Photoshopped Brain Designs.

I managed to get my small brain designs onto photoshop, in a few hours on each of the designs i manage to get them looking professional and ready for screen printing back at sixth form. 

 So each design took over three hours to do, most probably because I don`t have a drawing tablet and I have to have a really, really steady hand to get these done and looking like this.
These are the exact same designs as the brains from my previous post that where just done with with some pen and paper and are probably crumpled up in a folder somewhere in my room... And I cannot find it anymore ^.^

They where done pretty basically;
I just added another layer and worked over the previous pictures I took of my designs, and I think that now I have these I might just throw away the previous copies as I prefer the completed look of these ones way more.
They look more professional than a lot of other things I`ve produced during my art course and that makes me the happiest I`ve been with my work in a while. It takes me so, so long to get most of my work finished and the fact that I`ve kept on working on these for hours and they`ve come out looking like this has really made me happy with my work.

So what I`m planning next is a series of screen prints of these four designs; but I`ll only be able to get them done when I go back to sixth form on the 10th of September.
Right now, i`m going to start making some full scale backgrounds with these designs and try to get some done in the next week or so because I`m going to busy with job interviews and meeting up with some old friends of mine.
Believe it or not, the screen prints will probably be the easiest thing to do with these designs; but i`m going to have to wait some time before I can get round to doing that. So for now I`m just going to have to stick to making some backgrounds out of these.
After I`ve done some more work with these then I think I`ll be practicing some more cartoon looking photoshop images of me and some other friends of mine. I`ve already completed six of them and I`m now currently working on some more and organizing images into piles of what I can use and publish and what should be private.

If you still want me to turn you into a cartoon-y looking person, then feel free to send you images in, or, just go back to one of my old posts and take a look at how to contact me about it. Thank you!

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Small Brain Designs!

Since my newest project is mainly based around my own mental health problems I`ve decided to spend even more time working on small pattern designs and possibly more pattern repeat work in the future. 

I will be photoshopping these soon aswell so i can get pattern repeats digitally through them, it`ll make it whole load easier and I should hopefully be able to get a lot more types of repeats finished in the process. So it should be quite fun to do on my computer, and it`s something that`s quite new to me. 

So far I`m enjoying the processes of photoshopping these small designs but that`s only when my tiny little laptop doesn`t crash... 

These original little designs are just done with some fineliner on A4 paper... But then I left them in a pile somewhere and I can`t remember which folder I put them in after that... Yay! 

I also got a question from someone (I won`t say your name sweetie)! They just wanted to know how I make my small pattern repeat pieces. 

So I either use a picture of something that I`ve taken, a small part of a drawing I`ve completed; Or, if it`s something like the brains I`ve done here then have a look online for something plain and try to work from that. 

The basic outline for the brain shape, (I tried to draw it myself but it looked like a squashed bean bag), then I filled in the rest myself.
It won`t always be the case of trying to rush in straight away and getting it all done in one, it may be that you have 10 basic outlines with tiny little pencil sketches inside showing where things might go. 

It`s mainly a case of planning and sketching at first, but then again you have to remember that when the design is complete then you can do whatever you want with them and make them into awesome backdrops or just a simple design to use. 

So if you need to trace over something to help you, do it; as long as another artist hasn`t done it, or it`s a photo that a friend has taken then it`s fine. But remember to be respectful if you really want to use someone`s image, just ask for the right to use it. 

I know it seems like a weird answer... But i hope you can understand what I mean by that! (Thanks for taking the time to ask too)! 

When I get the other images photoshopped (I`ve only done one so far...), then I`ll upload those versions too and I`m hopefully going to be making brain themed facebook cover images for those who read this blog! It`ll be quite fun to see everyone`s thoughts on them, and I`m looking forward to more feedback off of you guys; Either on facebook or Instagram, your opinions are always welcome ^.^

Thanks for reading this update, and I`m sorry for the lack of work lately... I`ll be back on track very soon! 

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Where have I been?

12th, August; Where have i been....?


So then, i haven`t been too busy but i`ve not been on here in some time now.
It`s just that this is my holiday too so it`s mainly been catch-up time with online friends, family, real friends and a tiny bit of over time at work. I feel as if the stress of sixth form has literally just gone right now and i`m loving it... But that doesn`t mean that i`ve stopped doing any work...

So just lately i`ve been doing the obvious work for my David, (boyfriend), with his manga characters and i`ve been trying to give him advice and help him along. It`s just mainly been small characters and practice for me on making the characters.

Then i`ve been trying to photoshop people and make cartoony looking people as practice for my control on photoshop, they are quite blocky and chunky at the moment but then again this is all just a ton of practice for me. So far i`m just working on other people and doing smaller ones of them and, as i`m typing this, I have a separate window open with photoshop and i`m currently doing one of me and David!

