Rainbow-fro!

"Someday we'll find it
The Rainbow Connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me"
(Kermit the Frog)

I am a little obsessed with colour at the moment...

I was recently hired to create a logo and business collateral for a small business selling all kinds of art and homewares. The brief made mention to water colour paint. So I went and bought myself a new water colour paint brush and set up a station of exploration and play. I made quite a delightful mess splattering colour on the parchment. I ended up with dozens of splotches and splashes and drips. Was so much fun and the end result looked great! I was so taken with the process that I have spent the last couple of nights mixing water colour creations with my drawing. 


This picture was a late night doodle to unleash the colour within!




And here is another little illustration I created last night that also mixed my water colour drips with digital drawing:

I think the above was influenced by my morning exercise under the Autumn trees here in Melbourne! I am also reading Lord of the Rings at the moment and there is mention of an Elven kingdom where the trees turn gold and hold their leaves until the green new leaves are already in place. Only then will the golden leaves drop. Very fanciful!

In keeping with this new delight of colour, I have a new design up on my Red Bubble store!
Available on t-shirts. Organic, regular fit, babies, kids, v-neck, 3/4 sleeves - all sizes, many many colours to choose from too!
Also available on device cases (phones and tablets) and stickers and cards and prints.

I call it Rainbow-fro.

You can purchase your own copy here

one two caribou!

"Courage and willingness to just go for it, whether it is a conversation or a spontaneous trip or trying new things that are scary - it is a really attractive quality"
(Alanis Morissette)

So it begins! I have just opened my first ever online shop!

Introducing.....

one two caribou - Original Prints by Lou Endicott

Here is a screen grab of my little online shop:

 













 
A few months ago I was asked by a Facebook friend if I sold prints. My answer was "Not yet" - which sounded better than no! I had for some unknown reason had the phrase "one two caribou" stuck in my head over the last few months. I love a good rhyme and a bit of nonsense so the catchiness of the phrase stuck. So when it was time to name my shop the words just fell out onto the screen.

It's been a little bit of a challenge to open this new store. On a student budget, test prints and paper are worth as much as my weekly shopping bill - so it was a risk to put the money forward before having an actual sales.

But I decided that it was worth the risk. I have belief in what I do and have had such incredible feedback from friends and strangers alike since starting this illustration journey. It was time to step it up a notch and to see myself as a professional and begin to play in the market place. 

So far, I have sold five prints. FIVE! This may not seem a lot to seasoned shop owners, but to me (only three days in) it's a cause for celebration. My best seller so far is my Back Stroke Maiden (whose creation I shared some months ago here on my blog). She has remained a favourite with me - and obviously others like her two :-)

Here she is on her side, just enjoying the water....

I go back to college on Monday after a 3 week break (which has been heavenly!) I am excited to be learning new things again but also a little nervous as this term my design course heads into the direction of multi media and coding. Not my strong point. 

But I have to trust that if I don't know how to do something I will have the courage to just ask for assistance.

Recently I decided to be a little brave and contact a Melbourne illustrator for advice and tips on working in the industry. You can check out her beautiful work here:Laura Wood Illustrations  

She most graciously replied to my email with lots of advice and even gave me the name of her printers (which I have used for my shop). I subscribe to her blog and a few days ago received a blog entry that mentioned she gets contacted by students from time to time and she wrote up even MORE tips and advice. Legendary. I hope that when I am working full time in my field my door will always be open to share what I have learnt. 

Among her pearls of advice on her recent blog posting was this one:
Where should a person start if they want to pursue this career?

Regarding starting out, my first tip for someone that is about to get out of college is to not wait until you finished college to promote yourself or find the first commissions. An art degree doesn't make any different in the illustration world, so my advice is to start now, immediately, do not wait any more time to actively start behaving like an illustrator and look for work, commissions and possible clients to contact. 

I would highly recommend you to get a proper professional website (behance is good to share stuff with other peers, but not so much as a professional window for your work to show to a client). Having one helped me enormously. 

Then you could start emailing the clients you would like to work with. A nice brief email introducing yourself with a link to your new shiny website will do. 

Most of them might not reply but some will do! And those might become your first clients...

I particularly resonated with this as it is on the same track that I feel I have been on the last few months. Apart from this blog I have a professional portfolio on The Loop, a Facebook page, an instragram account and even Twitter (though this last one is still a little confusing!)

I am feeling like I am on the right path. It's a bit rocky and the going is uphill, but the view is exhilarating and every bit of encouragement from my friends and peers helps.

I hope that wherever you are today the going is easy and the view is a delight.

- Lou

IDEAS and INSPIRATION

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” 
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

What a week it has been for this full time student of design!

