Reportage

For the reportage project, I went to brixton market as a starting point - it was an interesting place,as you can clearly see how the area is changing - how the 'quirky' shops and restaurants are rapidly taking over the locals' market stalls. I drew a fair amount but decided to change location for more inspiration as I wasn't getting much inspiration for final piece ideas. I went on the underground and found inspiration there - particularly a group of men in suits huddled together in a carriage, and the 'mind the gap' signs and announcements really stood out and felt almost amusing to me considering the theme is on pay gap.

I then walked around shoreditch and ended up in Petticoat Lane market. I found the buildings really interesting as for the most part council blocks framed the streets, then right in the centre, towering above, were skyscrapers from the financial district. Things also caught my eye on the way - a large, suited man standing outside his office smoking whilst construction workers are in the background; a man taking out the bin bags in front of a bank, etc.

When it came to combining images (for which I used a scanner and photoshop), I knew I wanted to include "mind the gap", which would combine well with an image relating to the London underground. I sketched out several compositions, and the one I liked best additionally used the smoking man and the man taking out bins - I thought the shapes of the man smoking and the bin bags were quite similar, so I put them side by side as not only does it work visually, it hints that high earners are compared to trash in the eyes of hard working not-so-high earners. I created a smoke texture to break up the image of the tube carriage, and fitted the text at the top. I think it works quite effectively, and I think that the slant on the text works too - showing the slope between the rich and poor.

Film

I was really excited to do this project, as experimental film is something I really love!

Here are some examples of inspirational type videos

(^by my pal Mike! Woohoo talented friends)

For the first day of the project, we brought in a list of words. I used a list of fake band names I'm keeping for a project, and came up with the title "two o'clock cats forever". It makes me think of being stuck in time and infinite loops.

Sketches - I want a ticking clock, a black cat, and for everything to be overdramatic and black and white.

Editing is not something that is new to me so I found things fairly easy. I filmed Snoop the cat (your classic black cat, rumoured to be owned by a witch), and a clip of my watch ticking to two o'clock. Kinda has a cat->clock->cat->clock formula to mimic the ticking of a clock, with some effects added in to make things a little more arty/trippy/interesting. I think it came out looking a bit obnoxiously arty but I like that, I think it's subtly humorous.

Editorial

For the editorial project we were asked to illustrate two articles from the New York Times (working one at a time). The first is titled "Billionaires' Row and Welfare Lines" and can be read here.

I was excited to start this project, being fan of many editorial illustrators including -

Victo Ngai

Bill Bragg

Lizzie Stewart

Amyisla McCombie

It is important to remember that you shouldn't have to change your way of working to suit the kind of illustration you are making, so I admire that these artists' unique styles shine through in their editorial work.


I began work by sketching out initial ideas based on imagery that entered my head while reading through the article, and quickly found myself drawn to the idea of towering buildings looming over 'insignificant' people. From here I experimented with collage, which I found helped give more impact to the images. I really liked the brick-like texture I got by dragging a marker pen onto the page a little at a time.

I realised that the smoke coming from chimneys could be interpreted as a representation of working class, but really liked the idea of smoke so tweaked my idea to a woman smoking  cigarette out of a top window.

I knew I wanted to work digitally for the final piece as it had to be in full colour, and I am much more confident with colouring digitally, but didn't want to lose the textures that were present in my roughs. I got around this by scanning in the texture I made using marker pen, and used a graphite-like brush in photoshop for the rest of the image. 

The second article is titled "The Solace of Digital Addiction" and can be read here. It has quite a different tone which is quite poetic, with lots of metaphors to play off of. I started by sketching some thumbnails of various ideas, then worked on getting down a 'style' for the potential characters in the image - I wanted to go for something digital looking, perhaps as if the figures could be in an app or video game.

It was a lot easier to achieve the look I was going for working digitally, unsurprisingly. I took the strongest thumbnail from my sketchbook and redrew it in photoshop - I really like the 'chunkiness' I got with the blocks of blue.

