#illustration 1

[piru-illu]

A whole world on a page 🌎 📖

My last project in my Illustration 1 class, where the focus was to create any sort of personal project we wanted!

I was actually kind of unsure of what to do this time, until my professor thought my sketchbook spreads were interesting and could work as a whole illustration in itself, so that's what I did, a whole spread of various things together, a magical and whimsical universe to explore 🌈

Close-ups below!

[pointjunxian]

“A Teen Dream” Acrylic on wood panel, 2ft x 3ft

Final for Illustration 1.

[piru-illu]

My first illustration from second year! For Illustration 1, we were given the word ‘Fall’ and asked to create an image with any interpretation.

I call this piece “The Fall of Summer”, I personified the fall and summer seasons as characters, they are fighting for control of the environment with Fall/Autumn triumphing over Summer, to represent the transition of seasons, it’s sort of a double meaning too, ‘fall’ as the action and as the season, I love wordplay!

Which character is your favourite? Do you prefer Autumn or Summer? 🍁☀️

[pointjunxian]

Weekly Task-Figure Drawing

[nita-engle-reference]

Illustration 1 of 10 for Reader’s Digest Condensed Books; Volume 3 Summer 1968: Once Upon an Island Page 6 (1968 Best Sellers pg. 2XX) Nita Engle (1925-2019) Watercolor, 1968

Internet Archive

[nita-engle-reference]

Illustration 1 of 6 for Reader's Digest Condensed Books; Autumn 1967, Volume 71: The Fox and the Hound Page 244 Nita Engle (1925-2019) Watercolor, 1967

[cloudytreefolk]

Assignment - “Say Hello” (greetings card)

For this project I started out by making a list of objects that I felt represent some of my key interests, inspirations, genres and favourite aesthetics, which was a substantial section of my introduction letter. I thought depicting these symbols swirling in a kind of astral space cloud would be a nice way to represent the inside of my head, with all these interests swirling about ready to be turned into something else.

Then I browsed on Pinterest and created a board from my notes. I typically use a lot of reference when I draw, but with this project I thought it would make sense to draw the objects representing my interests more stylistically/subjectively. Using a messier and more expressive style with maybe some flaws would be fine, since then I’m showing how these object-symbols appear in my mind in a very unadulterated way. I just used the Pinterest board to start putting my ideas together visually and didn’t try to copy or refer to the images very closely when drawing.

Over the course of creating the Pinterest board I thought an illustration about myself showing only objects might feel a bit empty with no characters since the people in our lives are very much a part of who we are. I started drawing my partner Phoenix as a phoenix then decided it would be good to draw the rest of my family as birds too. Birds would look a bit more comfortable swirling around since they can fly, and I wanted to represent the characters in my life existing comfortably in this imaginary space, not flapping about upside down.

When I drew the symbols and characters i typically did a couple versions of each one, inked my favourite while trying to keep a spontaneous, sketchy energy about the lines, then used coloured pencils to colour, trying to use a wide range of colours so there would be a good variety no matter how I eventually laid out the objects over my background. On each object I used at least a couple and preferably more colours, so everything would look really vibrant and stand out strongly from the black and white background - which I chose to be black and white since I thought it would help balance the illustration despite all the fine detail of the objects! The swirly space background with the vortex kind of stretching out and breaking is something I’ve drawn before and wanted to try elaborating, and I tried to create a good sense of depth by making the spiral line thinner in the centre, thicker as it spun out. In this way the viewer would hopefully feel drawn into the image.

Laying out the objects and characters so everything felt evenly dispersed and there weren’t too many objects of the same colour lying next to each other. I put the robin representing myself right at the beginning of the spiral, to symbolise it being the origin point of everything else or somehow at the crux of everything. I left out larger objects I had multiple versions of (e.g. just using one mountain symbol, just one witch hat) or picked my favourites out of ones i had two versions of.

If I were to create another version of this illustration, I might try making some of the objects smaller towards the centre of the spiral, to help the perspective along a bit. I was thinking a lot about the part of Alice in Wonderland when she falls down the rabbit hole with all the furniture and elements of mundane life turned topsy-turvy around her., with the drawing room oak panelling lining the tunnel wall. It would be really interesting to try a version more directly inspired by that, with something like medieval castle or haunted mansion walls on my version of the tunnel walls to correspond with my interests.

