Shane W. Spain

Illustrator / 21 / UK

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Marbleized Dream Paper;

As an experiment with mixed media, I decided to try marbleized paper using oil, food colouring, and water. Applying one tablespoon of oil and food colouring into a dish and pouring it into a shallow tray of water.

Creating various patterns and mixtures of colour using a straw to design different swirls in the colour. 

Once I had a dream like a pattern I placed the piece of paper gently on top of the water. 

Slowly extracting the paper from the water reviled a vibrant gloomy, dreamy, textured design. The results were perfect and were such fun creating something that I could later use to inflict my illustrations with vivid colour.

Once the paper started to dry it revealed beautiful textures covered in blemishes of oil and bright vivid colours. To further this experiment I also placed paper that I’d previously designed a jar using black ink.    

Once the paper had dried and I’d tried alternative colours, patterns, and designs I scanned the textures into Adobe Photoshop. Where I could further my experiment digitally manipulating colours together using hue/saturation.

Try creating marbleized dream paper for yourself the link is below (:

http://jugglingwithkids.com/2012/02/marbelized-paper.html

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Contacting Editorial Practitioners;

I respectively tried to contact practitioners in the field, but unfortunately had no luck due to my stupidly large emails that I sent out. Keeping that in mind I was persistent and carried on sending emails. This time keeping them short and sweet I tried to contact the most inspirational editorial artists around today including, Mark Smith, Malika Favre, Paul Blow, and John W. Tomac.

After not receiving any replies I finally got something...an email from Mark Smith & John W. Tomac, answering my questions about their work and life as an editorial artist. Words of wisdom from practitioners with years of experience in the editorial illustration field. I was so grateful for such professionals to reach out and answer my questions that I’ve longed to be answered throughout this entire project. I tried to be very honest with my fear of the competitive editorial industry which on reply they reassured me if you work hard now it will pay off dearly in the future. Below is some great advice from amazing artists.

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Idea Development;

Leading on from the idea of not just inhabiting the world of others but inhabiting their dreams by capturing them inside an object after gathering stories with a survey. To progress with this idea I needed to look at alternative ways of capturing a dream and telling the stories visually. There are alternative objects that I researched that could possibly contain a dream such as a letter, book, bottle, dream catcher, fragmented shapes, and jar. I decided to try containing images from my imagination inside a bottle before I collected any stories. That way I could come up with the best possible way of containing such tales. I tried to experiment with what a dream would look like visually, is it all a blur or does a dream have a particular meaning or interpretation. Going back to skills I want to obtain I tried using different mediums such as charcoal and negative/positive colours.

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Gaining mixed media skills;

During this course, I have yet to apply all my skills as I felt some were unnecessary to this course but I have learned that all skills can be used to my advantage to progress. Instead of doubting my ability's for the remainder of this course, I will display a range of skills that I developed during my personal studies. This will include my skills in Cinema 4D, Manga Studios, and Adobe Illustrator. The ‘Cheltenham Illustration Awards’ will be a project on which I will try to apply multiple mediums to create work. Applying my knowledge in graphic design to this project will help to discover the use of space and colour in my artwork.

what skills do you want to obtain? I would like to progress in mixed media and the skills you need to get started was as simple as trying different techniques to expand and develop my practice.  Which is something I’ve always lacked in confidence and decided that I would just allow myself to have fun with a different variety of mediums. I wanted to do something crazy that I wouldn’t normally think to do! Researching editorial artist such as Stuart McReath, I found many artists in the editorial field uses mixed media to keep the process fresh and visually stimulating. 

An example of motion graphic work below...make sure to watch in HD.

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Editorial Illustration Research;

I’ve been holding an interest in Editorial Illustration since I received my first editorial project ‘Natures Destruction’. It’s an exciting market that requires both quick thinking and quick turnaround in order to communicate an articles narrative through visual language. Creating illustrations for publications is challenging and fast-paced with quick deadlines. The work I must produce demands great ideas and often requires you to come up with concepts. Art directors are looking for illustrators who can swiftly and adeptly think outside the box of literal images/text. 

Artist Research;

Malika Favre.

French artist based artist in London, Malika Favre. Her minimal style, bold colours, remind me of Pop Art and is a great example of positive/negative space and colour.  Often very sexy style had her one of world’s most sought-after commercial editorial illustrators. In her studio, Favre creates work of startling beauty and depth characterised by a minimalistic, sexy, erotic, but also a playful style. Favre also creates short charming animations of her distinctive illustrations and use of block colours, which Malika puts down to her graphic design background. I felt a relation to the way she interprets different mediums to produce work having a graphic design background myself. Inspirational work that has encouraged me to embrace the use of colour and space.

Stuart McReath.

