Myself in 10 Words or Less

Nerd, Tattoo Doodler, Digital Art Monkey, Social Media Fiend

Day 11: Sell yourself in 10 words or less. Basically my Twitter bio, it's the best way to describe my self in a quick way and hopefully get most of my skills across in a quirky, fun way ;-)

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You Can't Take The Sky

I have a tee up for voting on Qwertee and couldn't be more excited! who knows, one day I might be among the lucky folk who get theirs printed.

If you feel like adding your vote, it would be VERY much appreciated :D - Vote here

After some feedback on the design, I think I will take out the stars at the top so it can be placed better on the T shirt. 

Woudl love to know what you think, so please leave a comment below. You can also catch up with what I'm up to on the Facebook page: DaisyBisley on Facebook

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Sketchbook - Fun & Potatos

I thought I'd share a quick doodle I did last night!

Was feeling a bit blue this week and needed some cheering up. After reading 2 inspiring posts by fellow bloggers Gisele and Leanne, I picked myself up, found a funny post on my other half's Rival Animation Facebook group and drew this.

I have to say, I've not been happier with one of my own creations for a while. I've been happy with commissions, but not my personal work. I find this amazing, that something so daft and silly can make me a happy bunny again!

Happy bunny (Photo credit: charenton)

Any ideas on what I could do with my new potato character? Leave a comment or Tweet me.

Exciting news and Nervous Days!

Haven't posted in a while due to many reasons. The main one being stressing out about an application for TRC Media's Gen Up Programme. I had to write 2 essays and spent ages on them due to the fact I hadn't written an essay in 3 years. I worte sooooo many drafts of each one and was so nervous when I handed the application in.
Anyhoo, I was called for an interview and sat in a corner rocking back and forth for the 4 days after it waiting for an answer. (Just a bit of an exaggeration!)  In the end I got a place and couldn't be more excited about starting on the 5th September. It's going to be great fun and such a great opportunity, woot!!  I've wishing for an opportuinty like this for ages now and it's finally happened, so happy! (cheesy I know, but it feels great!)

Will post a few wee bits and pieces about it if I have time over the 5 weeks the programme runs, I'll be taking up my driving lessons again at the weekend and doing some freelance while I go so it will be a busy month, but I'm not complaining :D

Another reason is due to creative block, well sort of. I've been suffering a bit from block for the past wee while, so I decided to buy a good book to help me over come it. I found The Creative Workshop by David Sherwin and from the reviews figures it was the best one. I gave the intro chapter a good read and about 2 weeks ago gave the 1st challenge a shot.
Well.....  it worked! The first challenge is to brand yourself/your company and as I was looking to redesign the Daisy*B sites I thought it was the best way to start. The book limits your brainstorming to a certain time and it really does challenge you. I came up with a new logo and font style for Daisy*B and haven't been able to stop.

 

 Some sketches from my 30 min brainstorm

New Daisy*B Design logo

 I've been redesigning the site for the past week and doing it all myself. I've learned how to use Serif WebPlus, furthered my knowledge of Illustrator and, most importantly, started desgning and drawing for myself again! It feels great and it couldn't have come at a better time, right before going on the training programme.

You might have noticed the new blog layout too, well this is based on the new site I'm desiging. I was going to roll out everything at once, but today I got too excited and had to get the blog done to go with this post. Properly Geeking out about it lol!

Feeling really positive about things today, which I hope will last. I also hope that this is the start of some good things for me, my business and for me & my other half... Fingers crossed

Thanks for reading

Daisy*B

xXx

Adventures in Jewellery Making

I had a breakthrough with some designs for my jewellery ideas while on the train to visit my Mum in  Leicestershire. So I came back and got stuck in making them.

Unfortunately something went wrong with the first batch and then again with the 2nd batch, but I got 5 good ones lol!  I keep telling myself that practice makes perfect and its all about experimentation they're not ready for sale yet and the ideas keep popping into my brain faster than I can sketch them, but I'm determined to perfect this and get them up on my Folksy or Misi site.

