Category: Progression

AOI Monkey

The project:

This was a last minute competition suggested to the class by our tutor who thought it would be a great opportunity for us to submit a design to. When he had suggested it, I believe there were only a couple of weeks till the deadline, so it would have to be a quick project and turnaround.

The competition is run by the Association of Illustrators and is called the Northern Illustration Awards, so only northern-based emerging/established illustrators could apply. The theme of the competition is monkeys, which is inspired by a local story in Hartlepool, wherein the time of the Napoleonic Wars, the people of Hartlepool had hung a monkey as they believed it to be a French spy. You did not have to illustrate this story, all you had to do was illustrate a monkey.

Following the themes of my Cheltenham Illustration Awards project, in this one, I had also wanted to work with deeper themes, I did not just want to make a pretty picture of a monkey to submit, as I felt countless of illustrators will have done with such an open brief, I did want my design to have more meaning.

When scrolling through illustrations of monkeys on Pinterest, I had discovered one that I had liked and it was of an orangutan and had been created in a loose tactile style which helped in creating an impression of the monkey’s fur. This piece had actually reminded me of the banned Iceland advert which had gone viral around Christmas time, which was about deforestation for palm oil, which in turn means the loss of habitats for orangutans.

This had inspired the direction in which I wanted to take with my monkey illustration. For my piece, I wanted to show a role reversal between the orangutans and us humans, showing what it would be like if they were the ones destroying our homes and livelihoods for their own benefits, whether it be for food, drink or even shower products.

With this illustration, I wanted to shed more light to the issue, maybe in less of a direct way than showing the audience an image of deforestation, but instead, creating more digestible imagery which is prettier but is still able to get the message across. Most of the time people will ignore images of problems going on in the world, such as deforestation and loss of habitats for wildlife, as it is easier for them to go on with their day imagining that its not actually happening, but with my piece, it is more vibrant in terms of palette, so will attract the audiences eyes, and the content is not so violent the the audience want to ignore it, but instead they may take in the message easier, especially if they have a fresh perspective of the issue.

My message with this piece is ‘How would you feel?’. How would you feel if your home was destroyed without a second thought, if your livelihood, memories, comfort or even the feeling of safety had been taken away in the blink of an eye? I imagine it would not feel good, so why can we not show this empathy towards animals and in this case the orangutans. They may be animals, but they need homes, stability and a sense of comfort within their daily habits and needs, as much as we humans do.

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If you would like to see how I created this illustration, I had recorded the process and made a speed paint video which I had posted to YouTube as my first video, hopefully being my first of many and my first step towards a successful YouTube channel.

Strengths 

I do feel this illustration is unique in comparison to any piece I have made before. I had worked in a more looser style, experimenting with new brushes from Kyle T. Webster packs, and I feel I was able to create the impression of fur by building the tone, stroke and textures up gradually, which I feel helped my monkey look more realistic in a sense, but he does still have a more painterly look to him as well.

I loved my colour palette in this piece and it was actually inspired by a free paint swatch booklet, (the current Crown colour guide) that I had gotten from Homebase in the weekend before creating this piece. I had loved the pale toned blues within one of the room guides and I felt the orange of the orangutan would complement the tones well, so these were my main tones and I tried to work around them to make a cohesive design that would attract the eye and be very pleasing to it.

Weaknesses 

My biggest issue with this piece was trying to get the orangutans anatomy and proportions correct. Everything that I knew about the human anatomy had to be thrown out of the window for this character as their limbs are longer, bodies are more round and they barely have a neck. So, every time I tried to draw this orangutan, he would look wrong, but that was because I was comparing him to a human, so I just tried to get him looking as correct as I possibly could, which in the end, I do think I did a pretty good job? Maybe. I won’t really know until I’ve seen a real orangutan sitting in that exact position for myself.

Opportunities

By submitting this illustration to the competition, I may be able to get more recognition from the AOI, who I do plan to work with more in the future when I become a member with them. If I were to win, my work would be showcased within a gallery space in Hartlepool, being seen by other illustrators, both who I assume are also emerging or established, but it can also be seen by potential clients, but either way, it would be good publicity which could help my audience grow.

When I post the piece on social media, once the competition is over and the winners have been announced, as I’m not sure if you’re allowed to have it online beforehand, I will be using hashtags to reach a wider range of audiences, but this may allow me to reach more activist based groups or people who have the same views on the subject, so I may be able to learn more about the issue from them and ways in which I can help the cause, whether it’s swapping to alternative products that do not contain palm oil, or going out of my way to do even more. Since creating this piece, I have become more passionate about the issue at hand and I would like to make a change, so I would like to be more informed about the problem so that I can help more and inform others about the issues with more confidence.

Threats

The main threat I feel I would have from this illustration would be that I am a hypocrite with the message, as I do still use products that contain palm oil, so from the audience’s perspective, if I myself am still using the products, why should the audience stop. In response to this, I would say that with this piece, it’s not really aimed at the common public, as palm oil is in so many products that it would be hard to just stop buying them or find alternatives, so I aim this illustration at the people higher up, such as the companies that make the products, as I feel they need to start finding alternative methods rather than using palm oil as consumers don’t really know what is in the products they are purchasing half of the time, but the companies know what ingredients are going into their products and the devastation it has caused within the rainforests. It may cost time and money to remake the products with an alternative ingredient, but in the long run, it would be worth it, as it would not just be saving the homes of thousands of animals including the orangutans, it would also help in saving our planet.

 

Future Goals and Targets.

I loved working on this piece, with the style, techniques and stronger message behind it, so in the future, I would like to create more illustrations with stronger messages, ones that I do feel passionate about and can get behind.

