Katie Alvey Illustration

Hi :) I'm currently an Illustration student at University of Derby. I hope I can post work here regularly!   Inspiration blog: flowersinthesunlight.tumblr.com

[flowersinthesunlight]

sketchy stuff!

[flowersinthesunlight]

Ruue Treeskipper, the Grippli monk. My current d'n’d character! 🐸

[katiealvey]

reblogged from my other blog cus instagrams weird and wont let me post it straight to here?

[katiealvey]

Future Plans

Posting my work on this blog, and for the first time anywhere online, has been both a little scary and encouraging. I really like posting my stuff - knowing that people are actually looking at it, and liking it, gives me a little more confidence in my artistic ability. After assessment I want to continue to post my illustrations on this blog and social media to build a more extensive online portfolio I can be proud of. I want to post more of the art work I produce outside of University, and maybe even have a few of my own projects especially for the blog. I hope I can build up enough of a little fan base online so that I can eventually set up an Esty or Society6 shop and sell my illustrations!

In the very near future, I plan to post a few comics that I draw alongside various Dungeons and Dragons games I play. Gaming and fantasy really influence my work so it would be nice to show people that side of my illustrations, which i’ve never done before. I shall leave you (only until after assessment!) with a sketch of my current D&D character who will feature in future comics, and a sketchbook pages of hopefully future RPG game related stickers and badges!

[katiealvey]

Other Promotional Materials

Working with the illustrations I’ve created for my other promotional bit and bobs, has got me thinking about other ways I could use them to promote myself, and maybe create merchandise that people may like to buy.

Creating a sticker sheet of my illustrations is a quick and cheap way to promote myself - they’ll stick to just about everything! Here they are on my own laptop, alongside some other illustrator’s and companies own stickers.

I experimented in Photoshop with t shirts and bags to see how my work would translate. I think these tote bags work really well! I have ordered myself a few sample ones just to see how they look when they are printed. These are something I could possibly sell at trade shows or on my website.

[katiealvey]

Business Cards

One of the promotional materials I have chosen to create is a business card. I think it’ll be useful to have one for the future. This is the design that I have settled on:

Front

Back

I have used the same image as I have on one of my promotional postcards because I feel like it reflects my way of working really well. I’ve taken splashes of the same yellow as on the front, to underline my important information so that there’s colour that runs throughout the card. My logo can be seen on the back as well as my illustration email address and current website. I chose to handwrite this information because everything else was handwritten, it didn’t fit in as typed text. I wanted my business cards to be simple, yet be able to stand out from the crowd, so I made mine very fun and colourful.

I had these business card and my postcards printed at www.moo.com, but they have not yet arrived. If you would like to receive a physical version please do not hesitate to email me!

[katiealvey]

The recycled plant pots I made to go alongside my mini comic for this years Batsford Prize competition! (and my cute dog who also features in the comic)

[katiealvey]

My entry to this year Batsford Prize competition. This mini comic tells the story of three recycled plant pots and their friend the dog, living in a greenhouse.

Creating this comic was one of the first times I have used Adobe Photoshop to create the artwork from scratch. Although it was nice to practice with a new medium, I think I personally would have liked the outcome better if I did most of it by hand and use Photoshop just for editing and finishing off. 

[mrahayes]

feedback

[katiealvey]

This is a piece of work by Adam Hayes, more of his work can be found here and on his tumblr that I have reblogged this image from. He is an illustrator that was kind enough to talk to us all about becoming a professional illustrator.

First of all I would really like to say that I love his work. Hand drawn type is something that I would love to be able to do like he does. It was really nice to be able to see his development process and even have a nosey through his current sketchbook! Hearing his story about how he has managed to stay in the industry for so long, while still developing and improving his way of working, makes the idea of becoming a professional a little little daunting. He gave us lots of useful advice that will help a lot in the future. Something he said that really stuck out to me though was, he told us to just keep creating artwork that we like, even if it isn’t the current ‘trend’ or nobody really takes any interest at first, as in the long run it’ll be a good thing to stand out as doing something different.

