Sketching

So I have begun some initial sketching. I have drawn out different birds of the rainforest. This is slightly inspired by the techniques that Katie Scott uses where she makes everything fit around each other. I think that technique can bring the whole piece together in a sense. In my sketch I think that some of the birds are too close together which created tension in the image, some are too far away which makes them look separate.

I can capitalise on these thoughts and try work better for my next piece. Next I am going to draw different rainforest bugs. Right now, I'm trying not to focus down my idea too much but instead focus on a subject of the rainforest.

Book covers research

I recently read an article on the digital arts magazine about book cover design it has been written by  a number of well known and respected illustrators. This article has really helped me when designing for the book covers. I really liked what Owen Davey said about using bold shape and colour- i feel that this is something that I can incorporate into my work quite easily. I really like what he said about making the spine exciting too. It gives me ideas to incorporate symbols or motifs on the spine.

Presenting to the principal and directors

Today we got to present our work to the college Principal and the directors. Kerry, Adam and Fred mostly did the speaking. It was exciting to sit in the boardroom and it made me feel good that our work was getting recognised by the leadership of college. It was almost comical as I have done much better work but the context of the colouring book made it be shown to them.

The meeting itself was rather comical too, the directors begun to have a discussion about the work and its sector and used lots of terminology that I couldn't keep up with!!

Overall it was great to get recognised for doing some nice work. I am looking forward to the launch of the colouring book in a few weeks time.

Tutuorial with Jamie

Jamie liked the idea of me doing my project about a children's non- fiction book about the rainforest.
Some of his notes:
Come back to what you enjoy.
Starting point is the rainforest. How do you respond to this?
Open up practice- drawing, drawing, drawing.
Educational tools? (different layers of the rainforest) stickers, magnets

Some of his ideas were a little crazy for me: he liked the idea of making massive wood animals, painting them and putting them on the walls to make a giant rainforest, I wasn't convinced. However I can take on some of his feedback about thinking on a large scale, he said think about educational tools maybe. So I may think about that.

Tutorial with Jamie

I had a tutorial with Jamie today. It was good but it made things seem difficult to process. Jamie challenged me to think bigger with my project. I completely agree with him and understand what he is saying.

He also challenged me to take it back to basics and think about the rainforest as the subject, not the product as the subject. This will help to broaden my thinking.

Jamie had the idea of creating large scale wood cuts for the walls that I paint and create into a massive rainforest- its a great idea but i don't think it sums up my practice!! I will take on the 'thinking big' part and see how i can make my work on a larger scale.

He told me to look at Ed Cheverton and

Katie Scott

Colour testing for screenprint

I thought that it would be a good idea to try out some colour testing. I am very interested in screen print and I feel that the screen print process will definitely be key to my final outcome. I wanted to see how different colours looked when paired together.

I have tried 2 variations of palettes, each taking just 3 colours and mixing them to create 3 more new colours. I am more in favour of the first colour palette that I have tested as it seems more subdued and softer on the eyes.

From here, I may try out some more colour palettes nearer to the time of printing. I feel it is best to concentrate on drawing the animals first rather than narrowing down the project too early and focussing on the process.

Contextual References sb3

I have looked at a few contextual references for this brief. I am looking into screen print and overlaying colours. I have picked a few examples of colour palettes that I like. Maybe its too early too look at colour palettes?

I have also looked at Katie Scott who is a master at drawing botanical drawings and drawing animals too. I love how she makes all the animals tessellate around each other, it is something that I need to bear in mind.

 I want to make sure that I do not imitate any of these 'styles' but it is important that I inform myself in order to create the best resolved brief that I can.

Trip to Corvin Castle, Romania

Last week I had the privilege of visiting Corvin Castle in Romania for free as part of the competition that I have been taking part in. The trip was so much fun and I am very grateful of the opportunity that I was given. Visiting the castle was surreal to see in person and being shown the history behind it all was actually highly interesting! 

In terms of the brief, now my task is to use the visual information that I have received and add to my illustration so that it is more informed and then submit it again by the 21st March. With all the new information that I have received I think I want to incorporate some of the family history into it. But I'm not sure yet, I don't want to 'overdo' it. 

Initial Sketches- trying to draw collections of animals

I have begun by sketching some animals just to get started. My purpose for these is just to explore the subject area a bit without trying to focus the idea down too much. I want to see what works and what doesn't work. I actually like parts from each of these sets of drawings that I have done, they each have moments of success within them. However, the thing that I keep referring to is how these would work in print. Print is important to my practice, especially screen print where only the second set would transfer into screeprint well. 

