Final Product

As I have completed my front cover design and finished my page layouts I decided to make some mock ups of how the final book would look if it was professionally printed. Here are my mock ups I used photoshop to apply my images to some blank templates. I am very happy with how they look and seeing how they would look if they were printed properly has made me realise that my book would not look out of place on a book shop shelf. My goal for this year has been to progress with my professional finish and i think by looking at these finished products that I have became much closer to achieving that goal.  

Negotiated Module

Because the new project is negotiated, I can decide on whatever I want to do for this module. When I first thought about this brief it was pretty overwhelming as I could literally choose to create anything that I wanted as long as it could have some sort of commercial application. First of all I thought it would be good to create some sort of zine along with a few other illustrated products that could be sold online in a store such as Etsy, as lot of illustrators that I like do this and it seemed like a fun sort of project to do. I decided against this though because after a little chat with my tutor Amy I realised that I could use this opportunity to create something that could potentially lead to better opportunities for myself. She suggested creating a children's book because I love children's books and how beautiful that they can be. I agreed that this would be a good idea so I am planning on going down the route of creating some sort of book that would be suited to a younger audience.

As I like to come up with stories but am not too confident on wording a story correctly for a children's story/picture book I have decided to go down the route of creating factual, educational book about historical artists. I felt as though this was a good route to go down because I have been thinking about considering a career in education lately and this ties in with that as well. I think it will make the book really fun and quirky if I add strange and creepy facts about the artists, a bit like horrible history books. I have decided that this will appeal to children from the ages of about 10 all the way up to whatever age really, anyone who is interested in artists and interesting facts are  likely to be drawn to the book. I also plan to create the book using tasteful but interesting illustrations and colour palettes so that adults and children alike will be drawn to the book.

I will now start to research which artists I will include in the book, I want to attempt to have an equal amount of female to male artists although this may be challenging as in the past women weren't seen as equally as men within art and even if they did create something they often weren't credited for it. I also need to think of a title for the book but i feel like that will come with time and ill think of it whilst i am creating the images. I will also look at influences to help me decide on how I would like the book to look.

Paper cut practice: christmas card

As I am going to attempt paper cutting for my book cover I decided to do some practice so I chose to attempt to make a christmas card as I wanted to anyway. I decided to do a design with a woman wrapped up an a scarf holding some hot chocolate as that feels pretty festive to me. I have not finished the full card yet but I have constructed the main part of the woman, I just need to glue her down. It took about two hours because it is the first time I have really attempted this and it took a few tries. Overall I am really pleased with it so far, I will continue to work on it tomorrow and will hopefully get it finished soon in time for christmas.  Here is what I have done so far. 

Artist research: Gail Armstrong

As I would like to create my penguin book cover for carries war using a paper cut and sculpt technique I decided to re visit this artist as I have researched her work before but not in much detail and she has created more work in the months since I have looked at it. 
Gail Armstrong creates beautiful illustrations made from folding, layering and sculpting paper into different shapes to describe things. I love her colour work but I especially think that her white paper work works even more. I was thinking of doing my book cover in coloured paper/ card but after looking at her white paper work I am considering trying out just white, but probably wont end up using white for the final piece. I think that the camera and lighting definitely make these images work because a lot of the time the only way that you can see the shape of the paper is because of the way the light is hitting it. There is a for me lot to consider and learn if I want to go ahead with this process and it will definitely take a lot of practice. These photos have watermarks but they were the best resolution that I could find. 
I also came across a video of the artist creating one of the pieces so iv'e included that as well.

New Brief - Commercial

the next module topic that we have is commercial work. This module consists of  8 different briefs to choose from some are live and some are for competitions. The briefs that we have been given vary massively and cover almost every area of illustration, looking through the briefs I will have to consider where I would like to be within the industry in the future and do something to reflect that.  when first looking through the briefs a few stood out to  me, the penguin book cover brief, the traveling man brief, off life and communication arts competition. I think I would enjoy these briefs because I like books and being able to tell stories through images.

Thinking about what i'd like to do in the future I think that these briefs would best suit me, I now just have to think about it more and narrow it down to one. I have already started reading one of the books (Carries War) from the penguin brief, just in case I choose that one, because I remembered it from when I was younger and decided to quickly re read it. I will have to consider a few other things whilst choosing a brief. I will have to decide if I want to go for a bigger brief (penguin,) where there is more competition and ultimately less chance of being chosen, but more chances and exposure could come from it. Or a brief where I have more chance of success, like the traveling man brief, but possibly with smaller opportunities that will come from it.  

