Join my head

Monday, February 25, 2013

"You Can Get It If You Really Want" (Jimmy Cliff)

Hi everyone,
so my graduation project developed into something bigger. I got it published and it will be in dutch bookstores in may. It's called "Op kamers. Schoonmaken hoort erbij!" I am incredibly happy that everything turned out so well and I am greatful that my publisher De vier windstreken/Meander has enough faith in my project to put it out there! I will keep you updated about anything that happens in the coming months.
To preorder my book (in dutch) please click here.
Thanks to everyone's support & patience for me in the process of making :)

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

“Do or do not... there is no try.” Yoda (Did I use that already?)

So finally I finished my studies and are now Bachelor of Arts in Illustration. It is a nice feeling not having to go to uni anymore but what I am experiencing right now is kind of a hole I fell into after everything was over. I couldn't be bothered to touch a pencil and start a new project although I have loads of time for my own projects, finally. Some may call it a relaxation after graduation but it feels more like a post-graduate-depression. I was longing for something to get me started and on my feet again when I read a blogpost of a dear friend of mine. Rosi posted about a project that's called Post Art Exchange, where you make and alter postcards from other participants to send in a circle until everyone has altered every card and in the end, you get a card that 10 total strangeres designed. I am not explaining it so well, so here the link to the project.
Run 2 the Wild
So I started off, took my colourpencils, made a card and sent it off to the adress given to me. I already received the first card to alter. Unfortunately, I failed to take a picture because I was on holidays and had the feeling that I was quite late with sending it, so I hurried up :)
So now I will receive a postcard each week that I can be creative with and I am in a circle of people who are waiting for postcards too, so I can't slack off :)
I am really thanking everyone who participates and of course Courtney who started the whole thing. I already feel more comfortable with creating something, even if it's only small things that I contribute to every card, it is a fresh start for me and brings my head back to my creativity.
Here is a first glance of the card that I made. I will keep posting about this project and I am very much looking forward to the next card that ends up in my mailbox!

Oh and btw, not everything is as bad as it sounds, I got a publisher for my graduation project. It is an illustrated guide for students to make life easier in a flatshare and hopefully it will be in dutch bookstores by may 2013. So that's a thing, huh? :)

Friday, May 18, 2012

Illustration Friday "Sight"

Submission for Illustration Friday: "Sight"

Thursday, March 29, 2012

On my own account...

Hello everyone!
For my graduation project, I am writing and illustrating a book about living in a house/flatshare. For this, I am collecting funny, disgusting, daily, mind-boggling and true stories about experiences with people you are or were living with. It would be great if you could help me out to make a collection of stories, pictures and notes that can only be found in a flatshare. Please join my group on facebook if you have a story to tell! https://www.facebook.com/groups/413268815354695/
Thanks for reading and even more thanks for posting your story! :)

Hallo alle zusammen!
Für meine Abschlussarbeit (bachelor) schreibe und illustriere ich ein Buch über Mitbewohner und das (un)freiwillige Zusammenleben in einem Haus oder Wohnung. Dafür sammele ich zur Zeit lustige, eklige, tägliche, unglaubliche und wahre Geschichten über Erlebnisse von Leuten, mit denen ihr zusammen wohnt oder gewohnt habt. Es wäre super wenn Ihr mir helfen könntet diese Geschichten, Bilder und Briefe zusammen zu tragen, so dass ich sie für mein Projekt benutzen kann. Bitte kommt in die facebook Gruppe, wenn ihr eine Geschichte oder Bilder für mich habt!https://www.facebook.com/groups/413268815354695/
Vielen Dank für eure Mithilfe!

stories from the kitchen sink

Monday, March 5, 2012

There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep. (Homer)

That should say enough. The blog is back and I am still on my way to be an illustrator.
I was living in London for 4 months to do an internship in an illustration agency. It was a great time, I met a lot of awesome people and the internship taught me about the commercial ways of illustration. Now I am back in Maastricht to focus on my graduation. My studys will be finished in July and I have to make some decisions what to do afterwards. Apart from being properly scared about the things to come, I am positively excited about the changes, new places and challenges that are about to dawn.
I will update my projects, graduation and other interesting stuff here on a regular basis (hrhr).
Check out my "latest" drawings (up to a year old) and comment if you like.
There is also a homepage. At the moment, it's online via my boyfriend's page (who made it) It needs a little more work to get rid of some bugs, but I like it a lot and hope you do, too!
http://jorisbruijnzeels.com/steffi/

See you soon and thanks for reading!

colourpencil

gouache & colourpencil

colourpencil

digital Portrait

Monday, February 14, 2011

"Imagine how good you feel, when it's all done!"

