Rainy days

Above is an illustration I made for an upcoming publication, we've had a lot of rain the past few days, but there is a chance of snow this weekend which makes me giddy at heart!! I love the fresh fallen snow and the beautiful quality it has in making the rest of the world fall silent. There is much to look forward to this weekend, tomorrow is painting day with artist extraordinaire Becky and Downton Abbey 101 with Carrie from Swanky Lady Vintage.

And now, back to art

It's. About. Time. I consider myself an artist, I was born to make things and interpret the world through whatever materials I could get my hands on. But ever since college, my painting and drawing has slowed to a crawl and it was starting to gnaw at me. Granted the past few years I've been exploring different and exciting art outlets, i.e. writing, photography, design, letterpress, but it was time to get back to getting my hands dirty before I let the motivation slip from my fingers. The last few paintings that I've made were for gifts or charity events, and it occurred to me that I've never produced a cohesive body of work that could be assembled as a show so now that is one of my goals this year: create show-worthy work, work that means something to those who see it and and myself.

Inspiration from abroad

Last April I took my first trip to Europe and it was spectacular, I'm itching to back but need to save up some funds and find a justifiable reason to be there besides just having a fun trip. I was a bit under the weather by the time we reached Brussels so I didn't get to experience nearly as much as I wanted to but I did do the main things - like visit the Victor Horta House (in which I died and went to Art Nouveau Heaven!!!) And I went to the Bozar arts store: a fabulous museum gift shop with everything cool under the sun. They even had the movie Electroma by Daft Punk, which I've seen twice and was so very tempted to purchase it because you simply don't see that kind of thing in central Illinois, let alone in the states, but went for something a bit more useful: a design book entitled Echoes of the Future. A wealth of vintage inspired design abounds, and today I got it out and used it. I needed inspiration for an illustration and this is what fell out of my brain on onto the computer screen. Let me know what you think!

A New Jewelry Collection coming to Relics...

I've been making jewelry for the past 7 years, maybe even longer, I haven't stopped to think about it in a while. I still love making it, it's therapeutic, something about taking these beautiful little shards of chaos and turning them into something even more beautiful and hopefully functional. Recently I met with Deb Opyd from Relics, the hottest little gift stop in Peoria. Deb has serious good taste and travels all over to find just the right selection of unique items, and I would be broke if I were allowed to spend a lot of time there. I showed her my jewelry and said that I could have a trial at selling a special collection there. Relics is having an Open House this weekend Sept 14-16th, so if you are in the mood to see the rest of my unique wares, feel free to stop by, I will be there on Saturday helping out!

Butterfly Effect Album Design

The man who used to occupy the office across the hall from me at work was a videographer and rap artist. He asked me one day to design an album cover for his new music project titled "Butterfly Effect". I still haven't heard any of the music on his album but he had a vague direction and so I came up with this design, he loved it, assignment complete in less than an hour. Those jobs are a blessing because you never quite know how your taste is going to mesh with someone in a completely different field. I should probably do a critique of my favorite album covers, what's your favorite album cover? Or if you have a band (or always dreamed of being in one) I'd be happy to design you an album cover :)

Unusual requests

You never know what kind of request you are going to get, when you are in the design field. Recently I've been commissioned to design coffee bags, particularly for Thirty-Thirty Coffee Company. This bear is for their bear claw coffee, if you've ever been to Thirty-Thirty, then you will get the joke. Also in conjunction with Dream Center Peoria, an inner city youth outreach company, I designed a logo and bag for the coffee that the kids roasted as part of an entrepreneurship program. Bags cost $13 and all proceeds go back to benefitting the programs.

Speaking of extra projects, I've been working with a local shop in town to design a line of jewelry, but more on that later!

Now that's what I call a canvas

I wear many hats in my job and in life in general, which I love, as they stack higher and higher it can be a real balancing act and once in a while I have to shelf one or two. Today at work I finished up painting a canvas backdrop, I left the paint cans in the pic for scale, its 11ft tall after all. I can't wait to see my boss use it for photography and it's got me in the mood for painting again. I don't think people understand what it is to be an artist, to have a swarm of bees in the hive of one's mind from dawn until dusk and the only way to calm them down is give them a window to be set free and come to fruition. I will be posting many of my upcoming projects soon. In the mean time tell me what are your favorite hobbies? 

A welcome to wanderers of the web...

Lady Popeko is a place where I may take the illustrious liberties of expressing my artistic and design related tastes and endeavors as I try to navigate this glorious God-spun web which we all inhabit. I hope you enjoy! I will attempt to post often, I promise. For now enjoy this Miss Peregrine portrait that I constructed during my free time after work, when I was most likely supposed to be doing something else. If you have not read Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, I highly suggest you read it before some Hollywood studio ruins it for the imagination.

With love and peace,
Nicole Blackburn
Graphic Designer + Illustrator
www.nicoleblackburn.wix.com/main
coleblk.etsy.com