So far people have given me advice and improvements to make (So, thank you), but i`m still struggling quite a bit and i`m trying to save up so i can buy a scanner for my drawings aswell so i`m busy-ish at the moment trying to test out new things that i can use when i go back to Sixth form... But that`s if i get back in

(Re-enrollment is on the 13th... So tomorrow... crap...)




I`ve also been trying to do creepier looking faces for art aswell... But this is where i`ll need everyone else`s help and hopefully some of my follwers and friends too.

So, my new art project is basically about my mental health problems; Depression, Anxiety and Psychosis.
But I wanted to know if other people could send in a picture of themselves and a little bit about them or their personal struggle.

You will also obviously have the option to either let me use your images on my blog or use them in my art, and the option to stay anonymous or not. It`s completely up to you guys if you want to be part of this or not, it`ll be interesting to see what comes out of this and i`m kind of looking forward to seeing what may happen if you guys do take part.

You never know, i may get no messages from you guys or i could get a few which should hopefully encourage others to send messages in!
If you are interested in seriously helping me out; then message me on the facebook page or you can send me an e-mail at :-
marshyandthemelons@gmail.com

(The same rules apply with the cartoony block images and the creepy images, I`m just doing these for practice so i apologize if any of them come out terribly bad).

Thank once again to anyone who still reads my blogs and to anyone who has messaged me on Deviantart and the facebook page with your opinions. It`s always a big help...
(and thanks for being patient with me since I`m quite slow right now).

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Small Manga Outfit designs!

I don`t use photoshop a lot since it simply frustrates the living hell out of me, an this is going to be a side thing for me and my boyfriend, David, to do together from now on!

David absolutely loves manga and anime, the same as me really, but he can draw some amazing characters in his free time... but he usually ends up screwing them up or getting annoyed and leaving them un-finished.
So, as a little side project for us both; he`s going to be creating characters for a story we where planning on writing together on Wattpad, and since he struggles with clothes and designing simple outfits for the characters i will be doing that from now on. So you guys are probably going to see a lot of random characters appearing on here in the future, but the ones i`ve done on photoshop aren`t the series ones and are mainly just practice for me (for now anyways).

So David draws the head and a faint outline of the body and what position it should be in; then i just go over the top and do some small but simple designs for those characters kind of clothing. Most of them aren`t very good, it`s actually my first time at designing any sort of clothing for any sort of character; so if anything i`m quite nervous to see what people think of the designs that i`ve done and i really want some kind of feedback on all of them just to help me a little bit more.

We haven`t worked on many of them at the minute though, we`ve been busy leading up to the summer holidays and we`ve both been away; so it only means that he can send me a completed character that he`s finished and then send it me for photoshopping. But because i can`t see them in person i`ve gone wrong horribly on one of them (Hope he doesn`t hate me for that)!
I am finding it hard to do so far, but i`m hoping that when i have done a few more and i`ve got the hang of designing simple outfits, i should be able to move on to more detailed and bigger designs for the bigger characters that David gives me to do.

On the left hand side are the ones i`ve done so far, outfit wise. David also has the character BIO`s for them and what kind of clothing i can work on next for them. Hopefully we can use more characters like these in our story "limbo", that we really need to start working on soon since we`ve held it off for a long, long time now!

So from the top down we have; Nikki, she`s supposed to look after two other girls when we place her in Limbo. Then there is just a random character, i was thinking about having him as a trouble maker kind of character kind of like a person others use to just go and o what they want him to do... Obviously he gets paid but mostly lives on the streets. Then we have Ann-Marie, she`s one of the girls who Nikki looks after in Limbo. Then we have Wrath who is actually one of the many key characters to the story so i`m not going to say much about it... shushy :3

Around this bottom area (Because they`ll probably be moved when i upload this), are the characters above but they`ve been done on photoshop instead! Like i said, these ones aren`t the serious ones though (as i said in the beginning). 

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FIND ME ON DEVIANTART!

So just the other day, someone suggested to me that i should get Deviant Art and post some of my work o there to see if helps me get noticed a bit more... So i`m going to give it a try, but for now it`ll be a lot of old work that has already been posted here.
So i`ll leave the link here and you`ll probably see it down with all of the other links in future posts, but since it`s coming to the end of year 12... the art will slow down even more and fewer posts will appear here :( 

But check out the link below and keep up with me there too! 

http://amywatkinson.deviantart.com

New Project and brain storming!

So we`ve moved on to a new project straight away, this one is on the Flaws and Perfections or the Ideals and Compromises within a certain topic.