Behold the reject pile... I think it had something to do with the paper so I think I'll buy some heavier weight paper. (and maybe let the glue set lol) 

This one was an accident after it had set slightly I dropped a pen and it got stuck. Once I lifted it up the resin came with it and kind of swirled over the top. It looks a mess, but I'm sure if I did it a little artistically it might work with a design.

 

The good ones came out ok. I still need to perfect them and possibly print the designs off at a higher resolution.

 

These are only 2 of the designs I've done, but I have a few more with different collections in mind too. I've also got some ideas with using shrink plastic as well, so fun times ahead.

As for my seminars and workshops. I've got  this week. One tomorrow on becoming self employed and 2 on Thursday for business planning and marketing, I'm really looking forward to them. The first one I went to was a business awareness one, basically designed to make us aware of everything that could crop up while starting up. It was really interesting although quite scary lol.

Got loads going ont his week heading to the 3 workshops and then at the weekend myself and Peter are heading to the Merchant City for the 3 Years to GoSports Challenge for the Commonwealth Games, there's a possibility that Peter's work for the Tontine Building will be on display too which is exciting!! Then we're heading to the Britannia Bazaar in the The Britannia Panopticon Music Hall, a building I've never been in, but am looking forward to after seeing the website and hearing about it. So many things to see in Glasgow :D

 The Britannia Panopticon Music Hall

Rita Vectors & Jewellery Class

So I finished my Rita Hayworth portrait, yay! It was fun to finally get stuck in to some serious vectoring in Illustrator as I've wanted to do the portrait for ages, not too sure about the hair though, but practice makes perfect I guess.

I also designed a tee for my brothers birthday, he hasnt seen it yet, but I dont think he'll be reading this so I think its ok lol!

He's a musician with a love of old sounds and cassette tapes and was born in 87, hence the "Rare Mix '87". Hope he likes it!
Got a busy day ahead, already I've been working on a top secret gift for my Grandma, soon I'll have to leave for work and later I have a resin jewellery class. I'm pretty excited as I've wanted to use resin for a while and my own experiments failed miserably so I thought a little tutoring wouldn't go amiss.

My class is in The Life Craft in Glasgow. They do a load of different classes so if anyone is interested check the website.

I will blog soon to see how I got on :D

Thanks for reading

Daisy*B

xXx

Allergies & Old Movies...

What a lovely post London time I've had. After getting burnt while away and using a certain so called "natural sensitive skin" cream I ended up with a swollen face and looking like Rocky's sparring partner. I don't know why I bought the cream considering I've had a reaction before, but hey I was knackered!

So although I've had an itchy, burnt, swollen face and had to take a few days off work, I have caught up on some design stuff and today started a vector project that I've been wanting to do for ages.

 Can you guess who it is? Hint: I finally decided to start it after watching a certain movie with the wonderful Glenn Ford and some gratuitous hair flicking.

So now I've been watching old movies all week while off and todays film is The Haunting.

ooooh its creepy, much better than the ridculous remake. And what is it that makes it so creepy??  Its that you dont see a thing, its all in your own head and if you have an over active imagination like myself, this is the best/worst type of film to watch! That and some classic camera angles and sound effects. Trying to think of some other old horror films to watch after it, so if anyone has any ideas of movies for me to check out please comment :D

Also its the last day to vote on my Threadless submission so I'd really appreciate anyone who hasn't voted already to do go have a wee peek.

Score this design: "Tattoo Me," to help it get printed on Threadless!

As for tattoo designs, I've finished work for Leanne and Chris. Leanne wanted a small cluster of stars and Chris wanted a Saltire flag.  Here are the finished designs.

 

I really liked the thistles in this one so I might need to use them as a base for another design in the future.

Thanks for reading

Daisy*B

xXx

Ice Cream, Hans Zimmer and Squirrels

Hello folks, just back from an odd trip to London to see the Royal Philharmonic's Film Music Gala. I say odd because myself and Peter spent most of the time in a trance of exhaustion from an uncomfortable bus journey overnight on the dreaded Megabus! The concert itself was amazing, the Royal Albert Hall was a beautiful building and the orchestra were incredible. However, London itself was a haze. 