I think its likely that I will chose the penguin book brief but I want to have a good think about it before I decide for sure.  

Editorial part 1

After doing some research into Editorial artwork, I decided that I liked the look of using line work for the whole image with splashes of colour as I feel like it makes an image look really interesting. I started off by drawing a few pictures of Agnes Obel, as I couldn't draw from life I had to draw from already existing photographs from the internet. I decided to go with a stylised drawing as realistic drawing isn't my strongest point. I then added fine liner over the top of the drawings to make a more bold definite outline. Then I scanned in the drawings that I had done, I originally did 2 drawings so I could decide which one I liked best after playing around with them on photoshop.  Here are the first drawn images before I scanned them in, for some reason I really messed up the right eye in the first drawing and didn't realise for ages but I drew a new one and fixed it together when I had scanned it all into photoshop.

I then fixed the eye and changed the levels to make the image look more crisp.

Then for the colour i decided to paint a rough rectangle of watercolour to be scanned in and used as my splash of colour, I decided the colour would work really well when used in the scarf as that is a very bold part of the image. I decided to leave the edges of the paint exposed as I think it adds an extra edgy look to the image. 

I Then decided that the image looked a bit boring and i wanted to have something happening in the background of the image, so to tie the editorial in with the Album cover that I designed I decided to use the leaves from that to create a pattern behind her head. 

I finally added some text because if it was in a magazine there would be a title for the article and I wanted to keep the same font that I used for the album cover because I feel as though it fit in really well with this style of drawing.  

Overall I am really happy with how this turned out as it looks like I imagined it. Although I am pleased with this image, I am still going to make another image from the other drawing that I did of Agnes Obel, so i can decide which editorial image that I like best. 

Editorial Artist research Sarah Hingle

After giving my editorial piece some thought I realised that it would be good to try and include a drawing of Agnes Obel herself as the article will be about her. I decided to look into an editorial illustrator that draws portraits for magazines. Sarah Hingle is an Australian illustrator that has worked for magazines from around the world including Elle magazine, Frankie magazine and milk and honey  to name a few. Her style is very traditional looking as she draws very accurate portraits using pencil, a lot of her drawings are also brightened up with splashes of colour in the backgrounds. I think her drawings work really well because they are very delicate and pretty whilst remaining lifelike the colour she uses adds an extra element of interest and excitement, which I hope to achieve within my editorial piece.  I am going to tryout drawing Agnes Obel in pencil and add colour for more interest and see how it works out. I don't know if ill be able to pull off drawing as realistically as Sarah Hingle does but ill give it a try and if it doesn't work out I can always simplify my drawing to suit me more. 

Poster Design

For my poster I wanted to create something a bit different from the album cover but using the same colours and theme of an enchanted forrest. I decided to expand on the cd case and instead of having leaves on it I wanted to create the whole forest. I did this by painting various tree shapes using the same colours that i used for the leaves on my cd case. I then added lots of different black tree trunks, I wanted to make the bottom part of the forrest quite dense with tree trunks to add more mood and to darken the image slightly. Next I added a dark background that I created with watercolour and the hand written text. The final thing that I wanted to do to add more interest to the poster is add a light glare coming from the forest trees, I feel like this adds to the story of the CD case because it looks like the scene from the CD is happening in the forest where the light is coming from. Overall I am pleased with how the poster turned out because I feel like it sets the right tone for the album. 
The next step is to print out the poster design onto A2 paper that has a grey sort of colour to it. I decided on this colour because I didn't want to use a paper as dark as the cd case because I feel like it would make the image too dark, but I didn't want to use a bright white paper either so this is a good middle ground. 

Artist research: Sanna Annukka

Scandinavian illustration often has a very graphic design look to it, in the way that the shapes and colours make up the images. They are usually very bold with bright colours and often give a screen printed look. This can be clearly be seen in Sanna Annukka's work. Sanna Annukka was born in Brighton to a finish mother and spent a lot of her childhood in Finland she is inspired by the magical quality of this part of the world. She designs for the Finnish brand called Marimekko and creates her own silk screen prints. 

Her work is made up of different descriptive shapes that when put together create beautiful images. They are very bold and striking but if you look closer the image is made up of very detailed small patterns and lines. I am going to experiment and see if I can make my design a bit more simplistic so that it will work with this style of silk screen illustration. 

The thing I think works best in the image below is the leaf style patterns within the hills I think it is really effective and the pattern gives a more detailed look to the image. This will work really well within the leaves on my design.  