The teachers chose the project that the year 13 group have just finished off, so we`ve already got some initial ideas and starting points to work from right now. I`m going for a personal topic again, so i`ve been trying to avoid talking about the project to the teachers as much as the last few times as it turns out that the teachers didn`t even know about the matter. 

My project will be on the Flaws and Perfections in the mental health illness Psychosis. I`ve had the illness when i was seven and i still have it to this day; i had a breakdown when i was about 12 or 13 and that`s when my mum found out. I tried to keep it a secret as i thought that my own mum would think that i was crazy or insane.
But it got really bad so i had a little bit of a breakdown and that`s when my mum found out; we went to the doctors and got referred to CHAMS for a psychiatrist. I`ve been through so many psychiatrists and i`ve never stuck with one as they always give me someone else quite quickly. i`ve only ever stuck with one women called Lisa Kennedy, and she`s the only reason that i got even just a little bit of help; she gave me medication and helped e out in all sorts of ways. But it`s still been hard for me as the problem has always been there and hasn`t gone, yet. 

So this one is going to be the most personal one to me, I am looking forward to it but then again it`s hard to explain to the teachers and other students. I don`t want to make everyone feel awkward with me choosing such a personal project, but ehhh, i`m gonna do it anyways and i`m looking forward to it now. 

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Project 2, Final Piece and Extreme Disappointment...

So we`ve just finished out second project... But since the whole thing had to be done in an Exam, i`ve ended up being extremely disappointed with my final piece and i know that if it didn`t have to be done in a set time then i would of been able to make it look sooo much better than it did.

I`m not really looking forward to it going up in exhibition; if i could go back and make improvements to this, then i really would but obviously we only had two days to do the piece so i can no longer even touch it now. The only thing i`m aloud to do, and only when there`s a teacher around, is move it out of the way or move it so i can take pictures of it for my sketchbooks. 

 To start off with, i had the most basic background to work on top off. I just put some ink in a bottle and sprayed it all over the background, then i used stencils and sprayed bleach over the top off of it so it would turn yellowy. It`s sprayed all around the edges, under the shelves and randomly over the stencils, i didn`t plan this part out since it was just a very small first layer which i could then apply stuff over the top of.
So the first few layers i added where pretty simple; those square pieces of pale fabric are actually emulsion prints that i had done before hand and then just glued it on. I wasn`t too bothered about the way they looked because i knew that when everything was stuck on there and it was complete then it wouldn`t really matter as to what they looked like; they`re mainly just something to add a bit more extra bulk to the final thing.
Then the green/brown layer is simply crushed pastels and leaves mixed into a very thin paste with water and PVA glue... If it wasn`t thin enough then there would just be huge blobs of this disgusting looking paste all over the board. It all had to be the same consistency and it had to be thin enough so you could still see a bit of the colour coming through from the first layer that i had applied.

After that i used a thicker version of the paste to go around the small emulsion prints, but it didn`t look right to everyone else because the emulsion prints where so pale and the colours around them where too dark.
Then i added the pieces of fabric that went over the shelves; It was just plain white fabric when i first got hold of it. I didn`t use dyes on the fabric, i just bits of ink that then bled out into the fibres of the fabric which then saved me time. I also screen printed small feathers over the top first in grey, then over again with black so you could see them just a bit more since all of the ink and splashes had died out the colour a bit. The shelves where only small and couldn`t hole that much, but the fabric neatened up the finish on the wood as it was covered in scratches; i didn`t want to bother the DT technician that much so i just took some scraps for the shelves.
So i then added the small laser cut pieces i did underneath the shelf... Was very painful. I had to stick them on with hot glue and there was no room at all to lie my board down so i had to do it as it was leaning up against a cupboard. So i had to hot glue gun them on and hold them in place with my index finger which was then very sore afterwards.

In the end i added more cardboard cut out pieces then i was going too, two different canvas` with seals on them, flowers and small objects on the shelves. Everything on the piece that acts as a border to another object is done with natural materials and then the border to the actual final piece is done with glass and crushed wooden pieces.
Even the borders to the two small canvas` are done with small branches that where covered in blossom before i got my hands on them.

I actually hate this piece... Out of all of the work i`ve done out of my first two projects; i seriously just want to rip everything off of this specific piece. The design seemed better when i had drawn it out and when it was in my head, but when it was on the board something just didn`t seem right with it... I don`t know if it was the colour scheme or the layout in general that makes it look off, but something definitely isn`t right with the piece and i really don`t want this to go up in exhibition.



If you want to follow me on any other blogs or any other form of social media then follow these links down below to find out more about me and what i do!

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