My Printmaking Workshop Experience

Finally I can share my experience on Printmaking workshop. Its been a busy week so I found time on the weekend to write bout this workshop. So I decided to have some knowledge about printmaking and I found out this beautiful place in San Francisco. The name of this place is 3 Fish Studios  and I definitely recommend you to try their workshop or just visit their studio and see their amazing work. You can also buy their lovely prints!
This workshop was totally 2 days and 6 hours. It was a great way to understand how printmaking works. So I will explain my process step by step.

 First we put our image and two transparent papers on top of a material called Linoleum. Then we drew our image on it. After we take out the papers we can see the white lines on the Linoleum which will help us to carve in the areas that we want. The carving process is the most important part. You should decide which parts you want to make light and dark. Also It will be more interesting and fun to create some different patterns while carving the image. For example every shape can have different line qualities like short, long, different directions and closeness of the lines.

 After finishing the carving step as you see the image above I tried to show the steps. First I inked my Linoleum with a roller and used the a Printmaker press to print my image on a paper. As you see in the middle below image is the result ofmy print. Later I printed again and it become a lighter print. I used that lighter print and colored it with watercolor.

Here (above image) I wanted to show you that I learned something. I realized that carving part is crucial because if you don't be careful or do not understand it, the result can be bad. For example, in the first picture (above) you can see that the image is so ambiguous. I learned that if I want the shapes to be more clear and light, the carved lines should be close to each other and you should define the edges of the shapes clearly. So after I had the first ambiguous result I carved the Linoleum more in the way that I should have done. I never tried Printmaking before so it is totally normal to have this result. Anyway the last two images are my last prints. In the last one I did watercolor on the printed image. Hope you will like it! I really enjoyed this and hopefully in the future I can have more chances to try this again!

Fruit Characters

In the first image I wanted to show you my apple character sketches. So I chose the last character and tried to apply a different style. I will add more details after I finish all the fruits that I am going to design. After this character I will be sketching another fruit character. My aim is to make a poster of fruit characters. So stay tuned!

So I did some pear character sketches and I think I will choose the left bottom one. It is more fun, cute and unique. When I design my characters I combine with some different shapes that I see in the nature and objects. This way it becomes interesting and fun!

This time I tried a different way of technique. I am experimenting different ways of using texture on these fruits. It's a great way to understand and develop myself. I don't want to just stuck in one painting because I want to keep practicing the use of texture. This will help me to understand this new way of painting. It is fun to see my development right?!

My Experience in Global Talent Search 2014

This is the first time that I am entering an illustration competition. It is organized by Lilla Roger's Studio and you can find the link to the competition site at here http://www.lillarogers.com/global-talent-search  .The theme was Little Terrarium Wall Art. When I learned the theme I got so excited and happy! Because I love Terrariums and I have two of them which I care so much:) So as you see my two terrariums are on the top photo.

I want to explain how I approached this theme. First I needed to understand the plants to have an idea and come up with an interesting, fun and whimsical concept. When I searched the plants I learned that Terrariums have very different plants then the other ones that we know. So I started to draw some of them to analyze their shapes and colors. 

After understanding terrarium plants I decided to sketch the ideas that come to my mind. I tried to not force myself and be relaxed as much as possible. So I listened a calm music and let it help me to draw in a natural way. The sketching moment is the most fun part for me because I feel so full of ideas and it makes me feel like I can use all my feelings with the project. There is no pressure, it is a way of expressing yourself! In this process mostly I laugh at the things I draw because I come up with funny ideas and this makes me so happy. Using art to communicate with yourself is the best part of art! 

So I wrote many words which related to this subject. I asked myself different questions like what does it mean to me? What do I feel about it? What if I combine this and another subject will it be fun? ... etc. This really helps me so much. So I tried to find different concepts by thinking in different perspectives. In the end I realized that nature is a way of healing myself. I asked myself why people buy these small plants to their home. It come to me that we are so far away from nature and in this busy life we need peace in other words we want to feel we are alive (human). Nature is the purest meditation for me, so I thought I can combine terrarium and meditation (yoga). And remind people that we need nature and we can connect to ourselves with it. But I also felt it is sad in a way that people are trying to connect to the nature in this small form. I think we should go to parks so we will really be in the nature. Because of the life circumstances (ex:being busy) we are creating small worlds to connect with the most natural things in life. How sad is that! Anyway I felt so much and learned so much through this project. 

The third step was to finally start to work on the piece. As you see I have gathered some of my process of my digital painting(above). I had hard time to find a good word or words for this piece but in the end I come up with something that satisfied me. For me this was the first time to write on a illustration. I never designed a typography before. But this was a great experience to learn the way of making sense with the type and the whole art. The second thing that I struggled was the background. I wanted it to be simple and not distracting the other elements in the piece so I tried to handle it with subtle changes in the colors. 

