DAY 3 AT PUMP N GRIND

Our third and final day working at Pump N Grind was just a case of finishing off the mural and a few other little bits. We spent the majority of the day finishing off the big colour blocks, and then went back and cleaned up some of the edges that were a bit messy. I was kind of sad when we finished as i have thoroughly enjoyed working on it, all I want to do now is paint murals! it was such a good feeling once it was done though.

me with the finished mural

there was a couple of other things we finished before we left. Beth re-wrote one of the chalkboards below after we had re-painted it with chalk paint. We wanted to complete little things like this to make sure everything ties in with the new look. It definitely feels a lot more contemporary 

something else we did was print out a bunch of stickers for them. we used the illustration I did for the menu, and the type & the bear from the logo we created. We stuck a couple of these around the shop on the the coffee machines, and left the rest there for them to use. We mentioned it might be nice to give them out to customers who donate £2 to the suspended coffee board. 

DAY 2 AT PUMP N GRIND

Our second day at Pump N Grind. Our main task was to get the mural done so we got started as soon as we got there. As a lot of the shapes on my illustration included straight lines, we used masking tape around each area of the colour we were using. We also quickly realised it would be super helpful to have a mini paint roller, so I quickly popped to the mini hardware shop down the road and picked one up; this ended up being a life-saver and sped up the process a lot!

We were pretty rapid at filling in the bits between the masking tape, though it was slightly more difficult getting the curved lines as neat as we wanted them. Again, we definitely underestimated how long this was going to take, and as the day was coming to an end we realised we'd need to spend another day completing it; even though we're both pretty busy with deadlines coming up, I think we were both secretly happy to have another day painting, it's not really something you get to do everyday and it's quite relaxing. Also the cafe has a really laid-back vibe so it's a nice place to spend time; plus free drinks!

DAY 1 AT PUMP N GRIND

This will be a quick run through of mine & Beth's first day installing our work in Pump N Grind. I knew it was going to be quite a hands-on day which I was quite excited about, as it's not the kind of thing i've ever really done before!

I met Beth in the morning just after the cafe opened to give ourselves the entire day there. We sat down and had a coffee before we started, and actually watched a couple of youtube videos on how to put vinyls up as neither of us had done it before. Though it seemed straightforward, we were conscious about messing up as we wanted it to look as professional as possible. We started to start off with the door vinyls, which were the opening times and the logo. We had to get these super straight so we downloaded a spirit level app (who knew) and spent ages making sure it was level. Eventually we got there and it seemed to go pretty smoothly!

Next we decided to put up the vinyls in the window. This was more difficult than we anticipated as it was tricky to get them straight because they were a lot bigger. We worked out the best way was for one of us to hold it while the other stood back to see if it was straight. We decided to place them just above where the table was, which was handy as we could kind of use this as a guide. Once we had got one on it was a lot easier to do the other!

After we had installed the window vinyls, as it was a sunny day we immediately noticed the shadows it made on the table inside! This was something we didn't even think about, but I think it really adds to it and makes it much more interesting. The placement of the vinyls was perfect as well, they almost look like they're dancing on the tables!

we then put up the menu vinyl. This was also pretty difficult as we didn't really have anything to line it up with to make sure it was straight apart from the top of the letters. As well as this, the size of it and the fact it was being put up in a pretty awkward place didn't help. 

Once it was up though it was worth the struggle!

neither of us really thought how long any of these bits would take, and it turned out they took a lot longer than we realised; they shut at five so at this point we were a bit pushed for time. We were planning on starting the mural that day but we quickly realised that wasn't going to happen. I did get it all drawn out on the wall while Beth re-wrote some of the chalk boards in the cafe. I found it so difficult to draw the mural onto the wall freehand, but we worked out this was the only was it could really be done with the time constraints. 

 one of the signs Beth re-wrote:

At this point the day was coming to an end, and we agreed we'd come back in a couple of days when it was next open and get started on the mural. I actually had a really nice day and had so much fun working alongside Beth, we definitely have a really good collaborative dynamic going which I'm so pleased about, I find her so easy to work with. We celebrated with a nice cold drink. 

Pump N Grind: CREATING A MURAL

For the mural part of my Pump N Grind brief I wanted to create something bold, simple and eye-catching. I also wanted it to tie in with other bits of the cafe I had re-designed, so I took three of the figures from the window display and stitched them together to make something I could trace over in Illustrator. I knew I wanted to come up with something bright and colourful, so I went with using block shapes instead of the line drawings. The wall was 2 metres high by 120cm across, so I knew I had to make something more portrait. 

I came up with the design below, but couldn't really decide on a colour scheme. I had used the colours of Pump N Grind to keep some of their original branding, but I think i'll just show both of these to Beth and hopefully we can decide on one between us.

I took a quick trip to wilko to pick up some paints and luckily they seemed to have the exact colours I needed. I'm not sure how good the quality of these will be but i'm sure they'll be fine after a couple of coats. 

LASER CUTTING

Before easter I decided to book myself on to a laser cutting induction as it's something i've been wanting to do for ages. Annoyingly it got cancelled a couple of days before and it was the last one before the holidays which is a shame, but I made sure I was booked onto the first one back. I had it a couple of days ago and I wondered why I hadn't done it sooner. The induction itself showed us briefly how to use the laser cutter and ran through the do's and don't's and what sort of materials it could cut. We also got a leaflet explaining the process and were told any of the staff would happily help if we got stuck. Today I booked myself in to one of the laser cutters for a couple of hours to have a go at cutting some of my figures out.