With the style and techniques, I feel I had discovered my direction with this illustration just whilst experimenting, so I would like to treat more projects like this in the future, trying out multiple brushes and colour palettes before I even start working on the illustration, so that I have a better idea of the direction I’m taking with my piece and I have more confidence in doing so.

 

Bibliography

Crown Paints. (2019). Colours. [online] Available at: https://www.crownpaints.co.uk/colours [Accessed 9 Apr. 2019].

Iceland Foods (2018). Iceland’s Banned TV Christmas Advert… Say hello to Rang-tan. #NoPalmOilChristmas. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdpspllWI2o [Accessed 9 Apr. 2019].

Russell, M. (2019). Monkey Illustration. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4Ib2r6xXyU&t=50s [Accessed 9 Apr. 2019].

All other images are my own unless stated otherwise.

We need to talk..

Ok, so since the end of Semester one I feel I have been slacking on my blog and not posting as regularly as I had. I believe this is because after the last hand in, I was so stressed that I felt I needed a bit of a break, one that I didn’t necessarily have the time for but kind of took anyway.

In the first couple of weeks I did create two pieces of work, one which was a commission (I believe I mentioned that I would be working on this in a previous blog post, ‘Evolution of the Cat’ click here to read) then the second piece I had worked on was for a ‘draw this in your style’ challenge on Instagram which you can also read about by clicking here. So technically I had been working, but not on the projects that I was supposed to be concentrating on, such as the live briefs and personal projects I had planned, like illustrating The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, focusing on branding (creating a website, portfolio, promo packs, merch and products, etc).brow2

At the start of the year I was also given the chance to have my work in a local exhibition ran by ‘A Canny Collective‘ which I felt was a great opportunity as I gained a lot of experience from both creating illustrations and setting them up for the show, then on the opening night I was working on the shop, so I also gained the experience of selling work in a more personal setting, selling one to one with the buyer as opposed to over a website. If you would like to read more about this exhibition, what I created and how the night went, I have made a blog post about it so again, please click here if you want to know more.

SO, now with the work that I’m actually supposed to be working on. I have currently been creating illustrations for the Wizard of Oz but throughout I have been struggling with the styles and techniques that I’ve wanted to use. I did initially create 5 basic sketches which at the time I did see some flaws, but with the pressure of time, I got lazy and just ignored them and thought I was ready for the next stages and that maybe the flaws would get better once I coloured the pieces and added more textures. After a well-needed discussion with my tutor, he knocked some sense into me and I knew that I had to stop being lazy and make the changes that I was choosing to ignore.

From this discussion, I started taking photos of me and my boyfriend to use as reference for the characters and I started using more images of animals and floral elements where needed. It’s fair to say that my sketchbook became a lot fuller as I was sketching different poses, angles and options for each illustration (I think this will be the first sketchbook in a while that I’m actually proud of, as I more recently I have just been going straight into digital work as opposed to sketching traditionally first). Once I was happy with the sketches, I started to create new layouts for each of the illustrations, keeping in mind my talk with David and how I should think about the narrative of the piece when trying to compose specific characters or elements.

After the thumbnail layouts were down, I started sketching the pieces digitally once again and the reference photos I had taken did come in very handy during this process. I then printed the pieces off, showed them to David, mostly for reassurance before I took them any further, he did make some suggestions, for instance with the Tin Woodsman piece, he suggested that I reframe it so that it would be more of a closeup shot, which I do feel helped convey more action between the characters as the previous layout did seem quite open now looking back, which may have looked more calm than what I was intending.

Once I made the adjustments suggested I went to the light box and started transferring the sketch to paper and once lined I’d add in the textures. For this process I used pencil, I started with a 4H for both the lining and the textures, then when I needed darker areas I used a 5B. After testing multiple pencils in my sketchbook, I mostly liked the H’s as they gave more of the texture I wanted, whereas the B’s were more soft so they gave more of a smooth texture.

After I had completed the traditional part of this project, for now, we shall see if I need to go back and do anything else, I scanned in each illustration, set it within the document size that I wanted and now they are ready to colour.

This is the point I’m currently at, but during the colouring phase, I do want to record the process as I feel it may be satisfying to watch and I do want to start posting speed painting videos online, potentially streaming the process online as well through twitch.

The main elements of my to-do list at this moment in time is to:

  • Complete my Wizard of Oz illustrations
  • Start working on AOI’s Northern Illustration competition (more on that coming soon in a separate blog post)
  • Create an illustration or sequential piece for Cheltenham illustration awards (I will go into more depth and make a blog post about this too)
  • Focus on self-branding, this leads on to the next point which is..
  • Creating a portfolio book. I still have the pages from the one I made last year, so in the new one I will just be adding my more recent work, but I definitely want to change my old cover, hence how this links to the previous point as I need to focus on what my brand is and how best to communicate that through a cover.
  • Creating a website. I hope that I will be able to show my portfolio and have a working shop on the site.
  • Making work for the final show. I don’t necessarily know what I want to create for this yet or if I’m just going to use work from one of my current projects, but once I get a better idea of the space, how/if we’re framing our work, I may have more inspiration as to what I can create.
  • The last on this list is merchandise. For the final show, I did want to make new products that I could potentially sell on the night, whether this is new prints, T-shirt’s, enamel pins, badges etc. The reason this is last however is that I feel it should be my last priority as the work above has more consequences if I don’t manage to complete them.

 

Bibliography

A Canny Collective. (2019) [Online] Available from: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt19GO7lEG5/ [Accessed on 03 April. 2019]

All other work is my own unless stated otherwise.