Characters were the most fun part of this piece. I got inspired from plants to design these cute fun characters. I wanted them to be the ones that will remind us to show that nature is so important for our health.

This project was the first round of the competition. I am not sure but I read that there are 999 people that entered this competition. Next tuesday Lilla Roger's Studio will announce 50 people who have been selected to continue to this competition. Totally there is 3 steps of this competition. But they will exhibit all the entries in the online gallery. I hope I can pass this first round but if it doesn't happen it doesn't matter for me because this was my first attempt and I learned so much from it. It is an amazing feeling to work on a theme with different people. This is so motivational! Thank you so much Lilla Roger's Studio for this great opportunity! Good luck to everyone who have entered... By the way my final entry is the last image (below), hopefully you will like it too! 

Light and Surface Color Study

This is the second assignment form Schoolism that I worked on. This time I worked on different colored objects with complex light scheme. I learned so much about how different colors react to each other with two different light sources. Also I had so much fun by creating abstract fun shapes. Before I was so confused about this subject and my paintings were becoming muddy. But know I feel more clear about it. It really effects my paintings. I am so happy and satisfied for taking these extremely helpful class.

My ICON 8 Experience

Last week I went to ICON8 which is an Illustration conference. This photo (above) is combined by ICON8 and Souther Salazar's art work. His work influenced me so much so I wanted to show how much I loved his work.

Art work by Souther Salazar . He is so amazing! I love how he uses nature elements and art tools together. You should check his other works too.

  

This is Souther Salazar's studio. In the future myaim is to have this kind of work place too! I believe
work places are so important because you spend all your time in there. It should be organized in a creative way.

LAIKA (The Boxtrolls) _ Speaker: Nelson Lowry

personal work by Nelson Lowry

                                       
Nelson Lowry's Studio

Presented by Lilla Rogers's studio

Presented by Lilla Rogers's studio

friends from ICON8 / photo by Johnny Acurso

Roadshow: An event that Illustrators show and sell their work.

My favorite quotes by Lilla Rogers.


My Thoughts About ICON8 Convention

I am so satisfied with this convention. There were so many variety of Illustrators that explained their experiences, artworks, studio environment, and how they handle work and play together. The theme of the ICON8 was ''Work and Play''. I learned that most of the Illustrators were working and having fun at the same time. Some of them are doing their job and working on their own projects in their extra time. Generally, this convention showed me that it is so important to give time to your own art because that will help you to grow, discover yourself, and stand on your own feet with your own job (brand).

Secondly, I saw that most of the successful Illustrators / Artists have so many sketchbooks and they are really passion in their personal works. They create and discover things through their experience. For me the most influential and sensational artist was Souther Salazar because he has this amazing way of organizing and collecting things. For example he collects all sorts of things (example: recycle materials) and puts them in different boxes. Also he has many different shapes from paper or other paper like materials to use it in his future projects and he puts them in different files. He is so creative and fun! Another thing is he explained a project that he did with his wife. The project called ''The Trading Tortoise'' which is a community art installation. They traveled in America to collect stories and objects from the communities.

Lastly,  Lilla Rogers talked about her studio. It is an Illustration agency representing artists for surface design. I am so happy that I have learned this part of Illustration. I think surface design looks so fun. After I came back home I looked at their website and learned that they have this competition between Illustrators. So I thought I should definitely try this. If you want to be in this competition just click on the bottom image(if the image doesn't work just use this link--> www.lillarogers.com/global-talent-search ).

In conclusion, I loved this ICON8 experience because you get to meet different people with the same passion and learn their experience in their art life. I was so curios how people handle to work and play, so this conference helped me so much about that. I feel more hopeful and motivated! Thank you ICON so much! I really recommend everyone to go there next time. I will also try to make this my tradition.

Light Study

This is a study that I have worked. I am taking a class from Sam Neilson in Schoolism and it is so helpful. I am learning so much from him. So for the first practice I tried to understand how the light effects the form. Also I added some texture which gave a more interesting look.

Caricature Studie

This is not related to my other project that i posted before (the mystery of the pomegranate garden). I just wanted to create a character. I think this character can be from 1970s so I got inspired from Turkish film artists in that period. Also I thought it will be nice to give a old feeling by using old photo effect. I still fill somethings missing. So maybe I will try to put photo texture on it so it will really look like a photo. I am planing to do more characters from old period its so fun especially getting inspired from old Turkish movies!:D