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I'm probably doing this a little early but I feel that I have 3 very useful pieces of advise already. I will add to the list if I recive anymore throughout this year :)

1. Don't use wanky lines: Gary Spicer

By this he meant we should have confidence in our drawing skills. Don't faff about sketching the same line over and over, just go for it!
Despite still using my sketchy or "wanky lines" from time to time, this advise has still stuck with me. I'm more content with leaving bits of a drawing that I feel are "imperfect" and just working with it. I'm also trying to have more confidence in my drawing, its difficult but I'm getting there. Thanks Gary!

2. Be 100% positive: Liam Bardsley (past student)

I recived this advise during our talks with past students. This advise has had a major impact on me. I woulds usually dismiss most of my drawings and sketches but now I keep everything. I've found that if you look at something for long enough you will eventually find something posative within it and learn to love it. I've come up with so many new ideas and drawings thanks to this advise. I'm also learning to love my work more and more. Thanks Liam!

3. Draw with scissors: Ian Whadcock

By this he meant for me to stop using lines to contain my textures. Allow the exsisting edges to do the work for me. This has impacted me because I now want to experiment with not contaning textures within lines. I want to try allowing the textures to bleed over the lines. I also want to try having a texture and adding the lines in later rather than the other way around. Thanks Ian!

I wish I'd done this: Mary Blair

I realise I am only supposed to talk about one piece of imagery but I really love and admire all the illustrations that Mary Blair did for the book "I can fly" by Ruth Krauss. The book is about a little girl interacting with different animals in different places. I love everything about the illustrations, the colour, textures, backgrounds and compositions. The scale and textures are always changing as you go through the pages and the colours are always bold and exciting.



One thing I have learnt from these images is that you can layer textures. I realised this from looking at the swimming pages where the water and plants are layered over the characters. It gives the image a printed feel and also gives the impressions of the character being underwater. This technique is also used in the owl page. The trees in the background are a lighter colour to the trees in the foreground. This helps create depth in the image. I think this technique could be easily done using digital media by altering the opasity of a layer. This is something I hope to experiment with in future pieces of work.










Something else I have learnt from these images is that backgrounds don't always have to be solid and complex, they can be implied. In the beach image where the little girl is pretending to be a clam, the background is made up of wavy shapes and dots to give the impression of sand. This is effective because it adds both texture and depth to the image. The areas of white space just seem like areas where the sun is shining. I've always struggled with backgrounds so these images have helped me realise that they aren't such a big issue.

I also like how in some images the edges of the backgrounds are left as messy brush strokes like in the chicken page. This makes the image feel more handmade, personal and also makes it more interesting to look at. I have been attempting to use more printed backgrounds recently but I deffinatly need to collect many more textures and experiment with paints rather than just printed backgrounds. Paints give a might richer colour and also a smother finish which could come in handy for many future illustrations.



The colours in these illustrations are really lovely. They are at times wrong for cirtain animals, such as the blue chickens and bright pink fish. However the colours still give an organic feel to the illustrations. They don't seem too over the top for the images and still feel quite subtle. I think the colours I have used in "my nana knits cats" are a bit much at times. I need to learn from these images and experiment with more complimenting colours.

Another thing I like about these images is how in some pages the child's outfit matches the animal she is interacting with. This would make it clear to a child that she is pretending to be the animal. It also makes the image more fun for a child as they get to see the similarites between the animal and the child. I think my favourite example of this is the chicken page where the girl has a white ruffled dress, pink bow and red shoes matching in with the colours on the chicken to the left of the page. I really need to do more character and clothing drawings as clothing is something I really struggle with.

Finally I want to talk about the anatomy of the little girl character in these images. I've always struggled with anatomy and worried that it wasn't right in my own drawings etc. These images have taught me that you don't have to over think anatomy. The little girl character is made up of simple shapes. Her feet are far too small but this dosen't matter. she is always a smooth shape with no sharp edges making her seem more soft and friendly. It's also obvious that she is a child by her larger head. Also sometimes her head shape and features seem distorted, however this dosen't spoil the images and fits into what she is doing in the image like in the terrier page.

I really need to take this on board! It dosen't always have to be perfect! It dosen't matter if both arms are coming out of one side of a character, or if both eyes are on the same side of the head. These imperfections can make a character stand out from the rest.

In conclusion I feel that the illustrations in this book will have the biggest impact on my working method. Mainly in backgrounds and character anatomy.

Tangled Things: Wellspring

For visual inspiration I will be looking at squiggly, tangled and knotted things. I think that if the arrows are more tangled it will make the image more interesting and also will illustrate the struggle and frustration Beverley was going through at the time...

All these images were found on Google.