Cheltenham Concepts

For the Cheltenham Illustration Awards, with the theme of ‘unity’, I wanted to create an illustration with a deeper meaning and a stronger message behind it. I had not created a lot of illustrations like this in the past, so had wanted to gain more experience with that type of illustration in this project. A lot of these ideas were thought from the perspective of a group of people coming together to fix certain issues, showing the theme of unity through group efforts.

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Concept 1 – This concept was a little basic in a sense, I feel like it would be expected from the theme of unity. I had sketched a silhouette of two people holding hands and inside the shape would be layers of people of all different backgrounds and walks of life, differentiating by their gender, ethnicity, job role, sexuality, etc.

I did like the idea behind this concept but did not feel the message was the direction that I wanted to go with as I did want to look even deeper into worldly issues, bringing light to them through my illustrations.

Concept 2 – This idea was inspired by an illustration I had found on Pinterest of a figure trapped within a glass dome, so I felt this would be a good representation of what it may feel like to be trapped within your own mind, and for my piece, to better express the theme of unity, I wanted the piece to be sequential, showing the figure getting help from others in the end, whether it be from professionals or just his friends. When putting more thought into the specific type of glass, as that could have more symbolisation in itself, it had made me think of a campaign called ‘Be in your Mates Corner’ ran by Time to change, in which they had made beer mats with the message:

“Is there a mate missing around this table? Reach out to him.” – (Time to Change, 2019)

This campaign was directed at a male audience as suicide is the main cause of death in men under 50, and this campaign was directed to fight the stigma behind mental health in men as some may feel that they shouldn’t talk about their problems as it may make them weaker. This advertisement was fighting the stigma and opening the conversation about male mental health issues, so with my own illustrations, I wanted to try to do this too, carrying on that conversation and potentially showing that there is light at the end of the tunnel if you allow others in, whether it is from professional help or just from friends.

Concept 3 – This concept was inspired by an artist named Lauren Carney, or DizzyLittleDotty on Instagram, who had formed a portrait of a character made from multiple characters of different backgrounds, ethnicities, etc. The artist had created this piece to celebrate international women’s day of 2018, so the piece had consisted purely of female figures, so with my own piece, I wanted to take her concept and try to be even more inclusive, having male representation as well as women, showing unity through all people.

In my version, the character had ended up looking similar to Frankenstein’s monster, so scarier than I had intended, as opposed to empowering as I feel Carney’s piece is. I did decide that I would not be taking this concept any further as I believe the illustration shown below is already a great representation and is uplifting as opposed to a horror show like my version.

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Concept 4 – Is based on another illustration I had found on Pinterest, which was of a woman in a social setting, but inside of her was a curled up figure who seemed to be scared of being within that setting and had anxiety that she would have to communicate with others or potentially feared that everyone was looking at her or talking about her.

With my own piece, I had the idea to show multiple people holding hands, people of all different shapes and sizes, but within them, all was a scared little version of themselves. This was supposed to symbolise that no matter what you may look like on the outside, whether you’re a big buff guy like Terry Cruise or have the figure of McLovin (I know he’s a fictional character but that is the only name I will use for that actor), all of us have that person within us that is scared, maybe who has anxiety, problems with overthinking, depression and so on. Despite these versions of us, however, we still need to overcome them, no matter how long or hard that challenge may be, and together we stand in union ready to help one another through our struggles.

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Concept 5 – This concept was suggested by my partner when I had asked him for ideas of illustrations that I could make with deeper meanings to them. He had suggested that I draw a beach with the waves gently washing inwards and back out, but as they would do this, they would wash up children’s toys. This was to symbolise the children that may not have made the journey when escaping Syria on the boats/rafts, the toys having belonged to those children.

This concept is very deep and it does make me sad when thinking about it. Before my partner had mentioned this idea, I do think that I was blissfully unaware of this issue, but by creating the visuals, it has given me more perspective on the situation and more realisation as to the horrible problems going on within the world.

Although this was a strong concept, I did not feel it had a lot of connection to the theme of unity, (which was solely my fault as I had not mentioned the theme to my partner, I had just asked for ideas for an illustration with a deeper meaning, which he had come through on) so, I had not decided to carry this concept onwards. I do however want to potentially come back to it at a later date, as I do believe that by illustrating this piece, I could bring more light to the topic, making more people aware of the issue.

ugh

With these concepts, I had chosen to take concept 2 further, illustrating the piece in more detail. However, this had not worked out well as I felt I had lost connection with the original theme, and whilst illustrating it, I did not have a style in mind that I wanted to achieve, so I had lost more and more confidence in the whole piece as I was going. With the timeframe and still having other projects to complete, I felt myself caring less and less about this project and with the direction that it was going, I had not enjoyed the thought of it at all, so I had made the decision to just cut it off before I spent any more time on it. When I had tried to make the piece better, I just felt like I was polishing a turd, so just felt there was no point in carrying on.

I do like the concept behind this piece as I do feel it is strong, but I feel I need more time to play around with the imagery within, illustrating something that I am proud of, as opposed to just getting the piece done and out of the way. I believe as it is a strong message, it does deserve strong imagery as well so that it is able to best communicate the specific message to the audience.

As well as this concept, at a later date, I would like to come back to the others as well, maybe working more outside of the theme of unity, as I feel I will have more freedom, being able to play around a bit more with the imagery as I will not need to try to make the concepts work towards the theme and be confined to it.

 

Reading List

Russell, M. (2019). All together now: Tales of Unity. [online] Pinterest. Available at: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/melon628/all-together-now-tales-of-unity/ [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].

