Friday 2 December 2011

go with your first idea...

Went to Chris Haughton's excellent "Digital Handmade" show at So Far The Future Gallery last night with my good bud Phil ... well, to be honest we ended up gate crashing the private view, but everyone was very nice about it all. Chris even let us drink his beer and bend his ear when he no doubt had more important things to do.

The digital illustrations translated perfectly into the fair trade crafted rugs, lamps and soft toys and, the icing on the cake, there were advanced copies and artwork for Chris' new book "Oh No George!" which manages to pull off superbly that difficult trick of being as good as his applauded first book A Bit Lost. Another book for my groaning shelves come March next year!

While there I got the opportunity to look over the rug design competition entries and I'm kicking myself on two counts. My choice of colours didn't print out at all well so my 3 illustrations didn't really look much at all when viewed off the screen and up on the wall, and there was also an excellent cert sure fire winner, a flattened 'bear skin rug' design. I should have gone with my gut and worked up my initial sketch idea for a tiger skin rug design (and I also had a notion for a polar bear too believe it or not...) instead of / as well as my other 3. Hey ho, a lesson learned. It was just a lot of fun plotting pixels and taking part.

In conclusion what have we learned today... your first idea might be your strongest and, if you're free between now and Dec 7th go and see Chris Haughton's Digital Handmade exhibition!

3 comments:

bee said...

Don't kick yourself too hard! All your designs are really great AND really clever. I love how left-of-centre they are and totally original ideas too. Bearskin/Tigerskin are great ideas too but also a little... well.. obvious! It's true that sometimes the most obvious idea can be the best but then, where's the fun in sticking to what's 'safe' all the time?! Much more interesting to push the envelope and think outside the box! I still think your Dodo kicks arse :)

Phil Toodle said...

The bear/tiger rug is indeed a good idea. But as bee said, where's the fun in being obvious? I seem to recall that when we left, you whale and fish rug was nudging ahead of the pack, fingers crossed for the win.

Alexiev said...

Great draff of tigger...

Best wishes from Buenos Aires...

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