Wellspring ideas and inspiration

The past few weeks have been spent working on the Wellspring project. I've found this one very difficult because it requires me to be more serious than I would usually be with my work.

My work has to be based on Beverley's story. For some reason it won't let me copy and paste the story onto here and I have no intention of typing it all out... However if you look here you can find and read the story... http://www.thewellspring.btck.co.uk/Membersstories


My initial ideas were focused around bottles because it was the drink that caused her to be in her situation. My first ideas were very grapic using black and white shapes to make up the bottle and then the bottle lable area would be used for my quote.

I felt that the bottle ideas weren't really "me" so I tried to incorperate a character into some of them.

After speaking with Ian Whadcock I realised that I could still use my character but in a more serious way. He also talked to me about the idea of using arrows to show how Beverley has gone down but is now back up in life.

These are the sketches that Ian Whadcock did to help me start thinking about arrows and possible compositions using them...

After this I started playing around with the arrows thing and came up with some possible compositions.

The Wellspring people really liked the bottom right idea which was the idea I liked out of them all. They didn't really give me much more feedback than that...

I then decided to speak to "Our Ian" about my ideas. My main concern was that my chosen idea didn't have much space left to add in text. We looked at some examples of interesting text and I really liked the twisting knot-like texts. We discussed the idea of having the arrows in a knot in the middle of the composition but having the two ends coming out top and bottom. Still keeps in with the idea of up and down but would also give me a chance to add text in the middle. I would probably have to lose the character which is a shame but I plan to experiment this week with different compositions and ways to possibly still include the character...

When I should be working but...

...instead I play around with the doodles I did when I should have been working :P

When I should be working on current projects...

...this happens instead.

Ben Javens

http://www.benjavens.co.uk/

Was looking through my fellow class mates blogs and came across an illustrator on 2nd yr Kyle Hart's blog called Ben Javens. I was drawn to the bright colours and use of printed textures. I want to be able to use textures in my work without outlines like this illustrator does.

Also really like how he puts colours together. They look very organic but stand out at the same time.

Haha!

Kate Wilson

http://little-doodles.blogspot.com/

Kate Wilson is a london based illustrator whos work I have become very fond of. She has worked for a range of clients including Marc Jacobs, The New York Times and Topman.

I love how her work combines delicate lines and dots with random splashes of colourful watercolour washes. Her work inspires me to practice with watercolours much more :)

I think out of all her work the "little birds" are my favourites...

More inspiration

Some more examples of things that I love for various reasons...

Really want to make 3D versions of my monsters!

Stunning textures

"Swarms"

Inverted lines and paint washes :)

What I have learned

At the end of this project we were asked to think about what we have learned and what motivates us...


I think my motivation is the fear of failing and also pressure. I tend to leave all the final work til the very last minute. So far this has worked out well for me but I don't enjoy the stress.
I need to plan my time better and think about what exactly needs to be done. Also need to try to not get so stressed all the time and panic about all the "what ifs".

Here are my 4 final double page spreads. I haven't used the versions with the text because I felt that the images look better without.

This is my least favourite of the 4 pages. It was also the first one I finished. I think the lac of background texture is what spoils it. I could have spent more time making different textures and trying them out.

I really love this one mainly because of the bubbles at the top of the page. This was by accident but I think it's worked out really well. This page could have been better with more elements such as different types of sock fish, sea weed or a sandy floor?

I really like this one because I think the colours fit in with the season being summer. I also like the way the texture blends out at the top and bottom. I think it could have been improved by having more clothing on the line maybe? Also maybe some indication of the ground?

This is my favourite of all the 4 pages. I think the texture works really well and all the colours blend in well despite being different. I've used the same idea from the underwater bubbly texture in this image. I think this one could be improved by the children on the left side having more movement like they do on the right? Give them more life and character maybe...

In my feedback from the class it said that the planning in the rough book was good and also the combination of hand drawn and digital. My "kick up the arse" was to experiment with more textures and also to experiment more with handmade typography. I wanted to have more textures anyway, but was lazy. Hadn't even considered handmade typography. Deffinatly something to consider in future projects.

More Knitted Cats

Scanned in lots of different woollen textures this week. Been playing around with different ones on different textures. I think the lighter textures work better than the darker ones...

Knitted Cats

Began work on the cats for my children's book recently. My initial idea was for the illustrations to have strong, clean lines done on illustrator and then be filled with scanned textures.

The first lot of finished cats looked like this. Clean lines and softer texture. After speaking with Ian we decided that these cats didn't have the same "life" to them. The first doodles and sketches had much more life to them so I tried to find a way to combine both clean lines and sketchy lines.

After playing around with layers and the different lines the cats started to look more like this. I'm really happy with this style and there are lots more things I want to try.