Tag: university

Kidding Around: Work for Picturebooks

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I want this post to do two things.

A) share some things I’ve made recently

B) Muse a little bit about things. I just feel like we never talk anymore. The blogosphere can be a lonely place.

So first up, here are some pieces I’ve been working on this past week. They’re not projects as such, simply drawings and characters I’ve had kicking about in my head for a while. Glorified doodles.

A Koala is Not a Bear

Bears aren't good petsWashing Day

Night Shift

If anyone is familiar with the work I’ve been making over the past few years, you may have noticed a shift in the nature of some of the more recent bits. (If you have, seriously big old kudos heading your way! I owe you a cookie.)

Firstly, I think the art is beginning to be a little more consistent. That battle I’d been having before and right the way through university to develop a “style” is finally being won. And, while I thought that would feel stifling or limiting when I did eventually settle into it, it’s actually feeling pretty happy. I feel a bit safer almost. Comfortable. Yet I’m also confident with it, because I know that other styles and ways of working to me are possible should a given brief call for it.

Secondly I think my characterisation has been coming together into a different direction recently. The work I make is usually figurative in some manner, but I’ve definitely been inspired in recent months to approach this a little differently when it comes to transcribing the characters I’ve seen/ invented onto the page.

The reason for these changes, I think, it simply that life has changed. As it does.

Making pictures is, like any form of creativity or visual media. It’s a snapshot of your life; a representation of the way you see the world, the things you know and the lessons you’ve learned at any given point in your existence. Mine has changed dramatically over the past nine months and is, now, once again on the verge of changing again.

Firstly, university and the life and structure I had while I was there, ended. My friends moved away, the rigorous and consistent marking system ceased and regular access to tutors, mentors and facilities went with it. Since then, I moved back in with my partner and invested in one of those full time job deals, working as a designer in children’s publishing.

I can’t put into words how much I have learned. Nine months in the exact field I had wanted to be in (albeit a slightly left of field job) taught me more about myself, my work and (dare I say it)  the market that governs it all, than three years of formal university education even touched on. And now, as my contract with the publishers finally winds up to a conclusion and I prepare to push on into that expansive gulf of possibility, instability and fear that everyone else met with some time ago, I have never felt more confident.

Somehow, it turns out, working a full time job and having the time to devote to your work torn out form under your feet, made me even more determined to find the time to devote time to my work. I draw more now than I think I ever have and every image feels like it has a real purpose or audience. I’m no longer jumping through hoops and making work for marks, but making work for me and it feels easier than it every has.

That’s not to say I begrudge uni anything. I loved being at school, but it’s only now that I realise how much of it I wasted worrying about making the right work instead of just making the work that works!

The job I’ve had has been doing all the background research for me, and is one of the reasons I’ve loved it so much. I love the world of picture book publishing and, actually, I really loved being a designer. But as the contract nears its end and the job winds up, I feel like it’s time to get it together and start approaching the industry from a different direction. The right direction. I am an illustrator at heart, I always was. Now I’ve had the good fortune to be afforded an insight into how to be the best illustrator I can be. I’ve seen behind the scenes, I’ve got to grips with the structure of it all and I know for sure it’s publishing I want to work in.

So, nerve wracking as it is, let’s give it a go. Let’s make pictures. After all, the worst case scenario is that it doesn’t work out. To me, that is a thousand times better than wondering “what if.”

Risographing within an Inch of your Life

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So a handful of friends and I decided to make a pretty thing.

You know, cause we’re in third year and have nothing better to do or anything…

But it seems a shame not to make use of the ace University facilities available to us while we’re lucky enough to be here. Especially given that they are, available FOR FREE (3 grand a year free anyway. Well, it’s better than 9.) so we gathered together a little proposal to send out to our fellow image makers on the course.

We wanted to make a collaborative work of illustrations and  imagery based on the brief we set. A short, publication that showcases the talent that Bath Spa is about to unleash on the world. We decided to keep it simple, keep it open to interpretation and keep it relevant.

And what could be more relevant than the present? So we asked people to volunteer a simple image in two colours (black and blue) based on their own, personal response to the Right Here, Right Now.  We wanted to keep it simple so could spend a bit of time reproducing on the dual-colour Risograph printer in our studio. A cheap and cheerful zine that captures the very essence of 2014’s graduation image makers.

So here’s my design. My personal Right Here, Right Now: A third year on the brink of graduation:

Present1

Unfortunately, the project took something of an acceleration which leaves me unable to currently show you the finished product. Turns out, our tutors thought it was a kind of neat project too, so encouraged us to put a wiggle on and get it done in line with a second year study trip to New York so they could take it with them to drop in on US professionals and studios. This is, obviously pretty cool, but it meant we had to finish it in under a week. We managed to get the kindly artwork donations of 12 classmates so it’s a tight little compendium, but the styles are all really varied and I think it looks ace overall. We literally got done binding it with minutes to spare before handing it over to be whisked away over the atlantic, but we’re well in line to produce a few more so photographic evidence will be kicking about soon with any luck.

Trust me though, it looked really cool.

Seriously.