When we arrived at 7am we could do nothing but walk about to kill time. So we headed to a local Sainsbury's near our Easy Hotel and sat for a while probably looking quite strange and rough to the locals. We dumped our bags in the hotel that wouldn't let us check in til 3pm and then headed out for the 5 hour wait til check in and a decent sleep. We walked around Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park with Ice Cream at 10 in the morning which was lovely and relaxing UNITL... were accosted by squirrels.

 

The squirrels were quite intimidating and funny, they came right up to us and almost jumped up on Peter's shoulder ready to pounce on his 99 cone and run off with it! This did make us a bit freaked out and paranoid though as we were really tired and began to think the squirrels were stalking us, I'm pretty sure it was the same one that followed us all over Hyde Park.

We eventually relaxed at the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain as we lost the squirrel and fell asleep on the grass. Half an hour later I awoke to slight burning feeling on my face and realised I had not put any suncream on!!! Being Scottish and of the (slightly) ginger/fair-skinned persuasion, it is fair to say that the sun and I are not the best of friends. Of course I was lying with my head to one side and am now sunburnt down the left side of my face with a lovely white streak where my glsses were,  thank God the Albert Hall was dark.

So we eventually were allowed into the hotel where we got a couple of hours sleep and then right back out again to the Albert Hall. It's such an amazing building and I really fell in love with it, especially the ceiling.

The orchestra were great, it all sunk in when they played te main theme to Gladiator as the brass section was AMAZING lol! Got a bit teary eyed when they played the Out of Africa theme too it was just incredible, we both loved it.

So now we're back home very tired, but having to dive straight back into work mode as we both have projects to be getting on with.

The most exciting email awaited me as I got back. My Tattoo Me design was put up for scoring on Threadless while I was away, pretty excited to see how it goes. You can see and vote for the design by clinking the linkydoo below or the button on the side bar.

Score this design: "Tattoo Me," to help it get printed on Threadless!

Thats about it from me for today, I'm off to get  caught up on some work and maybe some sleep lol!

Thanks for reading 

Daisy*B

xXx

New Work

Yesterday I did some work in Illustrator and came up with 2 new pieces. I've been wanting to get practice with it for a while so I had fun!

Will hopefully have some more new stuff up soon

Thanks for reading
Daisy*B

xXx

Cupcakes and Hobbits

From lovely sunny days to horrible rainy ones, I really hope that isn't our summer over and done with!
While it's been raining I've been working away on a few projects, mainly reading the Hobbit on my new gadget :D I bought myself a Kindle as a late birthday present to myself. I justified it by the amount of weight I would save when reading Lord of the Rings again, well thats my excuse and I'm sticking to it!
But first some amazing news, my lovely other half has only gone and got himself a new job in a computer games company, he's on a wee trial at the moment so lots and lots of luck to him, we're both so very excited although I think he's more nervous than I am lol!

I've also been planning my Mum's 50th birthday cake for the past wee while and on Thursday night (very late) I finished it as well as 24 cupcakes, well 23 as I ended up eating one to test how sticky it was with foil wrappers as I've never used them before, again thats my excuse and I'm sticking to it :P






All the cakes were vanilla with vanilla buttercream. The main cake had three layers of sponge, 2 purple and 1 plain. I used fondant icing to make the roses and I glued them to the cake with a wee bit water. I really enjoyed making it, more the decorating than the baking, but it was lots of fun.
It all went down well and everyone seemed to like it so happy days!

I've also been working on a few tattoos and some stuff of my own. I recently finished Dan's tattoo which was a triskele with an edge and a lot of fun to do. He wanted the triskele to have thorns and be a bit thicker than my usual ones.

I think it looks pretty cool and I can't wait to see it done, was really chuffed with it!
I also started Carrie's celtic turtle tattoo. This took me a while to figure out in Illustrator, probably because of the awkward way I did it, but I got there in the end.


As I said earlier I've been reading The Hobbit recently and have got a lot of inspiration from it. I've been wanting to work in Illustrator for a while now, creating something totally vector so I thought mixing both these ideas would be a start! The chapter in the book that involves Mirkwood was my greatest inspiration and I wanted to use that image for the vector piece.

