Evaluation

                                        

The professional practice module has made me aware that there is a lot of work that goes into becoming an illustrator. Throughout the module when exploring the work of other artists and alongside the ongoing development of my personal style and practice I have realised that I want to become a graphic novelist or comic book writer and artist.

My work experience with True Believers helped me to understand how much effort people put into creating their personal comics books and stories and the best way of creating contacts and getting your work known is to create work attend these fairs meet people and exchange contacts. I very much enjoyed my work experience and felt encouraged when I showed my work to established artists and got tips from them. I will start producing work and get people interested with short books and narratives to show my style and approach before embarking on a big project such as the comic book I have planned ‘Remnants’.

Another way my practice has developed is by being more proactive in going out and collecting visual research. I will do a lot of this before properly starting ‘Remnants’ focusing on figure drawing to make sure the project will be to the highest standard I can make it.

I also need to start creating a presence for myself. I am glad I have got a small logo sorted now and I will develop and refine this as my practice develops, it will be a good way to link my work. I also need to create a website and/or online blog. I am not comfortable using social media and communicating with others over the internet but I know I will have to use it to put myself out there. I will make sure my work is good quality and that it speaks to people clearly so it will not be let down by my inexperience with technology.

My next step is to create work for next years True Believers for which I will share a stall. I will focus on having a varied body of work, prints, a few short narrative books and maybe some collaborative work. These I will be able to show to the publishers I met on my work experience and hopefully get them interested. Once I have an established presence online and have gotten people interested I will consider using a crowd funding method such as Patreon or Kickstarter to fund a longer comic book project.

The professional practice module has helped me to understand future career paths and I will maintain the contacts I have made and undertake more independent narrative work so that I have a good body of work to show potential publishers and customers.

Creative CV

I created an inky effect on a piece of paper then edited this to use as a background then incorporated my logo. I already have an up to date CV so I kept the information the same but edited out my contact details here as it is online. I think this CV says enough about me and my style without detracting from the important information.

Logo ideas

'Alchemy' symbol

When thinking about creative cvs I would like to have a small logo or recognisable image at the top of the cv. I liked the geometric shape logo that D.R.E Illustrations used and tried to create something similar. I think geometric shape logos like this are very striking and easily recogniseable, it would be useful to have one for my identity as an illustrator, then I could use it as a stamp on my books or on the spine. I would use the symbol in all my promotional work and illustrations to represent myself and show what I do.

my logo idea

I chose a simple triangle and circular segments, which could suggest a face it looks best pointing upwards. I tried a few quick varaitions digitally and will try on illustrator later on in the design process. I like the addition of the diving line but think the others look too much like faces.

As much as I like the simplicity of the geometric shape logos I'm not sure that they represent my practice completely because I am not a digital artist.

Possible icon/ logo

I took this image from a piece I had done as part of my work on 'remnants' the illustration was done using ink and watercolour wash and I liked the way they came together in this small face. I feel this icon is more symbolic of the work I do but, unlike a geometric logo, it may not always be relevant to the work I do for example a children's book. I will try to combine these two methods and create a stencil for the geometric shape to see how it would look produced that way.



I made a stencil of my geometric logo shape and then sponged over it with water ink and watercolours so that I would have a simple design produced in my inky style. I then edited the inky design using Photoshop and my graphics tablet. I think this logo is a good combination of a simple easily reproduced and recognisable logo with also some inky interest.


 

Finished logo

Creative CV examples

jimmy raheriarisoa

I like the character and inventive illustrations in this one and think it is easy to read as it flows nicely down the page. I would think it was a poster for an event which would confuse a little and I might not read it as seriously. I like how the program skills are laid out they are obviously an important part of the cv.

Arbrenoir on deviantart

This one shows you immediately the artists skills and you get to view a piece of their work immediately. However I thik it  might be frustrating if you are trying to find certain bits of information.

Ali Collins

I like this one and think it shows just enough of the artists style and work to keep you interested as well as showing the information clearly. I do think the colours could be more balanced and the curved text is unecessary.

Akashrine on deviantart

I like the cat character and how it shows what style the person works in subtley. I think it is good to have a clear symbol like this an icon of your brand of artwork. It is simple enough but still original and so can be applied to many things.

Seamus o'brien

More of a poster or advertisement than a cv but I still like how handwritten it is, how you can see the texture of the pens and also it shows his skills well.

I think my CV needs to have an example of my work or at least my style in it as this is what the client really wants to know and should be able to see it right away.

Cheltenham Illustration Awards

As part of my work experience I created a piece of work and entered it into the Cheltenham Illustration Awards competition 2015.

The theme was 'Tales of the City' so I started by collating drawings and information from different places to get an overall idea of a city, the buildings, people and type of place that a city is and the atmosphere it has.

I started a small journal sketchbook when I was in Antwerp and since then have done drawings around Cheltenham of places such as Birmingham whilst travelling by train and also in Manchester, these drawings would provide an environment to set my narrative in.

My idea for 'Tales of the City' I wanted to focus on the fact that the cities are so busy and full of people and how these people are connected. 

When we dream the strangers and side characters that aren't people we recognise are actually real people who we have met. Our subconscious mind cannot construct new faces so instead it takes them from our memories, so strangers who you see on your commute, someone you bumped into just once or who served you in a shop could feature in your dreams.

