Competition time: Cover it up, luv!

You can now buy top notch phone covers from Mooskins that bear my designs and make your phone look pretty (if a little dark) with assorted songbirds, fawns and rubies drawn by my fair hand.  They are available for purchase to fit iPhone 3 / 4 / 4S and Blackberry 8520.  Take a look at the options here.

Mooskins also offer a brilliant custom service which allows you to have your favourite photo made into a phone cover.

These covers are great quality, good for protecting your fancy device from knocks and bumps, PLUS you get to personalise that thing that we never leave the house without and can't seem to put down (mobile telephone).  

To be generous and generally lovely we are offering the chance to win one of my designs (you pick) or a completely one-off super personal photo cover for two individuals!

To enter please tweet a link to the competition page and include @abihey and @MooskinsUK.  For example…

Cover your phone with @MooskinsUK and @abihey. For the chance to win follow the link: http://abihey.blogspot.com/2012/01/competition-time-cover-it-up-luv.html

Copy and paste if you like, you won't get extra credit for creativity.

Two lucky tweeters will be chosen at random and will get a cover of their choosing for their device.  The competition will close at the end of Monday 6th and I will announce the winners on Twitter on Tuesday 7th.

Get tweeting or buy one!

From A to B: Born To Die

Lana Del Rey's album is out today, and I created this illustration in anticipation.  

Probably quite appropriate because of the scrutiny she has been facing regarding her
fake-ness/authenticity.  I don't really care about that.  I'm enjoying listening to the Deluxe Version of Born To Die.

Lana Del Rey - Born To Die

The Details

I have done a short outline of the process that went into the making of this.  It was a little involved so I hope it makes sense.

Drawing the face...

1...

...2...

...3

Scanned and tidied

I scanned and adjusted the components in Photoshop, making sure it all works together.

I decided to get rid of the jewellery.

With the portrait layer mode set to 'Multiply' I added the inky back layer and messed with the hue to get it looking a little ethereal.  I didn't want to go for the obvious corporeal red.

The skull was drawn in pencil on tracing paper over the portrait to make sure it fits the picture.  Once I scanned it I inverted, so the black lines on paper look like white on black, and inserted it under the face layer with the layer mode on 'Screen'.

Ta Daaa!

Image Hoard: Black & White

It's about time for another stack of inspiration on this here blog.  These are all monochrome (or close enough) and have struck me at one point or another over the last couple of months.  The reasons that an image resonates are always somewhat intangible, and I like to keep it that way, keep it fluid. 

Enjoy!

Doreen taking an Alligator ride - Unknown

Unknown

Young girl in profile - Consuela Kanaga

 

Speak Flower (detail), hand cut paper - Kako Ueda

Homeless Portrait - Lee Jeffries

Jacopo Ligozzi

A Heroic Abduction, mixed media assemblage - Kris Kuksi

Marilyn with diamonds

Spanish Dancer (detail) - John Singer Sargent

Annelise Kretschmer

Irises - William Morris

... Good Things Will Come

'The Fairies' is a short story from Charles Perrault's Fairytales where a beautiful but put-upon young girl is kind to a stranger who, naturally, turns out to be a fairy and bewitches the girl so that jewels and pearls come from her mouth with every word she speaks.  The moral is basically that when kind words are spoken; good things will come.  

This is my imagining of the situation.  You may get richer the more you talk, but it would be pretty gross to drool jewels.  It's still a good reminder that you have the power to be cruel or kind with your words.