The pressure has been stepped up with assignments due every day this week. Lucky for me one of those assignments has been to draw everyday for 21 days. For this assignment we were asked to choose an illustrator we admire who's style is something that resonates with our own in some way. The first week we were asked to study the artists work and make direct copies (full compositions or sections if we chose). The next seven days we were to combine imagery of two or more of the illustrators pieces. And the last seven (my favourite part) was to draw inspiration from the illustrator and create our own pieces.

After an extensive search and bookmarking dozens of sites and reading through books and editorials and asking friends and fellow art makers for recommendations I found my artist to study. Her name is Sophie Blackall. She is an Australian who now lives in Brooklyn, New York. She has illustrated many children's books (and won awards) and recently had a book published called "Missed Connections". I purchased this book (it became an instant treasure) and truly set the wheels of inspiration in motion. Not only are the pictures delightfully unique, engaging and just so plain beautiful to me, but the subject matter was the stuff of pure idea generation. The illustrations are inspired from an online column called Missed Connections. Here, people leave messages after having a fleeting moment with a stranger that got their heart racing. In posting, they hope this small connection can turn into something else (if indeed the object of their affection reads the column and chooses to respond!) Check out her work here: Sophie Blackall  And by all means, purchase her beautiful book!

I decided to run with the theme of this lovely artist's work and turned to my own town for inspiration. Those who live in Melbourne would be familiar with the mX - a free daily publication handed out at peak hour at inner city train stations. There is a column in the paper called "Here's looking at you".  On this site commuters post up little notes to state a moment of affection they had with a stranger in the hope the stranger will read and contact the publication so that the two can get together to explore what may be. So I went through my newspaper cupboard (yes, I have a cupboard of newspaper to put under the kitty litter tray) to pour over these little love notes. And the inspiration flowed right from here. I chose to create my own original pieces with water colour (no digital work).

Here are my seven illustrations:

I enjoyed creating these illustrations so much that I decided set up a Facebook page for my illustrations.  Please check it out and let me know what you think: Lou Endicott - Illustrator  

(I should mention I have an Instagram account now too! Cats Are Baby Dragons (Inspiration and Illustrations by Lou) )

I have a large community on Facebook that I regularly connect with so it made sense to create a page with my illustrations to share for those who check their accounts daily. The response has been very encouraging to say the least! Many kind words have been shared and I am feeling more and more like this path is the path I am meant to be on.

It's such a beautiful feeling to be actively pursuing a dream as an illustrator and sharing this with others. After all, an illustrator is only an illustrator when they can engage an audience and create a response. Until then, I am simply drawing for my own satisfaction. Which is nice and all, but not the full gamut of the power I feel the pencil can wield. I feel in sharing my work and my dream the power of manifestation can only grow...

I hope wherever you are and whatever you are doing, you are honouring your own dreams and sharing them with those who recognise the magic that you have within.

- Lou

LITTLE IDEAS WITH LOTS OF HEART

DOODLE IS NOT A DIRTY WORD

"Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes shine to the stars. Enthusiasm is the sparkle in your eyes, the swing in your gait. The grip of your hand, the irresistible surge of will and energy to execute your ideas"
(Henry Ford)

I am a huge believer in the power of doodling. That is drawing with no other purpose other than for the feeling of drawing itself. You never know what might appear. My enthusiasm for this process is growing every day and every week. I love seeing people at train stations, or cafes or restaurants going through this process of mind alteration. Because I know that it has value.

Here is an interesting TED talk on the power of doodling: Sunni Brown: Doodlers, unite!

So I thought I would share the process of a doodle I did yesterday in class. The class was an interesting one. All about the advertising campaigns and strategies. So my intent of doodling was not to relieve boredom but to let creative ideas flow through. At the end of the class I had a meeting with a group of other students to discuss an assignment on promoting a product. By then my ideas were really starting to flow and I by the end of our meeting I had drawn up preliminary sketches for billboards for this new product.

I think the initial doodle that I did in class - which had nothing to do with the assignment, just put my creativity into first gear and allowed ideas to enter into my mind quicker. When I came back to the doodle later while on the train home, I decided to add in ink. I lost track of time and space drawing the hair at this point. I have to draw more hair! So much fun! I was pretty happy with this sketch by now. So much so that I decided to come home and add colour and an environment to this doodle.  Here is the process:

The pencil doodle:

And then the train doodle (adding ink and pencil shadows):

And then added colour:

I could have left it at that. I liked the pop of red against the cool green. But I decided to put her in an environment suited to her body pose.
Here she is:

I call her "Backstroke Maiden". I think she's rather lovely. Peaceful and going with the flow.