I'm not sure where I learnt this fact but I like that there are ways people are connected even if they don't fully realise it, so I wanted to use this theme for my competition piece. 

My narrative would be simple, a business woman on her daily commute recognises a stranger and turns as if to speak to them, she then wonders why she recognises them and tries to recall some fragments of a dream she had. She then shrugs off the fact that the dream was where she and this woman 'met' as it does not affect her and then gets on with her day. But someone else recognises her the same way.

After I had this idea I tried some multiple image compositions to see how this would fit together, I knew I wanted the action of the head turn to be shown horizontaly and that the remembering of the dream would take place in the centre. I had the dream sequence flowing in my first composition but later decided on a more circular format as it would help to centre her thoughts and shpow them as internal around her.

Full drawn composition

I got the main figures and action drawn out in detail which I would then refine in the tracing process and knew I would want the buildings to act as a sort of border,to set the scene but not interfere with the narrative.

Tracing up

As always, although the tracing process is laborious I find it is a good way to refine my line work and take only the necessary details from the pencil version to the final piece.

Penning and inking

I used variable line thickness on the figures to add details and to make them stand out from the background. I like the way the circular format has worked on the central image and think it fits nicely within the city borders.

I wasn't sure how best to illustrate the buildings so used my graphic novel 'Dark Satanic Mills' by Marcus & Julian Sedgwick for reference. I liked the strong contrast of black and white of the illustration style and replicated this using the inkiness of my Pentel brush pen. This allowed me to create striking buildings with just the right amount of detail. I think it helps to add a sense of distance too, pushing the surroundings back from the main parts of the illustration.

I added other details such as people in crowds using a fine liner and a loose sketchy style so they would become more of the background compared to the main figures.

At this stage I considered adding a colour wash over the entirety of my illustration but decided to just use spot colour first and see what it would look like.I used watercolour and chose a pale blue letting darker tones mingle to create a dream like vague effect which would help to encapture the qualities of the dream sequence.

Washes added and spot colouring

I didn't want the events of the dream to be too clear as that is what the character herself is trying to piece together but I tried to make the face of the woman stand out in the central sections of the circle so she could be recognised.

After the colour wash I used grey at various tones to add dimension and movement to my figures. I enjoy using greyscale washes and use it to add character and detail it is a technique I am comfortable with and normally match it with minimal line work.

However I felt that the ink wash made the strong black of the buildings look at odds with the rest of the illustration so added a bit of wash to this also.

Submitting my entry

After I had completed my illustration I scanned it in using the A3 studio scanner as the image was A3, then I used Photoshop Elements Editor on my laptop and cleaned up the image using my graphics tablet. When my image was ready I submitted it using WeTransfer following the instructions that were on the Illustration Awards page.

Final entry piece

Moth

I worked up my drawing of the Japanese Oak Silkmoth from the Manchester Museum, making it more symmetrical and using ink pen and strong black lines. I used my pentel brush pen for all the black lines and then added details over the top with a white gel pen. I like using these tools together as the brush pen gives a wide range of lines and markings and the white gel pen allows me to add texture and refine the drawing after all the inking is done. This is definitely a style I will apply to more illustrations in the future.

Finished Moth

 

Drawing Day- Manchester

As an illustrator creating work I will have to do location drawings and my own research when I am creating pieces. To get myself used to this process I decided to spent a day drawing in Manchester City Centre. I hoped to improve my reportage drawing skills especially in drawing figures quickly and to gather resource material that would lead into my future work such as the piece I hoped to create for the Cheltenham Illustration Awards.

Manchester Piccadilly Gardens

I spent a few hours sat in Piccadilly Gardens, it was a warm day and so the gardens were full of people.

                             

I gave myself time to do more detailed drawings of the buildings I especially liked the cluster of buildings visible across the gardens at the top of Oldham Street. Although many poeple were stationary for a long time I tried to draw them quickly as I didn't want them to feel uncomfortable. In the future I might inform people around me of what I am doing to get rid of this feeling. After a while I could draw people in a few quick lines, I especially like the man half sat up on the right of the page and think I captured his pose well in just a few lines.

In another part of  the city I did some quicker looser drawings and found that this was good practice but maybe not detailed enough to be as informative as I would like.

The Manchester Museum, Oxford road

I also visited the Manchester Museum which is part of the University of Manchester on Oxford Road, I have visited this Museum in the past and know it has lots of interesting things especially in the natural world section which would be good to draw.

I spent time drawing the elephant skeleton, knowing it is a rare thing to see and because I enjoy drawing skeletons and bones and find it interesting how they fit together. It was half term when I visited so there were many children running around which made it more difficult to draw and limited the time I spent in the museum, I will take these factors into account on future drawing trips.

The Museum setting allows you to draw people whilst they are concentrating on something else and makes them less uncomfortable of you drawing there. I will visit more museums when drawing people in the future.

         
I looked at moths too as they had a large collection of moths and butterflies and I would like to do some designs using these in the strong black and white style I have been practicing that may become tattoo designs.

I had a productive day and will do more research drawing days in the future to get used to it and develop my professional practice.