Today’s Shoot it, Sketch it offering is based on a photo I took on my way to LUXcity last year. For one night, Christchurch was illuminated by 16 light installations created by architecture and design students from across New Zealand. The event provided an opportunity to visit a part of the central city that many of us hadn’tseen since the earthquake in February 2011. An hour before the event, the Great Airbrush Artist in the Sky painted a breathtakingly beautiful sunset and stole the show.
City Lights – mixed media, 2013.
City Lights – chalk pastel and tinted charcoal, 210 x 297 mm, 2013.
Lilac Wolf NZ logo design, competition entry, 2012.
I entered this design in a logo competition a few months ago. The brief was to create a logo for dog spa Lilac Wolf NZ that was positive and memorable. The concept behind the brand is that every dog dreams of feeling like a wolf and being treated like a king.
My design shows Lilac Wolf surrounded by bubbles. He imagines they are craters on the moon… or snow falling in the forest. He is howling with happiness — or is he blowing/chasing bubbles?
These are the initial sketches. I really liked the texture of #1 but I decided to work with #2 because of the body shape.
The scanned sketch became a vector trace (flipped and altered slightly).
The traced fur was used as a guide for the coloured vector shading.
I deleted the original fur, continued to edit the shading and the bubbles, and gave the moon a gradient fill. I then redesigned the fur and tweaked a few things for the final logo.
P.S. For those who are curious, I’ve just been told that there was no winning design in the competition.
LUXcity #1 – with the old Design & Arts College in the background – Christchurch, 2012.
LUXcity #2 – Christchurch, 2012.
LUXcity #3 – Christchurch, 2012.
These photographs were taken at Luxcity, an event that brightened up the skies of central Christchurch last October. The event provided a great opportunity to visit a part of the city that many of us hadn’t seen since the earthquake on February 22nd, 2011 (yes, that was two years ago today). For one night, the city was illuminated by 16 light installations created by architecture and design students from all over New Zealand.
Getting these photos was quite a tricky undertaking. My camera couldn’t really cope with the lighting and even if I had remembered to take my tripod (!), I would have struggled to use it because the streets were so crowded. Besides which, it was more about being there than getting the shot of the century.
One of the main reasons I wanted to go to LUXcity was to see my old design school again. A beautiful Art Deco building in the heart of our munted CBD, it has been badly damaged by the quakes and faces an uncertain future. Design & Arts College has now relocated.
LUXcity #4 – Christchurch, 2012.
LUXcity #5 – Christchurch, 2012.
This is me getting a bit arty with some of the shots: capturing the shadow of a bystander in #4 and making a reasonably successful composite of two photos in #5. Thank you, Christchurch, for a brilliant evening.
This week’s Shoot it, Sketch it painting is based on the photo I used for last week’s post. When I decided to paint this beautiful little house, watercolour and ink seemed to be the obvious choice. Then my husband asked for an acrylic version. It turned out to be quite a challenge for me because I didn’t see it as an acrylic painting — at least not at first. But who am I to disappoint my biggest fan?
What a week I picked to use acrylics though! The weather in Christchurch has been rather warm and so the paint has been drying on the palette really quickly. It’s given a whole new meaning to the term ‘dry brush’! Click on the image(s) below to see more detail.
I posted the artwork for Tim Gallant’s business card a couple of months ago but needed to finalise a few details before completing the design. Tim has a longbow-making business and is a talented drum teacher/musician.
The two finger salute included in the design is a gesture sometimes referred to as the Longbowman Salute and may or may not date back to the 1415 Battle of Agincourt. I drew the ‘salute’ as a medieval gauntlet and added a couple of other elements to create a logo that is, I hope, more humorous than offensive. The colours and layout were inspired by the Gallant Family coat of arms.
The background (below) was serendipity at its best. I painted it on a piece of nothing-special cardboard using some acrylic paint left over from another project. I thought it would be quite a smooth surface but, instead, the paint accentuated every little bump and ridge…but it scanned beautifully. I tweaked the colours in Photoshop to better suit the business card and voilà. Where would we be without happy accidents?
Windermere, Akaroa – ink and watercolour, 210 x 295 mm, 2013
Windermere, Akaroa – ink on watercolour paper, 2013
Windermere historic house, Rue Lavaud, Akaroa, 2012
I drew a quick sketch of this historic Akaroa house a couple of years ago (see below) and thought it might be fun to revisit it — figuratively and literally. The photo was taken a few months ago with this Shoot it, Sketch it project in mind. Windermere was built as a boarding house in 1877.
Akaroa – sketches, 2010
Can you spot the subtle difference? The house no longer has a chimney (the earthquakes that have rattled the Canterbury region over the last couple of years are probably to blame — an awful lot of chimneys and brick buildings were damaged in 2011).
Anna Cull ~ Art & Music 