Final designs

Here are my final designs for the colouring book. I am not completely satisfied with them bit i can do not more work on them. I don't think that drawing people is my strong point, it takes me a long time to get a line that I am happy with. The rest came quite quickly (the background and objects). I also think that you can tell that I struggled drawing the people, each person almost has been drawn in a different 'style'. This is all learning and it shows me to either really focus on drawing people until I can nail drawing them or I can just steer my practice in a different direction. I feel that for me, steering my practice is probably the best way- I have studied the discipline of drawing for many many years now, if i haven't got it by now, its going to take a lot of work I feel.

Ethnicity

Kerry handed the mock up book to her boss and other peers in her workplace. They all really liked it but suggested 2 things- firstly that there should be more pages to the book and secondly that all of our work was majority caucasian. In result, Kerry asked if we could make our work have a wider ethnic background. So here is my new piece vs the old piece. Only small changes, but changes that make the book appeal to a wider background and be more inclusive. 

Development of work

I have come up with some pieces to show in the crit. The feedback that was given was that my book is too much like Owen Davey's- I had a feeling this might happen! Fred advised me to take my practice back to basics and steer away from the graphic shapes. I completely agree with what he has said. I have done what I tend do and have come up with an idea way too quickly. I have also designed a book which is something that I tend to do as well. I think that it is best to rethink my whole idea and  strip it back so that it is just about the rainforest then build from there. 

Folio Editorial Illustrators

http://www.folioart.co.uk/illustration/folio/promotion/illustrator/editorial

I have come across a section of the Folio website that details editorial illustrations. I came across this whilst doing work for the PPP module. It is really useful because I can see editorial illustration at its best; handpicked pieces from the very reputable agency. It almost lifts up my eyes to see where I should aim towards.

I remember when Victo Ngai spoke about editorial illustrations should "trap people into reading the article" and "create visual solutions to bridge the gap between the audience and the client". She also spoke about how you should "boil an article down to the essence- not just key words", that really struck me and got me to question my way of working a lot. I am not sure that I have got this figured out yet but I am trying to take on what she said as I feel that that is the difference between good illustration and great illustration.

Below is a piece that she did for the New Yorker- the magazine that I am designing my brief for.

Contextualising the illustration

I have mocked up the cover onto iTunes to see how it could look. I feel as though it sits well, it stands to quite well against other albums as many other albums rely on photography more. I am not every satisfied with the colours in the image. I feel if I were to do it again I would brighten them up a bit to create more of a dynamic image to look at. 

Boards for crit

These are my boards for the crit, they have since changed the brief numbers however you can get the picture of where I am at in terms of the production of work. 

Character design for big brief

I have started on some character designs for this brief. I have no idea what happened when i tried drawing the designs with a pen tool!!! It's quite hilarious really. I'm not sure that character design is good for me. After trying to draw out my design for the book I am feeling as though it would be best that I steered away from having people in my illustrations. On a more serious level, drawing people has never been a strong point in my practice. I don't feel that this is because I haven't tried drawing people but I feel as though i am simply better at drawing more static things like buildings and objects.   Even in the engineering colouring book (brief 6), I tried extremely hard to draw the people but i still wasn't happy with them. 

Newspaper mock up - ivory funded terrorism.

I have mocked up this piece onto a newspaper to see how it would look printed. I actually really like it, although there are a few issues that I detailed in the previous post about this work, I feel that the spot illustrations work well. With the help of an art director I feel that they could work very well.

Ideas

My current idea is to create a story book that follows a character around the Amazon Rainforest and helps to inform and explain to the reader (children age 4-9) the different animals and plants. I plan for it to be a 32 page book full of great illustrations. I want the book to have the essence of the rainforest- teaming with life! Not real life of course.

I have been really inspired by Owen Davey's book Mad about Monkeys (maybe a bit too inspired- i must make sure my work does not morph into this book). Owen created this book for Flying Eye books (NoBrow). I emailed him about it asking how he got the job to create the book. It was really interesting how he was so open to doing whatever kind of book- how they threw some ideas around and then he ended up doing a book about monkeys that he didn't plan on doing. This is really interesting to know for the future if ever get the chance to work with a book publisher for a children's book.

http://www.owendavey.com/Mad-about-Monkeys