This illustrator also created products that are for sale on her website. She creates imaged then prints them onto wood shaped to fit the image. I think this looks really effective as the simplicity of the item works really well with the design printed onto it. 

her illustrations are used and printed onto many different products such as mugs, fabrics and other home wears her designs work really well against the white backgrounds of the products. I don't think my design will have a white background but its something to consider.

Artist research: Trove Jansson

Trove Jansson is a Finnish Illustrator that has created many different works of art throughout her lifetime, but she is best known for the much loved children's TV animation Moomin that is still popular today. Moomin started off as a weekly newspaper comic strip for adults in London in 1954 and in 1955 the strip started to be published across the Nordic papers. Creating a strip every single day of the week became stressful so her brother eventually took over until it ended

The comic strip then got turned into a TV animated series in 1990 based off Troves comic strips and books, about a troll that lived in moominvalley. A lot of the scenery and colours used in the animation is based off and inspired by her homeland of Finland. The illustration style and colours that are used are very typical of the nordic illustration style. The look of the illustrations give a really nice happy nostalgic feel. The characters are simply coloured with block colours, this is how i usually like to colour my images so looking at these illustrations will help me with the way I use colour within my illustration for my CD cover. 

Here is a video of the opening scene from moomin

As in more recent years moomin has became more popular the merchandise that is made for the moomin series has been updated with a more modern nordic feel to it. The characters and imagery have all been kept the same but with an update in design placement and colour pallet. This is really good to see how one thing can grow and develop in to something new over the years. I think the update has worked really well and successful as the products seem to be very popular amongst fans and collectors as there is an extensive range of things available to buy. I really love the modern nordic illustrative feel they have to them, I feel as though it is very representative of where they are from. 

Moomin Candle Holder 2014

Moomin bed cover

Artist research: Arthur Rackam

I decided to do some research into Arthur Rackam because although my style of drawing does not reflect his, the theme of his drawings fits in very well with the whimsical, enchanted forest concept that i want to create for my album cover and poster. 

Arthur Rackam was an English book illustrator from the golden age of illustration. He was a member of the Royal watercolour society. He illustrated a lot books in his time these include: Alice in wonderland, the wind in the willows, peter pan and many more children's classics until his death in 1939. 
Rackam created very detailed images of magical looking scenes. His images often include fairies, forests and other creatures from fairy tales. He uses very fine lines that look as if they are made with pencil and quite dark subdued colours that make these images feel dark and creepy. Although it does not match my drawing style I think the detail he uses works very well as it makes these magical images seem a bit more real. I can imagine if I was a child looking at his illustrations I would be quite convinced that these illustrations could be real things that have happened.  
 I really love the feeling that he captures through the themes in his images. I will attempt to create the same magical feelings that he does through his images in my own. 
Here are a few of his forest images that will inspire own work. 

Scandinavian folk tales

As Agnes Obel said that she likes to focus on the sound of her music rather than the lyrics i decided not to create a lyric based illustration and instead decided to focus on Scandinavian folk tales especially ones from Denmark as it fits in with Obels influences and heritage as she comes from Denmark.  

I decided to do some research into a few tales to get some ideas to base my illustrations off. Here are some stories that I found and my thoughts about them. 

Illustration By John Bauer 

Tales of Cats 

There was a man in Jutland who had made a good deal of money by improper means. When he died he left his property equally among his three sons. The youngest, when he got his share, thought to himself—

"What comes with sin goes with sorrow," and he resolved to submit his money to the water-ordeal, thinking that the ill-got money would sink to the bottom, and what was honestly acquired swim on the top. He accordingly cast all his money into the water, and only one solitary farthing swam. With this he bought a cat, and he went to sea and visited foreign parts. At length he chanced to come to a place where the people were sadly plagued by an enormous number of rats and mice, and as his cat had had kittens by this time, he acquired great wealth by selling them. So he came home to Jutland, and built himself a house, which he called Katholm.

(story found on 

http://www.worldoftales.com/European_folktales/Scandinavian_folktale_3.html)

I really like this story as it is quite light hearted and happy plus i just really like cats. I think it would also fit in with the vibe of the album as it is really calm and relaxing and I always associate cats with being calm, elegant and relaxing.

The hill-man invited to the christening 

The hill-people are excessively frightened during thunder. When, therefore, they see bad weather coming on, they lose no time in getting to the shelter of their hills. This terror is also the cause of their not being able to endure the beating of a drum. They take it to be the rolling of thunder. It is, therefore, a good recipe for banishing them to beat a drum every day in the neighbourhood of their hills, for they immediately pack up, and depart to some quieter residence.