Time to Change (2019). Be in your Mates Corner. [online] The Independent. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/men-mental-health-coaster-twitter-viral-time-to-change-campaign-suicide-depression-a8319796.html [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].

List of Figures

Carney, L. (2018). International Women’s Day. [image] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/BgCmATIjtVb/ [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].

All other images are my own unless stated otherwise.

Anatomy/Poses

For a recent local exhibition ran by A Canny Collective, which I was a guest artist for, with the theme of love, I decided to focus on self-love in the form of body positivity, so in my pieces, I wanted to illustrate multiple bodies of different shapes and sizes. I am confident with the message behind these pieces as everyone should learn to love and appreciate their own body shapes and sizes, buuuut there was also another reason why I had wanted to draw bodies for this mini project, as I wanted to use it in order to get better at drawing anatomy. Luckily for me, an artist named Chelsea Gracei had posted a video on youtube discussing and showing how she specifically draws anatomy and poses.

Chelsea Gracei is an illustrator who I have followed on social media for a while now. This was the artist who I had taken inspiration from in the #DrawThisInYourStyle challenge on Instagram a month ago when I had redrawn one of her characters. Her style is more cartoony so her figures are not exactly anatomically correct, but she does have enough knowledge on anatomy that she knows how to manipulate it so that her characters are still pleasing to the eye.

In the video, she discusses how she uses oval shapes to form her characters, as it gives a more flowing sense, creating more movement within the character than using a more blocky shape would. Following the artists tutorial, as well as reference images so that I would have a better idea of anatomy, I had tried drawing the first of four figures. The reference image I had used was of my friend and was posted on her private Instagram in confidence, so it would be inappropriate to show that reference image within this post.

The figure I was drawing had bigger hips but a slim waist so I tried to convey this within the oval shapes I was using. The proportions did look a bit off, but I decided to just leave them until I cleaned up the sketch a bit. In the original reference image, both hands were positioned on the hips, but I eventually chose to move them both behind the figure as I wanted the woman’s curves to be the focal point of the piece. I did initially just have one hand on the hip, but I felt the proportions looked weird within the arm without any shading and I had not intended to add and shading as to keep my design minimal, so I ended up just positioning both arms behind the woman’s back.

Once I had an initial sketch down, I tried planning out the background elements, positioning a shape behind the specific character of which I felt would best complement their figures and positioning. I had ended up only creating four pieces as I was working with a short time frame, but in the future, I would like to draw even more body shapes and sizes of all different genders and ethnicities as I would like my work to be inclusive to all.  I still had further refinements to make at this point shown in the images below, but I wanted to have minimal line work, so from the sketches, I had created a white silhouette, which had cut out the figure against its background shape, then I would later line the characters, quite boldly but only using the lines to help define the bodies. The linework would taper off and not exceed the specific shapes as I wanted to keep the characters quite clean and confined to their shapes.

I plan to carry on this explanation of my process within an upcoming post, but as well as discussing my own work, I will also be talking about the exhibition as a whole and my experiences with that.

Moving back to the topic of this post, anatomy and learning from a video by Chelsea Gracei, I do feel that I had learnt from her personal process, creating more organic and flowing body proportions and positions, but I do believe I will still need reference imagery if I am to create more figures in the future, as I feel without, my proportions would end up being very off. I do plan to work on my anatomy skills and knowledge more in the future, but I feel, for the time being, I can work well with Gracei’s process whilst using reference imagery. I do believe that in future projects I will refer back to this artists tips and techniques as I did find them useful whilst working on these figures.

 

Bibliography 

Gracei, C. (2019). How to Draw Poses that Look Natural and Flowy. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alamCiqsIb8 [Accessed 25 Feb. 2019].

All other images within this post are my own unless stated otherwise.

Draw This in Your Style Challenge.

The project:

This was a mini side project which I may not have exactly had the time for but had wanted to take part in, which was a challenge on social media where an artist would post their own work using the hashtag DrawThisInYourStyle and their followers would redraw the artists work in their own style and prefered methods/techniques. There were plenty of illustrators who were posting their work around this time, but the one that had caught my eye the most was a character by Chelsea Gracei.

View this post on Instagram

Time for another #drawthisinyourstyle ! This babe is inspired by the Queen of Swords tarot card – a card that I really relate to ⚔️ . The Queen of Swords is about wielding the power of your own mind with CONFIDENCE 👑👑 She can be quite direct, logical, and independent but ultimately she is a truth seeker. She calls us to listen to all sides of a story and use our mind to reach an unbiased conclusion even if that truth can be harsh ⚔️👑 . Feel free to redraw her in your style and use the hashtag #graceiredraw so I can see! 💜 . I’ve included a censored version that you can use if you don’t feel comfortable with nudity 💜 . There’s no deadline so feel free to redraw whenever! I’ll be sharing a few on my stories from time to time! 💜💜💜 . . . . . . #redraw #illustration #illustratorsoninstagram #illustrator #tarot #queenofswords #tarotcards #art #artist #artistsoninstagram #procreate #digitalart

A post shared by 👻chelsea👻 (@chelseagracei) on

This piece had felt within the realm of my own work, as I do enjoy creating female portraits, especially from the shoulders up, as you may have seen throughout my inktober posts, but it still felt enough of a challenge that it would push me slightly out of my comfort zone, creating imagery that I may not have thought to before and figuring out how to translate Gracei’s character into my own ‘style’.

For the first part of this process, I had followed the steps I had used to create my inktober flower girls, which I had written up in a blog post so you can read all about it by clicking here.