I had fun doing it and really getting into Illustrator and all the things it can do. Planning other works too when I have the time to sit down and work on them.
And last but not least the most important news of the day *cough* Tangled has just arrived, thank you postie!

I'm off for a watch :D

Thanks for reading
Daisy*B
xXx

Inked

Got a lovely email today from a previous client, Aaron who got in touch at the start of the year asking me to design him a triskele. Aaron was only my second male client so I was pretty nervous about getting it right. I usually design for lady folk so I thought my designs might be too feminine.
As pretty much all of my designs are personal to the client I won't really be spilling the beans on all meanings and reasonings behind the tattoos. What I will talk about is the design aspects. Aaron wanted the design NOT to be feminine obviously, so this was my challenge. I've designed a male tattoo before with my Derek design, but this was different as it was a triskele, something I've only done for women!
Aaron also wanted each arm to have an organic tendril look and have the appearance of living plants, but with a celtic feel.

Here are a few of the original sketches:

These were a couple from the first rounds of designing. They were very celtic with knots all over the place, so much fun! I tried to keep the plant like appearance too, using thin vine-like lines for the arms.

These were the 2 versions Aaron choose to have a look at for the final design. He also wanted a green colour, which works really well!

This was the final design drawn up digitally.

It was pretty refeshing to design for Aaron, as with Derek I was totally out of my comfort zone and having to think differently "what would a man like?" I kept asking myself! Overall I'm really happy with the finished design and so was Aaron, so much so that he put it on his skin!

It looks amazing and the size really does it justice. I'm so happy with it and I can't wait to see it when it heals. Thanks Aaron!!!!!


I've been commission for 4 other designs too, a cluster of stars, a celtic turtle, a celtic version of Superman and a top secret design that will be a gift. There are also a few other design jobs possibly in the works so I'll keep you posted!

Thanks for reading
Daisy*B
xXx

Sunny Days and Treats

I was working away on the newest tattoo design and thought it was about time I posted a little bit on my work process, just in case anyone is interested in how it all works.

It all starts with an email from a client who will let me know what they want and if they have any inspirational images etc to put me on the right track.
Then I do research, hunting the net for various images and ideas, I'll also take a lot of notes, some of which end up totally impossible to decipher! I'll then do a load of (very) rough sketches.

My many notebooks that I need to keep track of notes and work

Some research & sketches




My box of supplies. When I'm working on a triskele or celtic inspired design I'll always have these books nearby for inspirtation.

From this point I'll start putting together a few finished designs to get ready to send to the client, usually I'll finish up between 5 & 8 designs for consideration.

These are the first few designs I did for Dan, he wanted a triskele with thorns and thicker lines than I usually work with. We're only on the first round so we'll see how it goes from there.

Thats pretty much how it goes - round and round til we get to a final design and I draw it all up in Illustrator, so I will post that side of the process when Dan and I have worked together to get the right design for him.

Here is another few sketches I did for previous clients:

I really enjoy working this way, I get to know my client a bit and we get the design 100% right to suit them. It's great, especially when the weather's been as nice as it has this week. I love sitting in the sun and thinking about designing, as long as I haven't been hit by a block!

I will eventually draw all my sketches up digitally, I just need to get commissions out the way first. I did some last night and added them to the website and this morning I got up nice and early and did some more work to the site. I added another gallery where folk can now see my designs for sale. I figured I had so many of them sitting in my sketchbooks unloved and not getting any attention, I should really "digitally remaster" them and sell them.

I'v been listening to Swan Lake and Adele recently to fuel my designing and arty thoughts, its been a real help ! Got lots of plans and ideas to start printing and selling my designs on bags and other things. For some advice in this adventure into the unknown I emailed the lovely ladies at Made In The Shade in Glasgow. I got a lovely reply from Carrie encouraging and inspiring me to keep going with my work, I've stuck it to the front of my workbook so I'll always read it as soon as I open it =D Thanks Carrie! You can visit their beautiful shop here. Lots of pretty things to buy to make you feel even happier in the sunny weather!

Thats all from me just now, Thanks for reading
Daisy*B