence, and begged them to stop. He ended up conditioned against not just violence, (feeling agonisingly sick against it) he was also conditioned against Beethoven’s 9^th. Once out of prison, he finds he has no place there although he has been “cured” and goes through scenes of paying the price by the ones who he wronged. Eventually he is locked in a room with Beethoven’s 9^th played loud, and attempts suicide by jumping out the window, because the symphony was just too much for him.

It has been said that in classical music there is a superstition, that for a composer their 9^th symphony shall be their last as they shall die after they have completed it. Beethoven was one of the victims to this curse. Beethoven’s 9^th did seem to be like a curse throughout the whole movie of “Clockwork Orange” often played in scenes of violence, and eventually caused Alex’s attempted suicide. The number 9 and imagery of Beethoven was placed throughout the film, even following Alex into jail. Even the man that cause’s Alex’s suicide looks similar to a Beethoven bust, as he sits waiting for Alex to do himself in. Perhaps the film was trying to communicate the message that Beethoven was mysterious and a punisher that created a violent music, or that Alex had fallen victim to the cursed 9th.  The almost joyful violence of Beethoven’s 9^th symphony and Alex’s glee to “ultra-violence” in Clockwork orange surprisingly fit each other to create a certain odd and slightly disturbing aura; the film wouldn’t have been what it is without it.  

The below video is Clockwork orange's remix of the 2nd movement of Beethoven's 9th symphony.

I have found that it is important to find out what sort of character Beethoven was,  along with his inspirations, life and attitude to fully appreciate and understand his works. But, before I had looked into Beethoven’s work in a more thorough way, I listened to his “Moonlight Sonata” which suited my tastes for music more than his other works. In my opinion, whilst listening to “Moonlight Sonata” I feel there’s a sense of sadness, infused with indifference, moodiness and calm anger. It’s a soothing and hypnotic melody, but at the same time you could imagine a tragedy unfolding.  Now I could say that describes Beethoven’s attitude and life, that “Moonlight sonata” is a reflection of him-self perhaps, after all Romanticism is about capturing ones intense emotions.

Queen of the Kittens!

Look out I have a project based on cats. Be prepared for future cat spams.

Song to the siren final

Thought I should post up my improved take on the song "song to the siren" Defiantly pleased with how this turned out.

Local groups

Recently there was a Illustration cafe at Plymouth college of art, where people were welcome to join in on a game of Exquisite corpse of making monster like characters. If I had the chance I would of joined in myself, but due to travelling problems and timing I couldn't.

Here's a list of other groups I've found that sounded interesting.

Chinese Brush Painting Society
Information:	Meet: 1st Saturday of the month 10am-12 noon. Venue: Swarthmore Centre, Mutley. Painting group discusses, paints and sometimes demonstrates all aspects of Chinese brush painting techniques.
Contact:	B Vallance
Telephone:	01752 671168

And The Plymouth Arts club. Which meet up mostly Tuesday evenings for sessions. But you have to pay for membership then for each session.

Blog Layouts.

I keep thinking of how I can make my blog look more visually pleasing and creative. I keep going back and looking at the mosaic layout which I find fun to look at.

Gloss Gallery

 In the Gloss Gallery in Exeter, my A-level experimental photography work got featured in the Rising Stars event and also on their website. My work was shown to be sold, but sadly no one brought my work. The piece got featured at the gallery through association with my secondary school, so I'm not too sure how I would go about it by just being a individual, though I think you would have to hire a venue if the gallery wasn't offering me free space.

While looking back at the Gloss website I noticed that they had a Christmas Event. The Christmas print show, by a collaboration of print makers, where I assume you could purchase their works as well as viewing them. Maybe next year I'll have a look around to see if I could get involved, or sneakily slip my Christmas card design into an important persons pocket..

Animation

These two animations always inspire me and I just absolutely adore them. Before I took my course I was thinking of taking either Animation or Illustration. These two animations made me want to choose animation so badly, but I figured that I wouldn't have it in me to actually achieve the time consuming dedication that would be expected of me in a Animation degree. Instead I choose illustration as I thought if I did want to go back to the animation side of it, I still could.
Again, these two animations cover the mood and themes and style's I'd love to achieve .