A farmer lived once in great friendship and concord with a hill-man, whose hill was in his lands. One time when his wife was about to have a child, it gave him great perplexity to think that he could not well avoid inviting the hill-man to the christening, which might, not improbably, bring him into ill repute with the priest and the other people of the village. He was going about pondering deeply, but in vain, how he might get out of this dilemma, when it came into his head to ask the advice of the boy that kept his pigs, who had a great head-piece, and had often helped him before. The pig-boy instantly undertook to arrange the matter with the hill-man in such a manner that he should not only stay away without being offended, but, moreover, give a good christening present.

Accordingly, when it was night, he took a sack on his shoulder, went to the hill-man's hill, knocked, and was admitted. He delivered his message, gave his master's compliments, and requested the honour of his company at the christening. The hill-man thanked him, and said—

"I think it is but right I should give you a christening present."

With these words he opened his money-chests, bidding the boy hold up his sack while he poured money into it.

"Is there enough now?" said he, when he had put a good quantity into it.

"Many give more, few give less," replied the boy.

The hill-man once more fell to filling the sack, and again asked—

"Is there enough now?"

The boy lifted the sack a little off the ground to see if he was able to carry any more, and then answered—

"It is about what most people give."

Upon this the hill-man emptied the whole chest into the bag, and once more asked—

"Is there enough now?"

The guardian of the pigs now saw that there was as much in the sack as he would be able to carry, so he answered—

"No one gives more, most people give less."

"Come now," said the hill-man, "let us hear who else is to be at the christening."

"Ah," said the boy, "we are to have a great many strangers and great people. First and foremost, we are to have three priests and a bishop."

"Hem!" muttered the hill-man; "however, those gentlemen usually look only after the eating and drinking; they will never take any notice of me. Well, who else?"

"Then we have asked St. Peter and St. Paul."

"Hem! hem! However, there will be a bye-place for me behind the stove. Well, and what then?"

"Then Our Lady herself is coming."

"Hem! hem! hem! However, guests of such high rank come late and go away early. But tell me, my lad, what sort of music is it you are to have?"

"Music," said the boy, "why, we are to have drums."

"Drums!" repeated the troll, quite terrified. "No, no! Thank you. I shall stay at home in that case. Give my best respects to your master, and I thank him for the invitation, but I cannot come. I did but once go out to take a little walk, and some people began to beat a drum. I hurried home, and was but just got to my door when they flung the drum-stick after me, and broke one of my shins. I have been lame of that leg ever since, and I shall take good care in future to avoid that sort of music."

So saying he helped the boy to put the sack on his back, once more charging him to present his best respects to his master.

(Story found on 

http://www.worldoftales.com/European_folktales/Scandinavian_folktale_5.html)

I think this story is really nice and i think the idea of the people living in the hills gives me a nice idea for an image of the peoples homes in pods  underneath the hills. This concept would also fit in with the name of the album as Aventine is a hill that rome was built on. 

I think that both of these stories give me good but very different ideas for imagery so the next step for me is to probably draw some initial idea sketches based on my ideas and see how they work out, then go from there.  

Editorial Research: Company Magazine

As we have been asked to create an editorial piece as well as the album cover I decided to do some research into editorial illustrations to get some ideas of what I can do in the future. When i thought about editorial illustrations immediately thought of company magazine as they often include illustrations and hand drawn typography with their articles. I really love the look of Company magazines as they are designed a lot nicer than a lot of other fashion magazines, they are more fin and interesting to look at. 

Looking at the illustrations throughout company magazines pages it is clear that they are often fashion and beauty related and they all have a similar aesthetic to them to fit in with the magazines look. An artist called 'Mydeadpony' creates a lot of editorial style illustrations that are very modern and use a mixed range of media. He created a piece for Company magazine that included a girl and around the girl was drawings of things that link to the article that the image would go with. I like the idea of using the little drawings around the girl because it gives you an insight into what the article is about rather than having to guess. I also really like the round composition of the image I think it works well and gives contrast to the blocky columns of text on the opposite page. I have included an image of this illustration as it would have been sent in to the magazine and also how it looks with the finished article. 