The Ambiguity Project: Look What You Made!!

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It took a while and it was stressful and incomprehensibly confusing at times but, the concluding chapter of the Ambiguity Project has finally been written. And I figure, as it was all your hard work that made it, it’s only really fair that I offer you the chance to  a little gander.Maps in Their Slip Case

All those broad and insightful answers you sent, emailed, told and wrote to me have been gradually forming this project for a while now. The character portraits they formed have taken on a number of attributes and aspirations and finally, in your deciding of the concluding question, you’ve shaped their journeys towards aspiration progression and digression.

As a result, the pieces have evolved from character portraits into the format of maps.

W: Positive Extrovert

X: Positive IntrovertY: Negative IntrovertZ: Negative Extrovert

The pieces as a whole communicate the desires, aspirations, fears, limits and goals of each character, based on the desires, aspirations, fears, limits and goals of every person that took part. map3

map10

The representations of map elements are extensions of your resulting answers, transforming the images into something of an artistically representative psychological landscape in which forests, desserts, mountains and rivers must be bridged and navigated as the theoretical characters endevour to achieve.

As the maps can be folded in any number of ways, new compositions and sequences are formed out of the ambiguous collage imagery, introducing the possibility of narrative-based interpretation and multiple routes through the artwork.

Based on your final answers and your choice to answer with positivity or negativity, I adapted the likely-hood of the journey’s success using the environmental features.

At times, rivers will be bridged or shattered, allowing navigation around the barriers so that the illustrations of goals can be accessed. At others, the folding will introduce increased forests and confusing, representing the journey becoming harder.map12

map17Basically, these are four artworks that beg to be played with and explored. Fold ’em up however you wish to reveal multiple artworks and new possibilities for stories.

Then, obviously, cause I can’t let things lie, I wanted to make a slip case to contain them.

The project dictated that it needed to have a binding jacket, so, as my results had extended out of the original book format intended, I used it as an excuse to design and display the cover.

I knew the artworks were complex and involving, so did not want to drown this in the cover design. Instead I opted for a simple, systematic looking result, inspired by the design of 1970’s psychological textbooks. I wanted the notions of progression towards goals to be represented by the idea of making your way from A to B, and knew that the suggestion of maps had to be present, hence the light inclusion of the forest elements, which doubles up nicely as directional arrows.

mapcover1mapBack

There’s a very real possibility that I did forgot to spell check.

If you find anything, do me a favour and just keep it to yourself okay?

Anyway, another project down.

Thank you so much to everyone that helped, I really hope that you appreciate the results.

Cheers

B

Illustrating Science: The joy of pseudo diagrams (fig. 2)

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This is Lucy.

Lucy's feedback

And this is Carl.

Carl's Brain

They like to do things. Things like moving. They’re especially good at intentional moving, unconsciously.

This was Lucy, once.

Lucy's egg legThen I got my hands on her.

And This is Proprioception.

(A project from last Christmas.)

This is Proprioception

propbook5

Inspired by the ingenuity of the pseudo-educational comedy, Look Around You, Proprioception was a mock 70’s educational manual in which I took a real life bit of, really damn interesting, biology and explained it using entirely non scientific methods. Because I am an illustrator, so cutting things up makes more sense to me than the deeply fascinating intricacies of real life biology.

FeedbackThe pseudo diagrams were designed to portray the importance of this fascinatingly vital sixth sense, so inherent in our bodies most people have never even considered a life without it (and in fact there are only 6 known cases of people having a complete lack. This is a really cool video about one man’s battle.)

The “text book” had fold out elements to reveal new tasks that got people thinking about the impact of Proprioception in their own life.

Opening page 1Opening page 2I wanted to draw people’s attention to it’s vitality to our functioning everyday and used tasks and design choices to create a style reminiscent of an 70’s school textbook/instruction manual with a playful, modern twist.

Carl dancingProprioception allows us to understand our own body’s position in relation to itself without consciously considering where each limb is. It’s why when you close your eyes, you know where both your hands are. It’s super neat and super vital and I wanted people to understand that fact using simple collage techniques and fun imagery to demonstrate the incomprehensible struggle that would be living without it.

Plus it gave me an excuse to cut up my friends faces for a few months.

Seriously, I was picking Carls head out of my carpet for weeks.

Illustrating science: The joy of pseudo diagrams (fig 1)

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Hands up if you want to learn a totally amazing fact?What about something entirely controversial?

Or even just utterly trivial?

And who wants to learn them through the medium of…TYPOGRAPHY!? …no?

Well if you raised your hands to any of them you are a fool, because I can’t see you and that was very clearly a rhetorical request. So you can sit down, behave and have all three.

This was a short uni brief: 3 posters to work as a set and detail three facts that fit the above criteria.

The conception of the carbon that makes up all living things.
The atoms that form most of your body’s cells were created in the explosion of a star.
The lifespan of our cells, built from this carbon.
The maximum number of times your body’s cells can multiply and divide before they deteriorate and die.
The life form that housed the carbon is gone, yet the atoms continue.
In reality, the afterlife is nothing more than the continued existence of atoms after the death of the cell they once formed.