Finally a workspace

You know how I said one of my weaknesses from my SWOT, was not having a workspace? Well I thought I'd finally sort that out. This is the best I could do for now.

This is not a book

I'm loving Keri Smiths "Wreck this Journal" so much, that today I brought her "This is not a book"

Unknown

 

Designs for my Boo! stage 2 poster

A view into the mind of Kadi

Why did I choose Illustration? 

My love for obsessing over nice looking things and thinking and being inspired excessively about theories, stories and concepts, made me want to continue being in Art education. I had been doing very well in Art since GCSEs then followed up to my A levels, seeing also more creative subjects such as Imedia and Photography to expand on my creative skills. I choose Illustration instead of subjects such as fine art, animation and games design, because all in one package it gives me the creative license, hands on and independent work that I feel I'm more suitable for. Illustration was obviously the "comfort zone" subject for me to pick.

What area am I most interested in?

I have a lot of love for many different areas of illustration, but the main areas that keep coming up for me are concept art, abstract portraiture, connotations of art, digital art, and traditional art. I mostly love art that is stands out and is  inspirational, emotional, magical, and heartwarming. My relationship with illustration, art, whatever it be is very unclear and I keep questioning it and viewing it in different ways. 

I'm not entirely sure what I want to aim for or do as a illustrator (maybe a children's illustrator?), but if it was up to me right at this moment I'd have a wall all to myself to paint and create abstract portraits and just be expressive. 

What skills do I have already?

As I said earlier I have Alevels for Photography and Imedia, which gave me the skills of knowing a fair amount about photo editing and manipulation in Photoshop as well as the basics. I also learned the basics of Adobe Flash to create animations. I'd like to say that my observational skills are good as well as using traditional materials, but have been practicing digital painting more recently.

Am I assertive?

I filled out the form for this quiz (http://www.trans4mind.u-net.com/assertive.htm) to find out if I am assertive. I scored a 13, which means that I'm more submissive than aggressive, but still close to the balanced area  between aggressive and submissive. Although, personally I think I tend to get passive-aggressive at times. I think what I've learnt from this is that I need to maybe have a bit more confidence in my life, and take a stand for myself.

Body language also shows if your'e aggressive, submissive, or confident.  If I want to achieve a career in Illustration I must be able to have a good body language so people will hire me, and so I can pitch my ideas and showcase my work well. This can range from moving habits, posture, hand gesters, speech formation, eye communication etc.

The habits I personally want to get rid of is fidgeting with hands, avoiding eye communication or staring intensively at people, and to remove the "ums" and "errs" in my speaking.

Body language can also be used in illustration to portray characters and their personality, actions or mood.

First Impressions

I did some doodles and wrote a bit on my first impression of Beth

And this was her first impression of me. Makes me wonder what other people think of me ...

A work space

This is the one critical thing I've felt the need for, been planning months for, try and struggle for whenever I have the chance. But have a managed to sort it out? No- "Why?" I might hear you ask. Because that's another thing I need to get sorted out- Me sorting out things. ( In other words, I have too many weaknesses to work on)

This has been a slightly irritable and impulsive blog entry. I bid you Good day.

Riusuke Fukahori

"ICN gallery proudly presents Goldfish Salvation by artist Riusuke Fukahori from 1 Dec 2011 - 11 Jan 2012. 

Artist Riusuke Fukahori's London debut exhibition "Goldfish Salvation" transforms ICN gallery into the world of goldfish. When struggling with artistic vision, Fukahori's pet goldfish became his inspiration and ever since his passion and lifelong theme. His unique style of painting uses acrylic on clear resin which is poured into containers, resulting in a three-dimensional appearance and lifelike vitality. 

This video gives you a glimpse of his amazing painting process."

                                           This absolutely blew my mind.

Water colour portraiture

Ever since I found this artist just by searching for music by WEG, but finding this instead- I've been attacked with the urge of trying out slightly haunting water colour portraiture in a slightly abstract way. So, I've  finally been attempting a similar technique for my second stage of the Boo! project.
Here's a preview~