I then went in and coloured it to get the finished piece. I am mostly happy with the image, but I feel like the fun, multicoloured nature of my rough works were lost a little; though the article is actually quite dark and saddening, so I still think it works as a final image. Because of how the project was laid out, there was no crit on the second illustrations, which was quite disappointing as I'd have liked to get further opinions on this.

Fiction project - final illustrations

I had a bit of a disaster with my final pieces - I was using the same (quite particular) pen to ink all of the lines, which ran out half way through, so I lost a lot of time running to the only shop that sells them, half way across London. Lesson learned - stock up on your art supplies!

I decided to stick with my strength and work with detail and line rather than colour, so made my illustrations using purely brush pen. I felt that as I had put so much care into the inking, adding colour would distract from it too much.

The feedback I got from the crit was definitely useful - I interpreted the brief as being able to choose any five scenes from the story, but was told that my five are deceptive as the final image suggests a happy, romantic ending to the story, which is untrue to the book. Another thing I failed to spot when making these was showing the character development of Erendira - throughout my drawings she looks like the same innocent, fragile girl, and fails to show how her character toughens. Was also told that the last two images particularly lack depth, which I wholly agree with, and this is where I wish I'd gone through with the cutout idea as it would have solved this problem. For me, working in A3 (the second and third images) was a little out of my comfort zone, and I think this shows in the varying detail between those and the smaller images. Still, I enjoyed making these - particularly the first two images, and believe that my work has improved in terms of placing together characters, objects, and scenes to make 'full' images.

Fiction project - models and development work

The next step of the project was to make a model of a scene from our books - my group made the tent 'where the magic happens'. I really enjoyed all the textures and patterns from the different fabrics and took those elements into my drawings.

Inspired by the model, I decided to try making a paper cutout showing all the different layers of fabric. I love the way it looks with light shining through! I considered making images in this way for my final illustrations, though it would be ambitious (and messy, got paper everywhere making this!) to make five pieces in this way.

Stepping away from scenes, I then focused on character development. I went back to one of my drawings from the summer project and added colour digitally to see how it would look - I am happy with the outcome but still unsure of the colouring style.

The people I drew for the grandmother were all quite different in looks, so I did some drawing combining them all into one character, and also made sketches of Erendira in character. 

I also played around with different compositions for the final illustrations then narrowed them down to five thumbnails - all ready to start!

Fiction Project - core project overview

Now that I have completed the core/summer project I have taken a step back to look at it as a whole collection of work.

The most obvious thing I've noticed is lack of colour. This is partially due to the fact I was drawing on the go and needed portable materials, but I can't deny that working in colour is challenging for me - it's something I need to build confidence on. I feel this is especially important for this project as the story itself is very colourful.

I also need to improve my ability to draw complete scenes (as in places/objects/characters combined into a 'full' image), especially interior scenes. This will be a challenge for this project as the imagery for the story is very cluttered and excessive.

I'm wondering whether it's essential to bring together the characters, props, and scenes in equal focus - can you capture atmosphere focusing mostly on objects and characters? Is there a simpler way I can draw interior scenes? Would this help to build a unique visual language? Experimenting with this should really be my next step.

Expanding on visual language - I have put my favourite images below to pick out what exactly I like about them and why they are standout pieces, so as to identify the techniques I've used so far that work the best. Perhaps I can develop these techniques to build a visual language?


This drawing stands out to be because of the variation of line, and the range of tones and depth the mixed medias have provided work well.

I enjoy subtle texture/effect here, it easily shows depth and the vastness of the desert.

These quick drawings from life captured the figures well, especially their movement and shapes.

In this drawing the markmaking, shapes, perspective, and contrast really stand out to me. Favourite drawing overall.

Here the contrast creates a good amount of impact. I really enjoy using these brush pens as a drawing material.

 I enjoy this style of 'delicate' scribbling mixed with detail.

More careful scribbling - shapes are also visually pleasing.

Apart from messed up perspective on round windows this shows a big improvement and served as a self confidence booster for drawing buildings.

Lovely lovely texture in this drawing.