[katiealvey]

My promotional postcards.

After my first attempt at creating a couple of postcards that didn’t at all reflect me visually or the sort of work I wanted to create, I went back to the drawing board. When sketching ideas, I doodled the image on the left - after refining it slightly and adding colour, I decided to use it as one of the key images across everything that I use to promote myself. It is bright, colourful and fun, all the things I want my illustrations to be! Using the flowers from the first postcard, I created the artwork on the right. For this project I decided that I wouldn’t make anything that I wouldn’t keep if it came through my own door - and I think these would definitely deserve a place on my notice board! I also designed the back, it’s quite simple but it includes my logo and name so that people could easily search for my website and my other work.

[katiealvey]

Creating a Logo

Recently I have been trying to develop a new logo that I could use to with promoting myself, and as a watermark on my work. I wanted it to be simple, clear and not distract from the artwork too much but still recognisable. Above are a few different examples of things that I have tried out. I think I am going to stick with the idea of using a little simple branch to frame my name - I am currently favouring the ones that use watercolour, as I tend to use that in most of my work. As for the use of the word ‘illustration’ underneath, I think I am going to use it interchangeably - it will be recognisable as my logo with or with the word ‘illustration’ along the bottom. I am not yet sure whether I want to use my first two names (as shown on these logos), or my first and last name. I will need to experiment with both.

As you can see from the two illustrations above, it was difficult to create a simple reproducible logo that used my whole name. This was very annoying because it was the name of my website at the time! I decided to stick the the more detailed, coloured branch as I like the amount of detail that I managed to achieve.

I came to the conclusion that it would be simpler to use just my first and last name, as many other illustrators do. As both of my names are five letters long, it works really well on a logo too. However, I soon realised that it would probably be confusing if I was going to brand myself with this logo, and use a different name for my website and email. Therefore I changed the URL of this blog, and created a new email address especially for illustration purposes. ([email protected]) You can see below my finished, final logo!

[katiealvey]

Set of two self-promotional postcards.

I decided on the theme of cats for my self promotional brief, as I am own for my love of cats and all things cat related! These postcards were my initial idea, but unfortunately didn’t turn out exact like I wanted them too. I don’t think they show of my strengths of my work, and if i’m honest I wouldn’t want to send them out to design companies or potential employers. However, it was useful for me to experiment with the idea of promotional postcards, and I have lots more ideas for creating some more that really express who I am. I think I am going to experiment with more of a digital approach to hopefully achieve more of a professional finish.  

[katiealvey]

my new icon! I hate drawing self portraits because they never seem to look right, but i guess this ones okay :)

[katiealvey]

Creative Careers Festival

The Creative Careers Festival was an event set up by the University of Derby to help us gain the knowledge to start a successful career in the creative industry. 

I went to two events that were part of the festival. The first one was a presentation about Self Employment by Wendy Mason. Wendy has been self employed for over 30 years, running her own jewellery business. She was working as part of AA2A, a company that works with artists, graduates and current creative students to allow them to access art colleges and their facilities across the UK. AA2A also has a networking site for artists, which people can post work onto and connect with other artists and potential employers. On their website and Facebook page, they post a ‘pic of the week’, which is usually work from students across the country, and a ‘tip of the week’ from various artists and designers, which could be very useful. The presentation explained basically how to become self employed, it covered just about everything of the important boring stuff like tax, registering and benefits. But it also covered places that we could apply for funding for projects, and places that we could volunteer/get involved with while we are still at university. One place that was mentioned that really interested me was Nottingham Does Comics (NDC) which is an organisation set up for anyone who is interested in comics. According to their twitter (they don’t actually have a proper website yet), there will be a bi-monthly meeting at Nottingham Writer’s Studio, starting later this month. This is something that I’m really interested in getting involved in, so I will keep a close eye on what they post in the lead up to the first meeting.

