Kat Clark Illustration's Blog

I am an illustrator, book binder and concept artist from Berkshire. This blog is about my work in progress and what I get up to regarding my art practice. I hope you enjoy it! :) For my full portfolio and contact info, please visit my website: www.kat-clark.co.uk © Copyright 2014 Katherine Clark unless specified. All rights reserved.

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It's been a while since I made anything outside my day job at Technotomy, so I decided to do a spot of wood engraving at the weekend! 

 Here's some work in progress! More to come soon!  

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Finally found the perfect box to keep my fine bound "His Dark Materials" books* in!

*For those who are new to this project of mine, I designed and bound a copy of this book series by Philip Pullman as part of my final project at uni! Check out my past posts if you want to see the development.

This box is a perfect fit and the even has a vintage brass clasp, which is simply perfect for this book series!

Who thinks I should strip the paint off this box and do a custom HDM engraving job on it? Would love to have a go at woodcut! :P

(Sorry about the bad photography guys, I was in a rush to get somewhere...!) Haha

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My good friend and classmate Gemma Gould and I got mentioned on Three Monkey Design's review of 'D&AD New Blood 2014'! Yes! Recognition at last!!  Check it out...

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Sorry I haven't posted in a while. i've had a lot to sort out for various exhibitions and my graduation last week. Got a 2:1 in Illustration! Yay!

Anyways, I've almost competed the design for my website, if you lot want to have a look... www.kat-clark.co.uk

I hope you guys like it! ^_^

Feel free to leave comments on what I could improve. That'd be a great help! :) Thanks in advance! x

Here's what I still plan to do:

- Make the typography leaves on the homepage a bit larger, so they're easier to read,

- Decide whether or not to have a grey background/border, or have it all white.

- If i decide on the grey border, I need to make the edges of the white  background look more like a piece of paper, so it'll look all 'papercutty'! ;)

- Write a little paragraph on the Contact Me page.

- Make a CV page, or a leaf hyperlink to LinkedIn in the menu.

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Getting a portfolio together for D&AD...

Thought it'd be cool to have one of my papercuts in it. Although, I think it'll be too risky to use one of the originals. Might get damaged from all the people handling it!

A machine cut stencil will simply have to do! ;) Might "print" a few spares just in case...

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Here's another papercut I made a while back by commission for 'Choose Yourself'.  I've polished the photo up a bit in photoshop, but I've made sure to keep that lovely sugar paper texture. I actually posted an 'in progress' photo last year, if u wanna have a dig for it...

Finally thought i'd get round to sharing the finished product with you guys! What do you think?  

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Here's another papercut I made last year. The project was to create an illustration using Tom Waits' spoken word song "Army Ants" as a starting point.

It might be weird to have favorites of your own work, but i really do love this papercut. It's about A5 in size, so it took a lot of effort to cut all the detail. I guess I feel proud. :) It's also one of the first I made. 

I call it "Eat Pray Eat Love". Get it?

I designed it to look like a classic wedding portrait, but with a contemporary dark humor twist! 

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Here's some work I made last year. This project was to create a storyboard in our own visual language for the story 'Swan Lake'.

This was one of the first papercuts I made. I like to think that I've got better since then. I still think these are still some beautifully lit photographs. I need to make some more 3D papercuts. It was so fun to make.

What do you guys think? 

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Sorry i haven't posted in a while... been buried in work for my degree show! 

Here's the long awaited finished book covers for "His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman I've been working on since march! What do you think of them? Would be great to hear people's comments? :D

They're made with layers of laser cut buckram, glow-in-the-dark screen prints for the "Dust" elements, gold leaf and a whole lot of sweat and blood (kinda literally...gave myself a couple nasty cuts with my craft knife a few times along the road). So glad its done now! The inside covers have a few interesting illustrations spray painted onto them for each book. You can see the black and white digital illustrations on one of the photos i took.

If you fancy coming to see the books in person to check out the glow-in-the-dark and the inside spray paintings, as well as some of my other original hand cut papercuts, the exhibition will be open to the public every day from 10:00-17:00 until 15th June! Free Entry!

Jam Visual Communication Degree Show 2014,

Design School,

Loughborough University,

Loughborough, 

LE11 3TU

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Sneak peek of the book covers i'm working on for the "His Dark Materials" Trilogy! Just had to share the just finished laser cuts! What do you think?

All that's left is to stick on these laser cuts and finish making the stencils for the glow-in-the-dark elements! Then on to the fancy bookmark designing!

Copyright© Katherine Clark. All rights reserved. 

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Two down.....One to go!! :) The books are certainly getting there!

Next, i need to finish the cover illustration stencils in Adobe Illustrator! Can't wait until Friday when i get them lasercut! :D Exciting Stuff!

I'll keep you all updated as things progress! x

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Time for binding my typography into the existing book block...

Took ages to get the paperback cover off! So scared i'd rip the pages! :s

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Currently designing a series of book covers for the 'His Dark Materials' book trilogy by Philip Pullman.

Just finished designing the typography. What do you think? Deciding on the best colour combos now... 

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This and That collective have just featured a couple of my stencil illustrations on their Facebook page and blog! Yay! Check it out...

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My entry for this month’s Illustration Competition for Label Magazine. I made this using Screen Printing and Photoshop. What do you guys think? 

Please ‘Like’ and ‘Share’ my image entry on facebook by following the link below. Every ‘Like’ counts as a vote! It’d be awesome if i could win! Thanks guys! MERRY CHRISTMAS! XXX

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=224911807689590&set=a.224903291023775.1073741839.185728214941283&type=1&theater

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Here's the short article about myself and my work, which was so kindly made by Loughborough University's magazine, Label. The article is about my winning illustration for their November illustration competition, which i won. Yay! :)

On there are links to my other social media if you want to hire me to do an illustration or two. :) Thanks for your support guys xx

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Decided to learn to screen print! :)  Here are some I made using the 'halloween' papercut I made last month. What do you guys think?

I have a long way to go before i'm a pro. Practice makes perfect!