International award winning Illustrator/Artist Stuart McReath, lives and works in Hampshire, England. McReath uses mixed media mainly, experimenting with a variety of print and ink techniques, that eventually ends up in Adobe Photoshop where the work gets worked up digitally. His artwork has graced the visual communication publications for Royal Mail, Havard University and NHS as well as appearing in leading newspaper and magazines such as The Wall Street Journal and The Times. Stuart said in a recent interview; “This experimental process can help keep the process fresh and visually stimulating.” Another artist that uses a combination of mixed media to communicate visually.

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Idea Development. Capturing Dreams;

Leading on from the idea of not just inhabit the world of others but inhabiting their dreams by capturing them inside an object after gathering stories with a survey. To progress with this idea I needed to look at alternative ways of capturing a dream and telling the stories visually. There are alternative objects that I researched that could possibly contain a dream such as a letter, book, bottle, dream catcher, fragmented shapes, and jar. I decided to try containing images from my imagination inside a bottle before I collected any stories. That way I could come up with the best possible way of containing such tales. I tried to experiment with what a dream would look like visually, is it all a blur or does a dream have a particular meaning or interpretation. Going back to skills I want to obtain I tried using different mediums such as charcoal and negative/positive colours.

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Major Problems;

The project felt so open that I got lost in my own thoughts and didn’t dedicate my time to really hearing the imagination and stories of others. Furthermore, now I have become aware that I must embrace the thoughts and stories from another, I want to collect those stories deep from the imagination and minds that are not my own. It’s like I expected to understand other’s perspective without even asking them, leading me to be more open. Connecting to people can be difficult, especially on a personal level as people are not always open to speaking about their stories.

List of possible ways to obtain stories;

- Interviews.

- Survey.

- Focus Groups.

- Studies.

- Visits.

- An experience of friends/family.

- Local Newspaper.

- Reach out directly.

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A year from now;

As an emerging practitioner, I need to really begin to focus my portfolio on the area that I most want to work. I’ve started to build a strong online presence, getting to know the editorial industry and having a list of potential clients and art directors. While this is important becoming recognised by the client/agents is something I want to chase, instead of emailing my website/portfolio links. I want to create something tangible to send clients hopefully they’re much less likely to forget my work. Art directors and illustrators work together to craft the best possible visual to tell a story or illuminate a concept. There are newspapers and magazines out there to suit just about every illustration style, and publications frequently play with many aesthetics. For the coming year, to get a sense of what may catch an art director’s eye, I need to keep track of what’s popular with the understanding that no trend will suit every publication. I want to include collaborative work and become a lot more open dependant, and flexible to the work I produce. Including a good verity of work that is cohesive. Something I haven’t done enough while at university is participating in illustration shows, events and galleries. 

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Division Of Tonal Values, Experimental Illustration;

Light striking a geometric solid such as a woman's face or sphere creates orderly and predictable series of light & dark tones. Learning to identify their tones and to place them in their proper relationship is one of the keys to achieving a look of solidity. The video below is an experiment of classic tonal steps from light to shadow, known as modelling factors.

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Workshop Task 1. Digital Mannequin Painting;

"Tonal values are critical. The lights and darks contribute more to the success of a painting's composition than any other factor, including colour. In fact, your painting will really only be as good as the tonal values" 

- Greg Albert, The simple Secret to Better Painting.

Task 1; Drawing & Painting Workshop. “Your homework for this week is to take a photograph of a simple object, a chair, table, box, building, something with clear divisions of tonal values. Export into Photoshop and turn it greyscale.”

From the mannequin photograph, I tried to define each tonal values in my own style. The lines helped bring out the dark values and created a perfect reference. Decided to use a combination of pen and pencil to bring out the subject inside Photoshop.

My personal experience is that blue pencils, or Col-Erase pencils of most colours, allows you to work very loosely and create dynamic rough poses. By adjusting colour channels in Photoshop, you can easily get rid of the original sketchiness (done in blue or red) leaving them with only the cleaned-up black lines of the illustration.

What you see initially is the abstracted pattern. Everything else, including all details, is subordinate in terms of impact. It gets real interesting when you have extracted values from the photograph and see the complexity of shapes of tonal values.

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Cheltenham Illustration Award Winners;

Olga Kostyuk.

A wonderful, fanciful story in itself by Olga Kosyuk of St. Petersburg University. A story of a delightful dog sniffing out a fairy among the undergrow. It is a story of friendship between two creatures from two different worlds. I love how the artist really brings harmony between black & white to illustrate a story. Olga won a place in the 2016 ‘Tales Of Nonsense’ Cheltenham Illustration Awards with no surprise to me the illustrations are incredibly defined and imaginative. 

Lauren Buffery.

Inspired by a world of natural phenomena and animals, ‘Northern Lights’ is the product of an influx of factors, a combination of fantasy and reality. Lauren studied Illustration at Birmingham City University, her work is produced similarly to my own style a variety of pens and markers. ‘Northern Lights’ is her attempt at creating a new world a place where even whales can fly. It felt much like a dream that reflects Laurens imagination her perspective of the world around her where even the most absurd illustrations make sense.  