Once I had the traditional elements done, I took a photo of the piece and started to colour the character and her background digitally using a watercolour textured brush. I tried to work straight from the colour palette of the original piece, but I had made my own tweaks here and there to make it my own, as I did want more contrast or more vibrancy within my own palette. With the swords and clouds, I had drawn these elements with a fine liner and in my design, I had played around with some of the overlay options and had set them so that it would look as if the imagery had been cut out of the blue background, so the white would be a stark contrast against the deeper blues. As a final touch, I had tried to blend both the traditional textures and the digital colouring together more seamlessly by applying a noise filter.

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Strengths 

Although this project was a detour from the projects I should have been working on, I do feel it was a quick project as I was able to create this piece within a day and posted it only 2 days after the artist had posted the original design.

When comparing my work to the original illustration, I do feel I have met the challenge, recreating the artist’s character in my own style, even though I hadn’t thought that I really had a style,  and I feel I have taken the themes, imagery and colour palette and have made the piece my own, standing apart from the other submissions. There were a lot of other amazing entries to this artists challenge, but I feel my style and version of the character does stand out well among the others.

Through this project, I was able to experiment more mixing traditional and digital techniques as I have enjoyed doing in the past, but with this illustration, I feel I was able to achieve a higher standard than I have with previous work, so I do believe it shows that I am learning and developing my skills so that I will be able to work with these techniques more often in the future, working more and more to an industry standard.

Weaknesses 

The illustration is a bit rough in some areas, but I believe this is more in the transition from traditional mediums to digital colouring, for instance, the linework may seem more patchy in colour, especially where I have tried to clean up the edges but may have gone in a bit too far revealing the tone of the original linework. the white areas that I have cut out are also not as smooth as I would have liked, but saying this, if they were smooth it may have made the design look more static, as when looking at the design as a whole, I do feel the rougher and more traditional outline is more cohesive with the traditional textures and digital brushes that I had used.

Opportunities

As this project is based on social media, I am putting my work out there which will potentially help in the growth of my audience. As I have used the artists specific hashtag for this challenge and have also tagged her in my work, if she sees and likes my interpretation, she could possibly look through my other posts and maybe end up following me, but that might be a little too high of my hopes. What may be more achievable, however, is that I know she has been sharing other entries for her challenge on her Instagram stories, so she could post my version of her work on there, showing it to her own audience who may like my version of the original piece and like it or potentially follow me from it.

Threats

I don’t really know if this is a threat or not, but I had not really had much input in the content of this illustration as all of the elements were already given to me, I just had to redraw them in my style. So someone could argue that I did not show a lot of creativity within this piece, as I had not put so much thought into it, but I do believe I have managed to put enough of myself into the artwork that I have made the illustration my own, so hopefully no one would need to argue this matter. I do think the original piece was beautiful though, as why I had chosen to redraw it, so I was happy to work with the imagery she had already created and apply my own style to it.

 

Future Goals and Targets. 

Now that I know I can work to a higher quality when mixing both traditional and digital techniques, I would like to do so more often in the future, potentially in upcoming projects, as I do enjoy the process a lot and I love the textures that I am able to achieve with it.

If this challenge becomes popular again and another artist that I follow post a #DrawThisInYourStyle challenge of their own, I would like to take part in it again, but I would possibly like to take on more of a challenging piece, moving more out of my comfort zones and seeing what I can create maybe with subjects that I am less confident with.

 

Reading List

Russell, M. (2018). 8 Tools I use For Inktober. [Blog] MelonRIllustration. Available at: https://melonrillustration.art.blog/2018/10/25/8-tools-i-use-for-inktober/ [Accessed 28 Jan. 2019].

List of Figures

Gracei, C. (2019). Instagram. [image] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/BtEVIEjBNKy/ [Accessed 28 Jan. 2019].

All other images are my own unless stated otherwise.

‘Twas the week before Christmas…

If you have read my previous post, you will know how stressed I was trying to achieve my deadline for one of my projects, it wasn’t my real deadline, but it was the one I had set myself for that specific project. So, with this week, as it is probably the last week I can do work before getting lost in festivities, and having to clear my workspace away so that, to my mother’s delight, the dining table would be free again for the week between Christmas and New Years. Yes, I work at the dining table as my room is currently under construction and has been for a while, so I don’t really have elsewhere to work. So with these factors, I wanted to put all hands on deck to create 2 covers for the Penguin competition. This included sketching ideas, creating thumbnails for potential covers, then designing them digitally and refining them further.

I have surprised myself during this week, as I have managed to create 3 possible designs for the story Wonder by R. J. Palacio, technically 2 with the 3rd being a combination of both concepts, and I have created 2 possible designs for Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami.  I did start the process with 4 concepts for each book but have narrowed down my options when it came to creating them digitally. This was due to either time or lack of enthusiasm with the concept, but I do believe I have still given options within designs which would be more beneficial if I were working one to one with the client, but as I am not, and I am only allowed to submit one design per category, I will end up choosing the piece myself or my peers find most interesting or best advertise the stories.

During this week, I feel I have been confident when illustrating and coming up with concepts, however, when it came to adding in the text, I have found a lot of issues with the type getting lost within the illustrations and trying to find ways in which to make them stand out more. When talking to my peers, this was the biggest issue they had spotted, and luckily, one had given me suggestions about how I could improve on this.