Company magazine also include illustrations to demonstrate different make-up looks on their beauty page. I really like this idea because it is unique compared to a photo that might be in a normal magazine, I haven't seen this kind of thing done in any other magazine before but I prefer it. Natalie Lines is an illustrator from Birmingham that creates fashion illustrations that are often found in magazines. She created a make up page for Company magazine where she drew eye make up looks based off different fashion designers styles. I really like how she has kept the drawings pencil and just added hints of colour where needed, I think this really balances out the drawings. I think my favourite thing about this illustration is the subtle colour in the pupils of the eyes. The composition fits perfectly with the text and it flows really well. I think I would like to create an image with the same composition idea of just illustrating a little corner of the article as I think it draws the eye in a really good way. I also have included images of the original illustration as well as the finished page. 

Illustrated album cover research

I came across an illustrated album cover for foster the peoples album and when I researched into it, it seems that the same illustrators (young & sick illustration) do a lot if not all of their art work I think the bold black line work works really well against the bright white background. The yellow pop of colour that a lot of their album art features also makes the image really visually interesting. This is not the style of illustration that i'd like to do for my album cover, but the central composition that they seem to use a lot is something that I would like to do with my album cover. 
I think their more recent covers apply a bit more to my work as they use more colours and prettier imagery rather then simplistic line drawings they are more detailed and have a more interesting look to them.  

Level 5 introduction: Non-Narrative Illustration- Choosing an album

The first brief of second year is based on the topic of Non-Narrative Illustration and the task we have been given to do is to create an album cover, poster and some form of merchandise for an artist from a list we have been given.  

When I was presented with the first brief of second year I became slightly worried because I couldn't really imagine my illustrations fitting in with album covers. When I heard the album suggestions i became even more apprehensive because they were quite strange and a lot of them would not have suited me at all, For example I could never imagine illustrating an album cover for a rapper or an electronic group.  After listening to a few of the bands that I was interested in I began to think about what would work for my drawings, after a while I realised that it would be nice to work with a calm pretty sounding artist as I like my drawings to have a happy, calming feel to them. I looked at my list again and managed to narrow it down to two options, First Aid Kit and Agnes Obel. I gave these two a re listen to weigh up my options. I then decided to go with Agnes Obel as I liked how much music rather than singing that she had within her songs, it made the songs feel more beautiful and whimsical.  

Considering how worried I was about this brief when we first got it I have became a lot more comfortable with the idea of creating art linked with music because I think I have found an artist that could work well alongside my drawings and aesthetics.  

Artist research Karin Soderquist

Karin Sodderquist is an Illustrator from Stockholm that creates images digitally. I looked at her work because her images look like they are composed of cut out paper shapes. some of her images are 3D and are made out of wooden sets, this links directly to my project as that is what i am going to do within my illustrations. Her images are different to what i want to create in my work but it still fits in with the simplistic style that i want to create. I have looked at her work and especially focussing on background and scenery because they create a 3D feel. Here are a few of my images that i looked at for inspiration.

Artist research: Rob Ryan

I decided to look at Rob Ryan's work as he uses paper cuts to create images. I thought his work linked to mine because he created 3D images using paper in different layers. Although his work is very different to mine it is really inspiring and incredible to look at. The amount of detail and intricacy within his images is unbelievable.  He creates very complex images that he cuts out of pieces of card. i looked at his work to get inspiration for the backgrounds although i decided to not do anything as complex as his work as i don't have much practice with cutting things out with scalpels, in the future i think i might explore this style more to see how it works within my illustrations. 
Here are a few pieces of his that i really like.   

Colin West Final image

I am doing the poem a king and a cat for my colin west piece. i had already drawn the male character but hadn't drawn the cat yet so i did that yesterday then composed the image on photoshop. for the cat i used pencil, coloured pencil, white crayon, water colour and fine liner. I decided to do the cat ginger as i thought it would stand out and make the image look fun. I really like how the cat turned out i think it conveys a fat lazy cat quite well. I also really like how the media that i used to create the image works. I think i have found what i like to use most and in the future will be working more in this style and using the same things to create my illustrations.

Here is the final image i am really pleased with it although i think it lacks a background. I left it out because in the original illustration there was no background and i thought it worked well. Also backgrounds have never really been my strong point so over the summer i am planning on improving this as it is important to making images feel complete. I think when my illustration is paired with the text of the poem it will look a lot less barren on the background.

Final unique horn photographs

Here are the final (un edited) Photographs for my narrative illustration. Next i will arrange these photos how i want them to be in the book and add things such as speech bubbles and other things that need adding in. I have also made a few images that aren't 3D they are just drawn and scanned in these are also going into the story but i will just add them in to the final stage of arranging the book.