Helena Perez Garcia.

Illustrator and designer Helen Perez Garcia born in Seville based in London and studied Fine Arts degree at the University of Seville. Awarded with covering the Cheltenham Illustration Awards ‘Tales Of Nonsense’ 2016 published book. Helena creates really interesting visual stories and portraits where her female characters are emerged in a surreal situation or become part of a dreamy imagery. Surrounded by floral and geometric pattern, the characters are sometimes depicted in intimate moments of interaction with other humans or animals, depending on the theme. The vivid colours and varied patterns harmoniously combine to offer a surreal, imaginative, and enchanting visual experience produced in relaxing colourful paint.

Research Summary;

We often have the opportunity to take a look inside other’s minds which is what the Cheltenham Illustration Awards 2017 brief is based around. Reminding us not to be arrogant to the imagination as we stare through the eyes of others. Within this research dreams and our imagination is a recurring theme in illustrations that are chosen for the awards. Which brought me to invest in being open to people's imagination and create something that will carry other’s personal perspective or dreams. The project felt so open that I got lost in my own thoughts and didn’t dedicate my time to really hearing the imagination of others. Furthermore, now I have become aware that I must embrace the thoughts and stories from another, I want to collect those stories deep from the imagination and minds that are not my own.

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Initial Ideas;

As part of the 2017 Cheltenham Illustration Awards, the theme is “Tales through others’ eyes”, & that being any illustration to be submitted should follow a narrative that inhabits the world of another.

Starting this brief was no easy objective it left my ideas very open without any direction of sort just tales and seeing through other’s eyes. I want this project to help progress and set some sort of direction of illustration I may feel most creative, challenged, and willing to pursue.

I decided the old fashioned spider diagram is the best place for me to really drill the brief into my head before researching anything and start producing appropriate ideas.

Here are some initial ideas;

- Tale through animals. I was quite interested in doing a series of illustrations that would embark on the tale of animals in captivity. 

- My second idea which I tried to develop digitally was to try and see me from other people perspective. For example, I illustrated myself falling off my bike. This felt like such a naive idea as it ignores the brief, “ we might have to forget our own prejudices and preconceptions.”

- I had the idea to use photography to tell the tale of others priorities in life. By handing them a camera for a certain amount of time giving away the responsibility to some to tell a tale. I wanted to use a polaroid camera which my flatmate was willing to let me use for the project. Unfortunately, she moved out before I had the chance to use the camera.

- Leading on from the idea of not just inhabit the world of others but inhabiting their dreams by capturing them inside an object after gathering stories with a survey.  The survey will provide a tale of the good and bad dreams we have when asleep at night. To progress with this idea I need to look at alternative ways of capturing a dream and communicating the tale visually using mixed media.

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Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes. And then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book, and we resume our lives.—  Neil Gaiman, American Gods

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Jared Mirabile.

Possibly the most influential illustrator for my professional practice to date. His work is a delicious blend of hard cutting edges and silky smooth lines created digitally. He uses digital methods mainly that of Adobe Illustrator to push not only the illustrative process in vectors but with a traditional pencil or pen. 

Even though he has been inspirational it is the way he presences himself through online means which has helped me to tackle commissions that I have received. Teaching me that I’m an illustrator first, the computer is just my assistant and not to be afraid of getting out of my own comfort zone to illustrate using different methods in order to produce illustrations. He influenced my relationship with the use of black and white in my work it has forced me with no choice other than growth.

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Contemporary Practice Brief;

Project  Description

“An  important part of life as an illustrator is an understanding of who you are,  where you are in your creative journey and crucially; who you want to be and  where you want to go.

This module will require you to undertake extensive research, both primary and secondary, identifying your direction and supporting the reasoning behind your choices. The tasks within the module are designed to support and guide you though this process.

Alongside your research you will explore and extend your practice through a choice of practical assignments. Practical exploration,  testing ideas, processes and materials, will take place inspired by an established practitioner or area of practice.  This will vary depending on the brief you select as most appropriate  to your identified direction.”

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Afternoon sunlight through the forest🍂☀️ #daylight#lakeside#forest#afternoon#sunshine#photography#perrybarr#nature#swan#wildlife

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For the characters, I started adding opinions using comic styled speech bubbles. I decided to use greaseproof paper as it allowed me to experiment with the light and really focus on any facial expressions that complement the characters opinions. 

The opinions I collected while eavesdropping on the media sites felt very negative and often never broadcasted any positive opinions. While the public opinions I collected before was often very positive. 

I was worried that the opinions would offend the audience, to balance the negative I also collected more positive characters with less offensive opinions. A counter balance of such that will pose an argument between opinions of each character.