It's all done! The last three weeks were crazy, busy and productive. I had a good working schedule and I managed to finish everything in time, what makes me really proud. It's the first time, that I actually think I did a good job with concept, ideas and time management. Sure, there are a lot of things to learn still, but it came out a lot better this time, than before.
I was very stressed through this time, so I'm glad it's over, and a nice sunday trip to the sea with my boyfriend was just what I needed and gave me back a lot of energy! (I was standing barefoot in the sea and it was freaking cold but awesome!) Thanks for taking me there! <3

I still have some revisions to do and I plan on finishing them as quick as possible, but I got all my grades for this block and they were pretty satisfying for me :)

Here I show all my final results, starting with some small assignments for illustration class.

The first two Illustrations were for an article about people who use street language to have a secret way to communicate without everyone knowing what they are talking about (especially not the police), so in the first picture I tried to show the language as a wall between people who feel the urge to use a secret language and "normal" people. It's drawn with watercolor and color pencils.

For this illustration we had more time and my idea was to show the difference between street-language people and normal people. I wanted the words to be the silhuettes of the people, the difference between the languages are shown in reading direction and color. The use of color can be improved, so the illustration can talk more clearly.

This poster, I already showed before here, is a poster for a fictional book festival for kids.

Here are some pictigrams I made for the enhancement of communication between parents and their autistic children (It's about PDD NOS, a form of autism).
The pictograms show daily routines. They shall help the kids to make a connection between the order to do something and the reference to themselves. I decided to leave them in grayscale, so the parents can color them in with their children, to make the pictures more personal.

In my last blogpost, I already showed sketches of the book assignment we had to do.
This is what came out in the end. They are colored with polychromos color pencils and I edited little details in color and lines in photoshop.
Nevertheless, I decided to make the final version black and white, because it fitted better to my concept to make a 70s style detective novel book layout. It is printed on yellowish Kasakapaper on my own printer and because of it's absorbance of color, the pictures integrate in the layout very nice and like I pictured it.

some of my original colored drawings

ready printed book in black and white on Kasaka and Dummy paper

Drawing Class Assignment "A letter to a friend"
The wallpapers I designed are a letter to myself to bring the monsters (in my head) to a purpose, show their mass and force them into an order.
I wanted the design to be harmonic and remind a bit of old Bierdermeier Wallpaper.
The wallpapers are not printed in original size because of my budget, but who knows, maybe someday I win the lottery and my wallpaper goes into production. :)
In the end I screen-printed two of my monsters, to learn the technique of screen printing in different color layers. Screen print is a good technique to work graphical and neat but also experiment with the effect of color and different layers.

Wallpaper Designs

Wallpaper Details

Monster Screenprints

Finally - an end for this time! I'm proud of what I've accomplished and I thank all my friends who didn't go crazy over my unsocial behaviour, moodiness and tiredness. Thanks for being so patient with me! <3

At this point I have some ideas for new projects, drawings, illustrations, stuff I wanna get better in and also working for my studys will change a bit because we do projectwork now.
I'll show new stuff as soon as I produced something nice, so have a look from time to time! :)

*If you want to have a screen print of one of my monsters, leave a comment below and I'll contact you :)

Sunday, January 30, 2011

"Not the whole forest - just one leaf." - P.L. Travers

I need a better desk! My back hurts and I was only drawing for half a day. Desk-Donations welcome :)
So now I'm busy sketching for my illustration assignment where we have to make four illustrations for David Sedaris' short story "True Detective" (Sedaris remembers the days his mother and sister played armchair detective, and the odd crime wave that hit their own home.)
I'm trying to do something different to what I'm usually doing - sitting on the couch and doing sudoku. Just kidding! I created a main character and I let him do stuff :) It's new to me to make comic-like drawings but when I see that I'm creating something that looks like the picture in my head, I wanna go on and on and it satisfies me and keeps me drawing (although my back HURTS!!!) but today, drawing felt so easy and it gave me a sense of achievement. Here's hoping, it stays like that for a while and I maybe cleared another hurdle (can you say that? I can...!) in my learning process.
See what my teacher thinks about my sketches tomorrow and then I have a week to finish the assignment. Have to layout the illustrations with the text and bind a book. First finish the illustrations and maybe I get some help with layouting because I'm not too good in making a choice for a professional looking typeface :)
Furthermore I'll spend the next to weeks in the graphic workshop at school to silk screen some monster wallpapers I made for drawing class - it's honestly the best place to be in stressful times!
Enough for today, maybe I do some stretching instead of sketching to make friends with my back again... (what a crappy word joke...)
I'm happy! :)
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