So here they are, three posters about the passage of time and our simple, biological place in it. An amazing beginning to the journey of carbon atoms, a trivial definition of our cells’ lifespan and the true, if not hard to swallow fact that we are nothing more beautiful than a temporary home for ongoing carbon.
Some may see this as a dark concept. I think it’s an utterly beautiful one, although the project itself is not one of my favourites.

Still, either way it’s all pretty interesting

Second Year Frollicks! The End of Term Catch up Part 2: Card Deck

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Anyone ever read/ watch Cardcaptors? Not to sound like a little fangirl, but it was pretty rad. No joke.

I bring it up only because it had some attractive examples of interesting, illustrated card decks, which happens to be the brief of my most recent illustration project, which I am lovingly bringing to you today as part two of the Second Year Catch Up sesh.

We were asked to create a set of nine cards in the style of Edward Gorey’s Fantod deck of alternative Tarot. And my eyes immediately turned into little dollar bill signs, as this was in November, just prior to Comiket. And card decks are a pretty sell-able deal.

I turned to my interests in media theory for inspiration, choosing to illustrate Vladmir Propp’s theory of set character types. With creepy puppets. Because if a project of mine needs one thing, it’s definitely an air of macabre. (There was research and reasoning to back this up by the way, but, who am I kidding? You don’t care about that! You’re probably going to sneak past the text, straight to the pictures anyway, you cheeky little blog ninja.)

So here it is, The Propp-Up Theatre Deck.

the-deck

So we have The fist 7 from Propp’s character theory (I chose to omit the Father as a separate character, merging him with the Dispatcher as is often the case with folklore anyway.) Then made up the full nine with the Bottler and Punchman, the traditional workers of the Punch an Judy show.

the-collectionWe had to design the nine cards themselves, then a back for them as well as a Key Guide to reading them, tarot style. I went a step further (in the name of making moolah) and turned my key into a small booklet with information about the concept as well as the cards themselves, as well as handprinting candy bags to echo the punch and Judy, disturbing British seaside vibe.

key

key-inside

And did the punters at Comiket appreciate all the hardwork? Damn tootin they did! They were the first thing of mine to go and by the end of the day I only had about 2 sets left. Not bad for a school project/money making combo.PC168167

B

x

Second Year Frollicks! The End of Term Catch up Part 1: Chickens.

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And thus begins the mammoth job that is the catch up posts from the past term. I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but life definitely got frighteningly busy over the past 3 months and, as a result, my little interweb based snippets of work became a little sparse. For those of you that noticed and, more to the point, those of you that cared, I apologise for this, get on my little, metaphorical, digital knees and beg your forgiveness.

You know, in the spirit of Christmas and all that.

Not that I have any Seasonal based works for you, because I’VE BEEN BUSY. So Uni work it is.

So let’s kick start with a bit of printmaking shall we? For no other reason than it makes me happy. And I’m in charge.

The brief was…well just that. Very simply to create a screen printed poster selling our favorite fast food restaurant.

This is all very well and good, except I happen to be a proud, longstanding member of  the societal subculture of “students who cook” and, therefore have something of an aversion to fast food. Actually, that’s putting it quite lightly. What I mean is, generally and on the whole, I really bloody hate it.

“Not to worry!” My tutor insisted, “You may employ a use of irony!”

So I did. I employed a use of irony. Actually, I employed a really bloody heavy use of irony and drew, what probably turned out to be the single, most disturbing thing that’s ever been dredged from the depths of my skull, in the name of promoting Yicken, a Chinese take out back where I grew up. You know the kind: greasy walls, tiled floors, an inescapable use of that classic yellow and red colour scheme that desperately attempts to suggest some element of culture.

Actually, if I’m entirely honest, as far as nasty Chinese’s go, Yicken isn’t the worst. It just happens to have a heinously playful name that I thought might be handy in the creation of the poster.

yickenThere it is. A vile, possibility regarding the identification of the mystery meat found in that greasy tub of yours.

Back into the Swing of Things

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Well, I did it.

It was terrible but I did it. The Intended-for-Summer-but-Actually-only-Done-in-the-Early-Autumn-the-Night-Before-Hand-in-Project is officially handed in. It is done. Complete. Finito.

So now let’s all move on to happier times and embrace the start of a new year, banishing thoughts of irritatingly time consuming prior projects, and subsequently the guilt of not having done them, to the wind and beginning afresh.

I have a shiny, new project with lots of lovely potential and handfuls of doodles I intend to screen print, now that I, once again, have access to all the glorious facilities of institutionalised education. And boy, am I intending to make use of those. Not so much for school work obviously, that’s just not how I roll.

My desk is currently decorated with new time tables and other scraps of paper with various, scribbled information for the new year, as well as the usual half a rainforest that seems to materialise every September/October in the form of sheets and sheets of administrative information I either already know, or will never look at.

Yes, it is officially back to school time.

Let’s all celebrate with a completely unrelated drawing of a fox.

Image

Bring on the new year! And with it, nice early bedtimes.

Goodnight.

x