Spread the Word

Looks like we're getting close to summer. I finished a job for Williams Sonoma and will be working on a book cover soon. This year I will also be teaching Illustration at RISD Pre-College, which I'm very excited about. This will be my fifth year- and I've loved teaching Design Foundations- but to teach the subject that I actually...you know, make a living with will be exciting. Plus it's just nice to have a change.

Surtex was great this year, and I left with a lot of inspiration and new ideas. There should be several things to post in the next few months!

Surtex dancing in my head...

A hotel in New Jersey is not where I'd thought I would be a week ago, but having a change of environment can be good for the artist that is constantly tied to their home studio. My boyfriend had to travel for RISD, so I happily came along to get a break from my messy drafting table.

Surtex had some really good stuff this year- not as many cheesy snowmen or beach scenes. No, there were many artists that I liked and I can definitely see my style of illustration entering the surface design market. However, I realized that the trick is going to be fitting in while not fitting in too much. Basically, I still need to stand out in some way (in a good way, of course) and not loose the flavor of my illustrations.

I also have been practicing and struggling and practicing...and struggling some more with how to make my surface design. My illustrations are paintings and that works great, but for the SD market vector art is popular and also much easier to manipulate color-wise, etc. Obviously you can scan in traditionally-painted artwork and manipulate it in photoshop, but indexing the color and clean up is much more frustrating for me, and in the end my work can have this stale look to it after the process. I'm working on a print in Adobe Illustrator today in the lobby and hope to post that soon. Here I come, pen tool!

Happy Birfday To Me...

May 2nd was my birthday, but it was celebrated this past Saturday with friends. Because of this, my clock is kinda thrown off and it's weird to think we're pretty well into May. Currently I am wrapping up classes (congrats to my Montserrat students who did awesome!) and putting things together for the 2010 Surtex and National Stationary Show this Sunday in NYC. Last year it was smaller due to the economy, so I'm hoping that it has grown back to its former glory. There are a few key companies/people I plan to say a quick hello to, and I always enjoy discovering new trends and ideas while I'm browsing. Perhaps I will actually pay for one of the seminars this time around? Might have to play that by ear...

Surtex

Bike, originally uploaded by lauren minco.

It's a quiet, cloudy Thursday- perfect for a sweatpants-kind-a-day of preparing for the Surtex stationary and licensing show in NYC this Sunday. I'm hoping to have three custom "packages" for Dark Horse, Chronicle, and Lilla Rogers Studio, and then I'll be making some simpler packets for other people I run into during the show (and by packets I mean let's put all my 4"x6" mailers in a clear envelope and hope art directors don't chuck them in the trash the first moment they get).

I went last year and it definitely was a crazy time. First of all- it's HUGE. I've never seen a more concentrated grouping of patchwork snowmen, beach landscapes, and cute critters trying to teach me my ABC's. I'm crossing my fingers and wearing walking shoes. Wish me luck!