The second event I attended was panel about portfolio working. I went to this one because I was torn between choosing what career path I was to take. All the artists were very positive about their lifestyle and having multiple careers, all claiming that even though they are not always well paid, it’s worth it because they still get to do something that they enjoy. It has definitely encouraged me to try and put the hard work in to maybe pursue both creative careers after university.

Overall, the Creative Careers Festival was very useful for me. It got me really thinking about where I want my life and career to end up, and gave me parts of the knowledge I need to help me get there. It has really encouraged me. 

[katiealvey]

House of Illustration

I recently visited House of Illustration in London, the UK’s only art gallery that is completely dedicated to illustration. I've always wanted to visit this gallery since it opened in 2014, purely because it was founded by one of my favourite illustrators, Sir Quentin Blake. Whilst there, we found out from people that work at the galley, that they will soon be opening a permanent exhibition of Quentin Blake’s work, which is exciting and would be lovely to see!

In the smaller exhibition space is currently a new body of work by David Lemm, called ‘Mapping Kings Cross’. The set of unconventional maps show the King’s Cross area in a new creative light, as it is being renovated. He has created them using a range of different collaged materials, stuck on bits of wood. I really liked the pastel colour scheme that makes his work seem soft. it has actually inspired something I'm currently working on in another module. The interesting shapes and patterns on the paper that he’d decided to use to depict various landmarks around that area on London, contrast really well with the wooden background. I really like them because they don’t look like traditional maps, they are pieces of art in there own right, with a slightly hidden meaning/use. They worked really well in the smaller space, I think that was because they were lots of small pieces, with lots of little bits of detail - the smaller gallery space allowed you to get up close to see all that detail.

The main exhibition displayed comics created by many very talented women. I enjoyed seeing all the varying styles of these illustrators in one place. It was actually interesting to see how differently they all approached a simple comic, and what stories they chose to illustrate. One of my favourite comics was actually part of exhibition, ‘Soppy’ by Philippa Rice (the red and black comic in the pictures). I'm so glad that I have my own copy to look back at; her work continues to be an inspiration to me. She is an illustrator and animator, who experiments with lots of different mediums and ways of working. I just love her fun little knitted characters! Most of her work can be found here. It was great to be able to notice her comic in the exhibition. Another comic that really caught my eye was ‘Greasy’s Guide to Nookie’ by Comic Book Slumber Party. It stood out to me because it focuses on an unusual topic, in an unusual way - each page is illustrated by a different artist with completely different artistic styles, but it all works together to creatively tell the story of the main character, Greasy. It was interesting to see the different ways that each illustrator drew the character, and what elements had to stay the same in order for the audience to recognise her throughout the book. After seeing this book in the exhibition, I went on to research Comic Book Slumber Party, and found that they are a collective of female illustrators that work together to create these amazing comics. They describe themselves as “an international girl gang of comic creators making comics and anthologies as bad ass as we are.” I loved the comic so much that I bought it as soon as I got home, along with another one of their comics, ‘CBSP Fairy Tales for Bad Bitches’. It will also be a good opportunity to see what promotional stuff they send to help with my self promotion brief. 

While at the gallery, we were lucky enough to attend a talk by illustrator Merlin Evans on how she established herself in the creative industry and how her career has developed. She works mostly in black and white, sometimes throwing in a dash of colour, using ink to create very detailed, intricate drawings. Although her style is completely different to my own, it was interesting to see the journey she has taken with her career and how that has influenced the way she works. For example, she is currently doing a degree that will help her develop her skills in medical illustration which she is really passionate about, and you can really see where it influences her current work. The presentation ended with some useful tips to help us to break into the creative industry. For me, the one that stuck with me was just to get your work out there. She said that it is really useful to have a website or a blog set up where you can instantly show people (potential employers) your new and best work. This is what I plan to do with my current blog, after assessment.