Characters’ and objects’ meaning

Robin with key: Me! I love robins, and the key is a Secret Garden reference, a book I mention in my letter. I wanted the robin to hold something symbolising quests and I was going to go with a sword originally but that has too much of a bloodthirsty connotation. Keys feel mysterious, adventurous and magical to me, which I’m sure is left over from the 1st Harry Potter film scene with the flying keys,

Phoenix shaped like a robin: my partner Phoenix, we’re both robins so we match,

Cardinal with paintbrush, tiny house: My grandma who was an artist, and the house she left us in France, she’s in the top left corner because she’s not around anymore but a very important person in my life,

Heron: My dad, with my dad’s cap and glasses. I hoped the riverbank walks mention in the text would help the viewer identify him,

Owl with Hat and telescope: My mum, I picked an owl because we both bought each other art prints with owls featuring for Christmas, and I feel like she has the intellect and wisdom they typically represent in folklore. I hoped the telescope would link with the text reference to her constant search for new knowledge and opportunities, 

Crow/Jackdaw with big red chained book: My brother, described in the letter as interested in arcane knowledge, medieval history, I wanted him to look quite gothic but still colourful so he contrasted enough with the background,

Carved pumpkins and ghost cookies: my love of Halloween and all things spooky,

Witch’s hat, medieval goblet, candles, potion bottles, cauldron, lavender bundle: a bit of the above mixed with my interest in folklore, witchery and history,

Leaves, lavender, mountain and coral: these represent my interest in nature, biology, biodiversity. I think I needed some more representation of these interests, the balance of the illustration is quite fantasy/folklore heavy,

Planets and spaceship: my interest in space and love of sci-fi,

Sailing boat: this symbol is bigger because it’s something I find really important - adventures, travelling and bravery,

[cloudytreefolk]

Exercise: The History of Illustration - E. H. Shepard and Dave McKean

E. H. Shepard (1879 - 1976) began his career illustrating editions of Aesop’s Fables, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens and Tom Brown’s School Days  before drawing cartoons for Punch, a popular satirical and comic magazine. During the First World War, in his thirties, he served in the trenches and for military intelligence, recording enemy positions with his illustration skills. After the war, Shepard continued to work for Punch, for a time as Head Cartoonist, before being removed by the new manager in 1953.

Whilst at Punch, E. H. Shepard was introduced to A. A. Milne by a colleague and  established a productive working relationship, E. H. Shepard providing the iconic illustrations for the Winnie-the-Pooh series, which were used as a basis for the classic Disney movie. Shepard also illustrated Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. For the purposes of this exercise I’ll focus on E. H. Shepard’s Winnie-the-Pooh illustrations, as they are the best known of his work and there’s a large pool of work there to analyse.

Dave McKean (1963 - ) is an artist, illustrator, photographer, musician and filmmaker. His career began in 1986 when he met author Neil Gaiman, and the pair published several smaller comics together before the highly successful The Sandman series was released, which brought McKean and Gaiman properly into the public eye. McKean also illustrated DC’s Arkham Asylum. Since then he’s published numerous comics,illustrated several more Neil Gaiman works including Coraline and The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish, illustrated  books by S.F. Said, David Almond, Steven King, Ray Bradbury, Richard Dawkins and many more. He’s designed album covers and promotional artwork, produced concept artwork for major feature films and directed MirrorMask, written with Neil Gaiman from 1998 and released in 2005. 

Did the work of the illustrator you chose seem old fashioned? How?

