Tigers in captivity Editorial

Back from New York! The overall feedback I received was that my music posters and album covers were my strongest pieces yay! However, this totally contradicts what my university course prefers, as even though these pieces would be popular in the real world of illustration, they aren't very conceptual, and that is one of the main marking criteria of my degree.

So, my cunning plan to get a good grade is to save all the music poster stuff for the summer and use the next week before the deadline to just make tons of really conceptual pieces and really push myself to experiment. At first I wasn't sure about this as it is totally out of my comfort zone, but I think it will actually be really helpful for me not to create 'perfect' artwork, and to concentrate more on the meanings and ideas of each piece.

Tigers In Captivity Editorial

Here's my first experimental piece based on an article about tigers in captivity being 'shadows of their former selves'. I used Photoshop and my Bamboo tablet to do a bit of digital painting for the first time in ages so I was a bit rusty. I really enjoyed being much more free with my strokes, as I didn't have to worry about messing up the painting as I would on paper. This is the first editorial piece I have done, and I'm surprisingly happy with how it turned out. So many more to do arhhhh!

Birds Of Sorrow Sketch

Here is a graphite sketch I did today, revisiting my quote for the Illustrated quotes and sayings book that my university produced. My quote was  “You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.” Chinese Proverb.

I wanted to see what ideas I could come up with if I were to do the project again, and I feel this idea has more emotion and depth to it than the original, even though it was produced much quicker. I think it is really useful to look back as well as forwards, to see how previous work could be improved.

Fashion Portraits

In preparation for New York I decided to focus on the fashion side of my portfolio a bit more as it was feeling a bit neglected. Here is the first of a series of fashion portraits. All of my work is inspired by nature so I decided to create a cold mountainous landscape within the image and to use cold colours.

I used watercolour paint and graphite on stretched cartridge paper, then added white snow-like splodges of paint over the top to add texture and depth to the painting.

 

More portraits to come, and also the finished natural history illustrations. So much to do before New York!

Natural History Illustration

Here are some of my colour illustrations for my information book on fish that I am finishing off at the moment.  I used watercolour pencils on stretched paper, which I only learned about last year. I can't believe I spent so many years of my life working with watercolours and didn't know about stretching paper! It has seriously saved me so much hassle, as my paper doesn't do that horrible wavy thing when it gets too wet.

 Here is my current painting for my next dummy book, this one is on birds. It's supposed to be a pheasant eventually, although it has a long way to go. I do a watercolour wash to begin with to get an even colour and then add layers of detail with watercolour pencil and more watercolour layers until I'm happy with it.

Here are some of the pencils I'm using for my pheasant, so glad I have a big desk so I can lay them all out. I mix packs to get all the colours I want, for example I buy the WHSmiths pack just to get the peach and blue pencils as I can't find those shades in any other pack. The Faber-Castell ones are the absolute best, I got them from my boyfriend for Christmas, really want the 120 pack one day, it's so beautiful, but sooo expensive!

Quotes Book Collage

I'm so bad at posting stuff arrgh, here's the quotes book image I did a while ago. The quote is “You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.” Chinese Proverb. It's a mixture of watercolour pencil and collage. looking at it now there is so much I want to change but I really like the colour palette and way the background interacts with shading of the birds. I really want to do another piece with just birds against the background, maybe something decorative.

Not long till I go off to New York with my portfolio and at the moment it is looking pretty empty, need to hurry up and crank out some serious artwork over the next few weeks. Wish me luck...I'm going to need it.

Last Term

These are some illustrations from last term. I used graphite for this piece, drawing the portrait and frame separately and then adding them together on Photoshop.

For this one I used fine liner. I was definitely a bit scared of using colour which is pretty evident, so this term I'm going to really push that. I was inspired by fashion and love drawing women (sorry men, but they are prettier). Maybe I'll practice drawing men too as my challenge.

The next project I'm working on is for our yearly quotes book that the university produces to showcase the third years' work to businesses and possibly future clients. Yay! The image I produce needs to represent me as an illustrator and show off what I can do so this is a pretty big deal. Eek.

I'll post some of my ideas and thumbnail drawings, as this project progresses.

Hello internet!

Why is the first blog post so hard? I've wanted to write a blog for years now but never knew how to start it or who on earth would actually read it. But then I thought- I read this kind of stuff online all the time, spending hours trawling through other people's blogs for inspiration for my own work.

This is my little place on the internet where I can share my experiences as a student and freelance illustrator. I think having this will push me to generate work faster so I have something to share, I will have a new responsibility to my millions of dedicated followers who of course can't wait to see my latest illustration! Oh dear.

Anyway, here goes (even if I am the only person reading this)