[katiealvey]

Emlyn Taylor, Tattoo Artist

Since I am currently debating what career path to chose after university, I wanted to contact a few people that are professionals in the fields that I am considering. One of the careers I am really interested in is tattooing.

Emlyn Taylor is a tattooer and painter and Bodycraft Raw in Nottingham. All of the images above are taken from his instagram page. I am a huge fan of his work, so much so that he’s done all 3 of my tattoos! He works in a very traditional, classic tattoo style, which I really admire. The bold colours and detailed line work is something that I would like to replicate in my own work. Since he is an experienced tattooer, I decided to contact him with a few questions that I had about tattooing as a career. 

How/why did you get into tattooing?  “I got into tattooing through getting them myself. I had been getting tattoos for about 4 years and always in the back of my head wanted to know more about it every time I had one done. I was studying fine art and wasn’t really enjoying the education side of being involved in a creative process. So felt that it was right to commit to getting myself in a career I was truly passionate about. I spent about a year trying to get into a shop to learn. Whilst doing so I just immersed myself in as much as I could really, not through trying but just because I wanted to know and see new things all the time. I did use the internet but it was more magazines and conventions and like I mentioned getting tattoos my and just observing.” 

What’s your favourite thing about the job and would you recommend it as a career? “My favourite thing about my job is most of the time it doesn’t feel like a job! You are governed by time like any 9-5 but its a lot more relaxed in my opinion. I’d say it’s more like still being at school, haha. Your day seems pretty short and goes by real quick but then you always have homework. I do 90% of my design work on my days off, so I’m technically still working. You can’t really leave it at work, but I like that. I do it because I genuinely love it. Not like many I’d say nowadays who see it as the ‘in’ thing after watching some lousy degrading channel 4 tv show, where artists don’t know anything about what they do other than putting a mediocre tattoo on someone. I think you need to know a lot more about it than just the technique. The history of it is what makes it fascinating to me as much as the process.”

What would you say is the best way to get into the industry? “That’s why I’d say the only way to get into it is through an apprenticeship. Find someone you admire and respect and pursue it that way. There are probably more bad than good tattooers that’ll offer you this, but if you find a good one it’ll be the reward you deserve. You get out what you put in I believe.

If it’s something you genuinely want to do then you’ll find a way.”

It was very useful for me to find out, first off, what its actually like to be a tattoo artist and how to find a way into the industry. Talking to Emlyn has made me realise that if this is something I chose to do, it is something that I will have to do a lot more research into, and something that I will really have to practice at. Personally, I really enjoy having my own style when illustrating and this is something that I am afraid to lose if I train as a tattoo artist. I am genuinely considering this as something I could do while working freelance or being a self employed illustrator on the side, so I still get to spend time illustrating stories and developing my own style.

[katiealvey]

Illustration Competitions I’ve Entered

During last semester, I entered my work into the Comic Art Competition which is run alongside Thought Bubble Sequential Arts Festival. The brief for this competition was to create an A3 portrait aspect page, telling a single story using a minimum of six panels. All entries were featured in an exhibition at Leeds Central Library during the month of the festival. This was my entry, ‘Beneath the Willow Tree’,

The story I chose to illustrate was one of my own creations, telling the story of a little blue tit that fell from the nest, but found shelter with two hospitable gnomes living beneath a willow tree. This piece was a challenge for me because I’m not used to working with a graphic novel like format, but I really enjoyed experimenting with it. It is a fairly simple story that flows through the frames well. But if I have more time to work on it I would have liked to add a few more frames showing the bird wondering around the forest, just make it more interesting, and maybe explain some more of the little bird’s story. I would have also liked to have experimented with text, as all three winning entries contain text, it could have helped explain the story a bit better. While creating this piece I really focused on my use of colour and texture, so I experimented with lots of different techniques. materials and colour schemes until I found one that I felt worked well with the story. It was during this project that I decided to really work on developing my characters more, and I feel like I have developed greatly in terms of my characterisation and use of personal voice since this project. Unfortunately, my entry wasn’t selected as one of the competition winners this year.