Shepard’s illustrations for Winnie the Pooh have a classic, literary feeling, reminding me of the pen and ink style I’ve seen in illustrations for Sherlock Holmes or The Secret Garden, however with a bit more of a sweetness and cosy humour, a bit more playful and cartoonish than those more representational images. I feel like Shepard’s style fits the books and characters very well, with their reassuring combination of more grown up thoughtful-ness/ character observation and gentle humour reflected by the “classic” pen and ink style and “cartoonish-ness” where the lines become less representational and more humourous. When I read the books growing up, the illustration style made me feel like they were somewhat serious and mature books for me to read, which made me feel accomplished. They feel quietly enticing like doodles in the author’s notebook, as if you were being read the stories directly by the paternal voice of A. A. Milne and being given an inside look. The landscape of the Hundred Akre Wood is relatively realistic, somewhat sparse and scrubby, so feel more relatable and familiar than a big colourful jungle - you could meet the characters in the trees at the bottom of your garden. 

“I was able to draw many of the places with the comfortable feeling of - it really happened here-” E. H. Shepard on creating studies from life at Ashdown forest to consolidate into the finished Winnie the Pooh illustrations.

What attracted you to the work of your chosen contemporary artist?

Dave McKean’s artwork is highly textural, feels cinematic, can feel both bleak and stark or warm and intimate through specific lighting and colour choices. I love his combinations of rich colour and texture with deep black shadows or scratchy black lines, this is something I love producing in my own artwork. His illustration work and faces feel very sculptural and influenced by his 3D work, like masks but also sensual. There’s an off-putting, distant feeling by the mask-like nature, but intimacy from warm skin tones and fleshy shapes. Cinematic feeling from almost theatrical lighting and texture, cartoony feeling where the text requires more comedy with the scratchy lines and wacky shapes and expressions.

I picked McKean’s illustrations of Neil Gaiman’s The Wolves in the Walls to focus on for this exercise because I thought the comparison with E. H. Shepard’s work would be interesting. Both works feature anthropomorphic animals and relatable childhood experiences (playing with soft toys, being scared of monsters hidden in your house) but the nature of the animals is far darker and chaotic in The Wolves in the Walls, and I feel like the multifaceted, abstracted mixed media artwork reflects this mood.

  Sometimes the wolves are completely abstract; mad and dark shapes, they warp and twist, especially when Lucy is at the bottom of the garden worrying about what the wolves will do to her puppet pig. When she enters the house to save her pig, the wolf she sees in reality is white and hairy, a living, sleeping, solid animal instead of a twisted demon. Having faced the reality of her fear she feels braver and encourages her family to take back their house from the wolves. Something I think is really clever is that the wolves don’t lose all their character and become docile cute and fluffy, they are more realistically drawn/more grounded than before and white instead of black but still wacky and scratchy and cartoonish, just the nature of that abstraction has changed. Now having taken over the house, they’re more force of mad chaos instead of a dark ominous threat and feel more comical and cathartic than terrifying.

How did each artist produce their illustrations, what tools and materials did they use?

E. H. Shepard began his illustrations by making pencil studies from life in the countryside of Ashdown Forest, the basis for The Hundred Acre Wood. He’d then take these home, make thumbnail sketches to develop his ideas, then trace from his studies to compose his final images. He would “drop in” the characters on top of these scenes, drawn from imagination but originally based off the real life Christopher Robin and his toys, along with Shepard’s son’s bear Growler as the eponymous Winnie-the-Pooh. Then Shepard would ink over his pencil lines with a nib pen, later adding simple and bright watercolour washes when the books were later published with colour illustrations.

Images from The Art of Winnie the Pooh by James Campbell

In keeping with the technological advances of illustration since Shepard’s days, Dave McKean uses a more technologically based approach to create his illustrations, and uses a wide selection of media. On his website FAQ he writes “I use whatever is appropriate for the job. If the story needs close storytelling and a light, simple style of narrative, then probably pen and ink, or brushpen, or pencil would be best. If the story needs a more symbolic approach then maybe collage, or paint, or digital. It all comes down to the emotion and atmosphere you want to convey.” For The Wolves in the Walls he uses a mixture of traditional and digital painting for the humans, scratchy, powerful traditional ink lines for the feral wolves, and photography and found textures to construct objects such as the puppet pig, father’s tuba, mother’s jam and walls and fabrics of the house. Natural forms like plants and fire are totally digitally painted; little abstract elemental flourishes occasionally dotted in. All these parts are compiled and layered together digitally in Photoshop, reminiscent of Shepard’s method of compiling several sketches into one piece by tracing.