From sending my friend all of the pieces shown above, she had circled both of the designs with eye patterns for the Wonder book, then the tree piece for Norwegian Wood and said that these were the pieces that would need to be worked on more as you wouldn’t be able to read them. With the designs for Wonder, she had suggested I remove some of the eyes so that they would be more of a border for the text as opposed to a background. As the pattern was somewhat uniform though, when doing this I felt it looked quite messy in a sense, the design no longer had a flow within the pattern and the eyes just looked more random in their positioning. She had not made any suggestions for the Norwegian Wood design, but she had liked the other option I had made for it, although she did spot a typo so I immediately corrected that. Another friend had suggested that the barcode on the back may not be readable from the design, so I also added in a white box over the design but under the information, so that it would be easier for a machine to read it. The white box was the same colour as the text, so did not look too obscure in the design as a whole, and sort of kept it cohesive.

 

After making the changes, probably even before then, I knew I had liked the more simple designs better, as they were more solid and there was less to question, for instance, it wouldn’t be a question of “what am I looking at”, “is the text readable”, etc. So the ones shown below are the ones I believe I will be submitting to the competition.

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The Wonder design

For this design, I did like the idea of people WONDERing (ha get it) why there was a duck on the cover when the story is about a little boy named August, but it does link to a section in where the boy is in the Principles office and notices his artwork on the wall. This artwork was for a class project in which the students had to make a self-portrait of themselves if they were an animal, and August had drawn a duck. When the Principle asks him “why a duck?” expecting a meaningful and in-depth answer, August just replies with “Its because I think I look like a duck.” I loved this section when I had read it and although I thought I was not going to try drawing the child, as the blurb of the book specifically says that he doesn’t want to describe himself as “whatever you’re thinking, its probably worse”, I thought this would be a fun way of representing the little boy, without trying to draw the accurate description.

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The Norwegian Wood design

There is a section within the book where the character is working at a record store and cuts himself on “one of the glass partitions in a record shelf” that was cracked, he then goes on to mention how the floor is covered in blood etc, so at the time this had made me think of this cover design. Although it had not exactly mentioned a broken record, this is what I had imagined when I had read the section, a record in shards, with a red background which would be the character’s blood.

This may not have been someones first thought of imagery after reading the book, but I felt since the title of the story is inspired by a song by The Beatles, ‘Norwegian Wood’, I felt the imagery was still valid to the story, and in a sense, it could be symbolic to the characters emotions and relationships throughout the story? (Potential spoiler? I’m sorry!) So I do like this design and concept, as I believe it is not an obvious choice and it is somewhat out of the box, but not too far as it still relates.

So still to do, as I have slightly worked backwards during this project, just trying to churn out the final designs as quick as I could with the time I have, I do have a lot of writing up to do. When working, I did have the artists and styles in mind that I wanted to use, but I just need to write this research up properly, discuss all of the choices I made throughout the process, etc, and I will need to make a final evaluation (which I will also post on here). This, however, will probably be done after Christmas, maybe pushing towards after New Years as well, as I had mentioned before, my working space is at the dining table, and during this time, my Mam does like it to be clear. I will keep my progression updated, but if I don’t post during that time, you now know why, so you can just imagine me living my best life, stuffing my face with festive food!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! OR HAPPY HOLIDAYS, WHATEVER YOU CELEBRATE! AND HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

 

Bibliography

Murakami, H. and Rubin, J. (2001). Norwegian wood. London: Harvill, p.263.

Palacio, R. (2013). Wonder. United Kingdom: Penguin Books Ltd, p.287.

The week from Hell.

Due to my incapability to follow my own timetable, which I had even reorganised after not managing to follow it the first time, this week was supposed to be the last week I had given myself to work on the House of Illustration, Book Illustration Competition, in which I had to create 3 illustrations and a book cover for the story ‘Howls Moving Castle’ by Diana Wynne Jones.

Instead, for the majority of this 3-week project, I spent a lot of time trying to catch up or finish off previous projects that I had fallen behind on. I also decided to work on an illustration which would be a gift for my boyfriends mum. This was supposed to be completed and printed for her birthday in September, but as we all know by now, I can’t follow my own time plans! So I said I would give it to her for Christmas instead, not that she knows (a blog post for this piece will be coming soon). So, the time I should have been spending on this project had been spent on others, but I refused to fall behind on the project starting next week, so I decided I had to finish this one by today!

In what should have been one week of researching, one week of creating concepts and experimenting and the final week creating the final design, I have basically had to do all of this in the space of a week.

When creating my pieces, I didn’t really have an idea of styles or techniques I was going to use, I had thought about artists, but I hadn’t thought about potential ways in which I could apply the styles or techniques to my own work, so basically in the process of creating my pieces, I have just been winging it, seeing “does this thing work? No, not really, scrap it! Does this? Okay, we’ll just roll with it”. I had kept doing right up until now.

I am currently happy with these designs, but I would say I do still need critique and outsiders perspectives so that I can potentially make further improvements. At this moment in time, however, I still have a lot of work to complete within other projects so this one may have to fall to the back of the pack. Because of this, I may not end up submitting my designs to the competition, as I’m not sure if it fits the standards of previous entries in the years before, especially not without further refinement. And since the competition does have a fee to enter, I feel it could be a waste of my money.

Even if I don’t submit these design to the competition, I will still include them in my portfolio, as through this project, I have been able to show more skills with narrative, and I have created more landscape designs, two areas of which I felt were lacking in my portfolio.

SO, what have we learnt from this post? I am my own worst enemy and I only have myself to blame! From this experience, I will strive to keep myself more organised and actually follow my own set time plans. I believe this information will be very important for when starting next semester, as I will try to plan out my time better, using my experience from this first semester, as I feel I will have more knowledge of my pace of working and what I am capable of doing in specific timeframes.

The Timeplan

9 weeks into the first semester and I’m already not following the timetable I had originally planned within my proposal for the year.