This year’s competition winners are above. The overall winning entry, by Matthew Broadhurst is, in my opinion, very successful and effective. Visually it is quite simple, using a grey scale colour scheme, with regular equal sized frames and a strong personal voice. I think this simpleness works really well because of the serious tone of the story. It depicts what it’s like to live in a foreign country, and expresses some of the opinions that have been made well known by the media. The message is one that is very relevant at the moment, and he has illustrated it in such a way that it forces the reader (who may or may not have similar opinions) to reconsider the way they think and act towards people. All three winners have very different story lines and are illustrated in very different and unique styles. However they all are done in a very basic black and white colour scheme, personally I would have liked to have seen some colour.

However, I did have some luck in a university ran competition to create a non-traditional Christmas decoration. This trapeze girl won me the runner up prize of £50 to spend in the print shop at Uni! We were given the task of creating these decorations in a one day workshop - they had to be based on the circus brief we were doing at the time, and only consist of yellow, red, black and white. It was a challenge, but I am proud of what I managed to create in only one session, and I now have money to get professional prints in the future.

I am currently creating work to enter into two more competitions this year. One is The Batsford Prize, which has opened up an illustration category for the first time this year. We have been given the theme of ‘Reuse, Reclaim, Recycle’ to create work around. I am currently working on a story based on some recycled plant pot characters I have created for this competition, which you can see in the image above. I plan to create the characters out for glass jars and plastic bottles so I can photograph them. I will then create a little comic book zine to go with them, which will tell their story. The deadline for entries is 4th of April, the winners will be announced in May and could receive £500 prize money, or as runner ups, £50 worth of Batsford books.

These sketches are the beginning of the work for the other competition I am entering; one that is run by The Derby Book Festival. The competition that is open to the public is to write a 50 word story about ‘secrets’. The six winners get their stories illustrated by the students on my course, and the best illustrations will be printed on the festival bookmarks and will be used to promote the festival around Derby. This would be a great opportunity to get my work out there, for the public to see. 

[katiealvey]

Masters Courses

Doing a masters course in illustration is something that I have been thinking of pursuing recently, as I am really enjoying studying the subject at the moment. In a previous post I mentioned the Children’s Book Illustration MA at Anglia Ruskin University, which is a course that looks very appealing to me. However it focuses on one field within Illustration, which might be good for me or it might be bad, I will have to decide that is the direction I definitely want to take. I found out about this course via an illustrator who posted her work on Instagram. Emma Carlisle is a former student of the course, and is now a published children’s book illustrator and author. So it might be useful for me to send her an email asking any questions I have about the course, and her work. On a no longer active blog of hers, she says,

“ The course was always highly recommended by the tutors on my undergraduate course and I can safely say it beat all my expectations. I had the most wonderful and amazing time and I can't believe it's all over.”

After deciding that this is something I may want to do after my undergraduate course, I looked at different universities and what they had to offer. I didn’t find any other masters focusing on children’s book illustration but there were some that interested me which were to study all fields of illustration, like the course I’m doing now. Four universities really caught my eye with what they offer for illustration, these are: Brighton University, University of the Arts London, The University of Edinburgh and University of the Creative Arts. Now these are all very prestigious and well-known universities in the art world, so the experience of these universities would be amazing, and the benefits of having studied there would be massive.

Sequential Design/Illustration MA at the University of Brighton.

Visual Arts: Illustration MA at the University of the Arts London.

Illustration MA at the University of Edinburgh.

Illustration MA at the University for the Creative Arts.  I actually have a friend that is a student of this university (not an illustration student) that I could question to see if it would be a university that I would enjoy going too.