Tag: Association of Illustrators

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.

Idea proposals 💍 Semester 2

Carrying on from the previous post, for the projects during semester two, I want to…

Produce chapter illustrations for ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’.

In this project, like with the Wizard of Oz project I have planned, I want to create work for a younger based audience, which I have not had a lot of experience working within the past. With this project, however, I want to create work for teens as opposed to children, working in what I believe to be more of a mature style, taking inspiration from John Tenniel’s illustrations in the original ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll.

As well as giving me more experience of working with a younger audience, (in a different approach to the Wizard of Oz project) I believe this project will allow me to play around and develop my skills with some printing techniques, such as screen printing, Linocut printing, etching, etc, I believe it will allow me to take full advantage of the facilities available to me within the college, such as the laser cutter, to create a plate in which I can print with.

 

Take part in the Association of Illustrators – World Illustration Awards.

In comparison to the other competitions I want to take part in, this one has multiple categories in which you can apply to. As well as children’s illustration, you also have the option of creating work for an editorial category, advertising, design, etc.

Like with the other projects, I believe the outcomes I create for this brief will help in expanding my portfolio of work throughout the year. At this moment in time, I am swaying more to the editorial category, as I feel it will allow me to work in more areas of the industry. For this category, I would potentially create an illustration for an article, trying to entice the viewer to read the article, but not give too much information so that the reader already feels like they know the story.

 

Create work for the Cheltenham Illustration Awards.

This is a competition that I will be taking part in for my third year in a row. The brief that they announce will have a specific theme in which I will have to work with, creating a narrative based illustration which will relate to or have been inspired by the specific theme.

In previous years, the themes have been ‘tales through others eyes’ and ‘tangled tales’. I believe the competition is pretty open in the sense that you are not limited to what you can potentially create. For instance, last year I had created my illustration using photography and embroidery, whereas in the year before I had created a surrealistic digital painting and a looped animation.

Because of the flexibility of this competition, being able to explore the theme and work in any possible medium, I am excited to take part again next year, but hopefully next time my work might actually be chosen. If not though, I will still enjoy the experience, and the work I create will still contribute to my portfolio.

 

The two projects which I want to do over the course of the year are…

Concentrating on branding and start to form a business, preparing for my career once I have left the comforts of college.

This project would include creating new business cards, forming a new set of portfolios, including a handheld a3 one, a website and a new portfolio book, these will also include all of the work that I have created over the year as well.

As of my potential business, I will be creating an online store (potentially in collaboration with one of the graphics students) and for this, I will be creating content that would be sold their, ie prints, pins, clothing, mugs, zines, stickers etc.

In the final month, I also plan to set time aside so that I can get ready for a final show, with this, I will possibly create new content to be put up in the exhibition, and this will also be the time in which I can start to order everything, so that it will come in time for the final show, such as the portfolio book, business cards, and any merchandise that I may have created with outside businesses.

 

And finally, I want to work on the weekly comics that both me and my partner had created together over the holidays, we named this collaboration Melon and Lime Comics.

Me and my partner have always been interested in mini-comics, most commonly from artists such as Ketnipz, Sarah Andersen and Catana Comics, sending their comics to each other saying ‘this is you’ or ‘me’, and we had even started to come up with our own ideas for potential comics, that we knew we would make someday, but had always kept pushing it off to the side, at least until summer had came. We had not really planned for this collaboration to go further than between the two of us, but one day, we decided to make our own Instagram and try posting the comics on there, to see if anyone else could possibly relate or find humour within our designs.

We have currently got a small following of 40ish people, however, I believe as we post more, our audience will eventually start to grow more. The problem is, as we are back at college, it is going to be more challenging to create content, as we are both going to struggle with time. So, this is why I wanted to incorporate this project into my year, so that I could allow myself the time to work on the comics, without feeling guilty because I am not going ‘college work’.

I do have high hopes for this collaboration as I feel we do have the potential to someday be at the level of the artists we admire, such as Ketnipz, Sarah Anderson and Catana Comics, but I feel it will only do well if we are to put the work and effort into it.  I do love working on these comics because they are personal to my relationship, but I believe the themes are open enough that a lot of other people or couples can also relate to them. This collaboration has also allowed me to expand my work, exploring outside of my comfort zones, such as working with characters, minimalism, creating narratives and I have also been able to incorporate humour into the designs, which is something that I don’t believe I have ever done in my work before, or have even attempted to do before. Because of these developments within my own type of work, I am excited to continue working on these comics, seeing where else they could take me and what else we could potentially create in the future.

 

As these two last projects will be worked on over the space of the whole year, (I believe on Fridays for the branding project and Tuesdays for the comics) I will be solely keeping the progression, development and any potential research used, all updated within my blog, so you can keep your eyes peeled for those updates in the future.

 

Bibliography

The Association of Illustrators. (2018). World Illustration Awards. [Online] Available from https://theaoi.com/world-illustration-awards/ [Accessed on 20 Sep. 2018]

Cheltenham Illustration Awards. (2018). Cheltenham Illustration Awards. [Online] Available from: http://www.cheltenham-illustration-awards.com/ [ Accessed on 20 Sep. 2018]