 

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Original Timetable (Before I had switched the Wizard of Oz project with the L.W.W project in Semester 2)

I believe this is due to multiple confusing factors from the beginning till now, one of them being that I have chosen to read all of the books. After finishing The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and realising how long it had taken, (which wasn’t exactly long, but longer than I had initially expected) I decided to start reading ‘Howls Moving Castle’ for the House of Illustration competition, then after I finished that, I started and am currently reading Norwegian Wood, but I still have to read Wonder, both books being apart of the Penguin competition.

Another factor to my confusion is that my tutor has been wanting specific things done by a certain point, such as a statement of intents or the research for the projects, so instead of working at my own pace, following my set timetable, I have been trying to complete them all at once which has not done me very well.

So, with these factors, I feel I have just gotten confused in which project I should be working on, so probably have not done as much as I could have if I were specifically concentrating on one.

SO, with 9 weeks left, (8 now that I am posting this) I am going to replan my timetable so that I can properly concentrate on one project at a time.

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New and Improved Timetable, Starting 12/11/18

Inktober – I have spent wayyyy too long on this project, so this week (and possibly a bit of next) I am going to try round off this project, getting the zines printed, making sure that everything is fully annotated, making an evaluation, and just getting this project out of the way so that I can concentrate on the others properly.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – I know I need time to work within the college, using the facilities available, so I believe I am going to work on this project next week, then break off for a month or so to do the competitions, then during the last 2 weeks before deadline, I will print my final designs and round off the project

House of Illustration – 3 (now 2) weeks from now, I plan to focus on my House of Illustration project, creating a book cover and set of illustrations for the book ‘Howls Moving Castle, over a 3-week time period. This time will be spent on researching, sketching, experimenting, then producing the final designs.

Penguin Student Design Awards – 6 (now 5) weeks from now, I will start working on yet another competition, which again I plan to do within a 3-week timeframe. Again, I will be working in a similar routine/method to the previous project, researching, sketching, experimenting, then producing the final designs, however, this time I will be doing this process with two books, one being Wonder by R. J. Palacio, and Norweigan Wood by Haruki Murakami.

I hope that with this new timetable, that there will be less confusion, I will be able to focus on one project at a time, and inevitably, I will be able to get more work done.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Inktober: Days 29-31

Day 29: Double – Azalea

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For this piece, I had chosen a flower that grows in bunches but decided to only draw two, as to fit the theme of the prompt, and with it, create two sisters.

These sisters were initially planned to be twins, however when it came to drawing them at different angles, I seemed to struggle with the features, so they look more like sisters as opposed to twins.

On one hand there is an older sister who protects her younger sibling, but on the other hand, the younger sister is quite mischevious and gets her self into trouble. So, the older sister often has to look after the younger one, and often has to apologise for her sister’s actions.

 

Day 30: Jolt – Dianthus

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For this piece, similar to previous ones, I had wanted to create an afro silhouette with the petals from the flower I had taken inspiration from. With the Dianthus flower, it has a ‘jolt’ of colour going in an almost circular pattern around the petals, and I had wanted to incorporate this element, but when I have done so, the petals almost look more like butterfly wings, which as our Lord and Saviour, Bob Ross says, is a happy little accident that I had came across, as I feel it makes the character look sweeter in a sense.

I feel this character would be very caring and gentle, with an almost healing and calming essence to her.

 

Day 31: Slice – Calibrachoa Lemon Slice

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As this is my final piece for inktober, and it falls upon the day of Halloween, other than the already given pattern of the flower, I decided to keep the colours black and white, in a stripe pattern, which I believe also fits well with a Halloween theme and style. The style also reminds me of Beetlejuice, which is one of my favourite Tim Burton movies, especially for Halloween.

I really like how this character turned out, and feel she is a good ending to the challenge. I feel I may have had good and bad pieces during the month, however, I am very happy to end with this character.

As of her backstory, I feel she would be an entertainer of some sorts, possibly the ringleader of a circus, as she is very upright and I feel she could command an audience.

 

My opinion on the experience as a whole.

OH MY GOD! I can’t believe I’ve actually made it to this point! I have managed to complete every design within the time frames, posting one to social media each day, and not missing one!

Although there have been some pieces where I have struggled with shaky lines, bleeding ink or positioning of features, I believe this challenge has made me more confident with working traditionally, especially with ink, and I would like to do more linework by hand in future projects.

I have worked quite small during this project, so maybe in future, I will try to work a bit bigger, as this may have given me more issues than necessary, as the little mistakes would be more noticeable on a smaller illustration.

But I am excited to work traditionally again in the future, as I have gained more confidence and would like to see how the techniques and process I have learnt would work when applied to different imagery.

I have missed working digitally though so I may give myself a little break from ink, just for a little while, once this project is out of the way and the zine has been created.

 

Future plans.

As I have stated throughout these blog posts, especially with some pieces in particular, when it comes to putting all of these characters into a zine, I will be returning to some of the pieces to refine them further, whether it be by doing so digitally, or by redrawing the whole piece.

I also wish to add in items that would go along with these characters. Not for each of them, maybe just for the ones who have a stronger backstory, as I don’t want to be spending another 31 days on this challenge, and I feel 62 pages may be a bit too much for a zine?

I do still plan to make the zine, possibly by using the risograph available in college. Once I have refined all of the characters to my standard, I will scan them all in digitally, edit them properly so that the colours are richer, and the white background of the sheet will not be visible, then I will lay them out into pages for the zine, ready print out and to make masters with on the risograph. I believe I will only be using the black ink on the riso, as I want to keep the designs as similar to the original pieces as I can, keeping the theme of inktober very apparent.