I picked out a few different figures I already had drawings of as I was using this as more of a test run than anything just to try and get used to the process. The laser cutter can do a few different things, but as I wanted them simply cut out of wood I had to used a thin line to outline the shapes and make sure the line was in black, as this is the colour linked with the laser cutter to make sure it knows to cut them out. I was originally planning on cutting these two documents out on 2 A4 pieces of wood, but when I got down to the woodwork room I realised they only had the thicker type of wood, so I thought it was best to upsize and make each of them A3 so the figures were a little bigger. 

When I went to use it the laser cutter seemed to be having a few problems which was typical really, so I ended up having to try a couple of times before it actually worked. I think because of the thicker wood it had to go round a couple of times before it managed to cut through the wood. 

The problems with the laser cutter did mean that I got a couple of duplicated figures which was good! These are what I ended up with and i'm so pleased. The edges are so clean and i'm so excited to get a bit of colour on them!

PRINTING VINYLS

This was quite an interesting process for me to see as I'd never used vinyls before and had no idea how it all worked. It was actually a surprisingly simple process; we already had the illustrations & the menu in the right format so it was just a case of sending it to the printer in the correct way. We got a bit of help off James in the print room, and he helped make sure everything was flipped so it wouldn't come out backwards once it had printed. 

Since we had a lot of lines within the illustrations, it was quite tedious having to pick out each little bit out of the vinyl ready to put the backing paper on. It also took a while to print because of the size of each of them, but after seeing them printed it's definitely worth it. 

The lines are so clean which means they will look super professional once they are up in the cafe. I'm SO glad we decided to go down the route of vinyl instead of trying to paint/draw the design onto the window; I feel like that would have been an extremely painful process, and it would have looked no where near as refined as these (hopefully) will. 

Pump N Grind: WINDOW VINYL

Here are my sketchbook pages while coming up with the figures I was planning on using for the Pump N Grind window illustration. It was actually pretty difficult thinking up dance moves off the top of my head.. so I actually asked to of my friends to pretend to dance while I took pictures of them for some inspo. It actually worked well as I could get a good idea of the movements and the placements of limbs!

These were only two of about 50 photos i took. very handy having 

friends that don't mind dancing around the studio

Anyway. I thought the best thing to do next was to make a canvas in Illustrator that had the same measurements of the windows to save up-scaling it further down the line. I decided to make the height 29.7cm which is the same length as the longer side of an A4 piece of paper; I did think about making it 21cm but I decided the figures would look too small on the window. I didn't really have a plan of how I was going to lay each of the figures out, I knew once I had them in the document I could just swap them round til they fit together nicely. 

This is the layout I came up with after a lot of shuffling about: 

This does only fit across one of the panes of glass in the window, originally I thought about making two separate illustrations so they were different on each window, but me and Beth decided it wasn't necessary as this would work well duplicated put next to each other. 

The next step was to create an outline in Illustrator. It needed to be relatively thick for it to come out well when we printed the vinyl, so I made it 6pt. We wanted the vinyl to be printed in white but that was something we could sort when we went to print it:

The final step before we sent it to print was to create the outline where we wanted the vinyl to be cut. This is something I didn't even think about as I've never printed vinyl before so Beth helped me out. Below is the final design ready to be sent to the printer:

RESEARCH: Wooden sculptures

INGELA P ARRHENIUS

• These cute little figures by Ingela P Arrhenius have quite a childlike naivety to them which is sweet. apparently she finds these wooden blocks in toyshops and paints her figures on to them
• I especially like the right hand image and having the figures able to stack on top of each other is quite a fun feature. I think these would make good childrens toys
• I also love the smaller details she adds to them, for example the little stripes and checks on their trousers, tops & hats!

SÉVERIN MILLET

• I love how colourful these figures are by Séverin Millet! They are so vibrant and very eye-catching, and very intriguing to look at. I also like the bold shapes he uses for the bodies of his figures

DANIEL FROST

• These wooden sculptures are 2 of 12 which made by Daniel Frost in collaboration with Mark Wright for Pick Me Up which is an annual illustration exhibition that takes place at Somerset House (sadly it doesn't run anymore!)
• Frost says "each toy is hand painted using acrylics on a maple wood and features a character from the town Frostville"
• 'Atop A Hill in Frostville' is a picture book by himself which is obviously where the inspiration for the wooden figures have come from!
• I love chunky playful aesthetic they have, and the silliness of them makes them very appealing

AMY VICTORIA MARSH

• I think Amy Victoria Marsh's illustration look so lovely as wooden objects. She talks about the process of these over on her instagram and says that each of them are hand cut with a scroll saw 
• She uses plywood and paints each of them with acrylic paint
• I think the idea of making a clock is great. I feel like its such a lovely use for a wooden illustration so this is something I could think about

LAWRENCE SLATER

• Lawrence Slater is another illustrator who frequently uses wooden sculptures within his practise. He used his quirky illustrations and transforms them into these amazing wooden sculptures which he sells on his online shop
• I absolutely love the idea of making a mobile out of a few different wooden creations & think it would be great at an exhibition.