I’m so happy to be done but so excited to start the next steps of the process, creating my first professional zine! If you have been reading my blogs and have enjoyed my inktober posts, if the zine is something that you would be interested in purchasing, please let me know.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM MELON.R!!🎃

Inktober: Days 21-28

Day 21: Drain – Dandelion

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I’m not really sure on this character’s hairstyle, but I do feel the type of plant is identifiable.

For this prompt, I tried to think of plants that could possibly grow in drains, which led me to think of weeds, which led to thinking of dandelions. With the prompt as it is quite a yucky place, I decided to draw the yellow type of dandelion, as opposed to the wishy one, as I feel it is commonly known as the more annoying and less pretty version of the plant.

Like the plant, I think this character tries to be villainous but just ends up being more annoying than evil. I expect her to just turn up at unnecessary times, and instead of harming any of the other characters, she just ends up annoying them instead. This could potentially be a developing character, where the others discover that she has other emotional issues going on, which make her annoying tendencies more understandable. If I could relate this character to one from another tv series, I could potentially compare her to Peridot from Steven Universe, as she had started off on the evil side, but did not necessarily cause any real problems for the main characters, but was just more of an annoyance for them, but the character then developed and she became one of the crystal gems, converting to the good side.

 

Day 22: Expensive – Kinabalu Orchid

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This flower had originally come from my search of the rarest flowers in the world, and as I had said with the ‘Precious’ prompt on day 9, I had found two flowers, the Kadupul and the Kinabalu Orchid, which I felt most inspired by, but had felt the Kinabalu Orchid would be better fitted for this prompt, as it looked more sinister than the other had.

With this character, thinking of ‘Expensive’ I wanted to create a rich b*tch character, who would be more snobby and look down on all the other characters. In her eyes, she would be at the top of the hierarchy of the society, and everyone else would be peasants.

I enjoyed working on this character, as I was able to play around with patterns and new shapes, experimenting with how I could incorporate the unique flower into the character. Like with the ‘Cruel’ character, I wanted to use the main petal as a collar/hood, and with the two side petals, although they are usually sticking right out on the actual flower, I wanted to wrap them around the character, as if it was a fox scarf or expensive shawl of some sort, to give her more of the expensive look.

 

Day 23: Muddy – Daffodil 

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For ‘Muddy’ I thought of springtime, where the weather is still changing from rain to sun so there would be more mud, and the flowers that most commonly grow within this time are daffodils.

As I had loved working on the hair for the ‘bottle’ prompt on day 18, I wanted to do something similar within this piece, as to contrast with the lighter flowers.

With this piece, I knew that I did want to add actual mud splatters, however, I was scared of possibly going too overboard, so probably did go more light-handed than I could have, however, I am glad that I did, as they could pass off as freckles, meaning that they are just natural markings of the character, rather than she had been playing in the mud.

I’m starting to think that ‘Baby’s breath’, ‘Jasmine’ and now ‘Daffodil’ could possibly all be friends with one another, as I am imagining them to have similar traits and personalities. They are all quite carefree soles, with calming and caring personalities, so I do think they’d really fit well together.

 

Day 24: Chop – Cherry Blossom

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With chop, I feel she would be quite a strict character, very organised and likes things being right. I could see her being a sergeant or police officer of some sort, being a character of authority. I assume she’d take care of the society, and properly discipline anyone out of line.

For the prompt, I had thought of flowers that grew on trees, which led to thinking of cherry blossoms. Although this character would have a beautiful exterior,  I can imagine her being very tough and possibly cold on the inside.

 

Day 25: Prickly – Thistle

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I did struggle slightly with the imagery for this character, trying to figure out how best to show the influence of the specific flower, being a thistle. So, in the end, I had chosen to give her a prickly leafed collar, and prickle all around her head with the flower section growing from the top. With this character, I had wanted to give her a more androgynous look, with a mixture of both masculine and feminine features. So, with the hair, I had decided to create a shaved sides with a high top sort of look, incorporating the flowers elements.

I enjoyed working on this character, as she is unlike any of the other characters I have created so far, and it kind of gave me the chance to work with a new face, creating an alternative look which is still relevant to women nowadays.

To see how this piece was made, and the method I use to create the other designs as well, I have created a blog post about my process.

 

Day 26: Stretch – Sunflower

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I struggled when coming up with a flower for this prompt, until my boyfriend had suggested a sunflower, explaining that it ‘stretches up to the sun’ which all plants do, however, this one is usually taller, so it made sense.

This is actually one of my favourite flowers, so I did want to justice. I wanted to create an almost afro silhouette with the petals of the flower, and create a darker toned character to match the bud of the sunflower.

Ideally, I would have liked the skin to be darker on this character, however, I was scared of the ink bleeding too much and leaving my character with a patchy and muddy mess. When creating my zine, I may try to recreate this character, going darker with the skin tone, to achieve the contrast that I had desired.

 

Day 27: Thunder – Thunder Lily

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I don’t really like how this character turned out, although I feel she has an interesting silhouette like with the last piece, I do not feel she has enough contrast, especially as the original flower is so much darker in colour.

Again, when it comes to creating the zine, I will definitely be going back to this piece to darken up the petals, hopefully giving the piece and character more contrast and appeal to the eye.

 

Day 28: Gift – Roses

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For this prompt, I had thought of flowers that were most commonly given as gifts, this being roses.

I see this character almost in the same light as the ‘Star’ prompt character that I had created on day 8, I feel she would be a sort of celebrity within her society, mostly because of her beauty. But, I see this character being very two-faced, in front of her fans, she is caring, loving and sickly sweet, yet behind closed doors, she is a diva and complete b*tch, especially to the people who work for her.