Exercise: Writing a Brief

OCA Brief:

• Identify a piece of work by an illustrator whose work you find some connection with.
• Write the brief for the illustration you've chosen which would have led to the creation of the image.
• Direct the Illustrator in terms of what content to include, if the content has text etc.
• Advise the Illustrator of the role the image is to perform, whether it's the meaning of the text, decorating, informing, educating etc - and potential ways this can be achieved. 
• Advise on colours, flavour, stylistic effects, which aspects to distort, and what media or use of tools and materials is appropriate for the piece.

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My Turn:

I chose this image by Owen Davey - an award winning Illustrator from Bicester.

I decided to use a mind map to write the brief as ideas came up. See below for the finished exercise:

Final Thoughts:

Reversing the process from illustration backwards to initial brief was an interesting concept. I learnt how much information is needed to get the final illustration just right - and how important communicating correctly can affect the final piece.

In future when starting work on a new idea I'll definitely incorporate a brief into my process - especially when I'm working on a personal project. It would help me really plan out my illustration so that it depicts exactly what I want it to rather than just what ends up being drawn.

For such a short and simple exercise - I felt I gained quite a lot of valuable insight!

Assignment 1: Say Hello

The main aim for this Assignment is to introduce myself to the tutor via a Greetings Card.

I am to:

• Create a card that tells my tutor about myself
• My interests
• My inspirations
• Materials I feel happy working with
• What I would like to get from this course

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My initial idea was to create an illustration showing me in a relaxed "meditative" like pose and thinking of all my favourite things. This first sketch shows me thinking about my love of music hence the accordion, my iPad which is my favourite media to work with, and a sketchbook. 

I also use text in my illustrations, and love to do cartoony type drawings with a positive or empowering message.

Working on this idea - I re-drew the scene with a different composition, and detailed the face a little more.

After exploring these ideas, I slept on it and woke with a completely new one! I would do something humorous as I feel this is very "me". I was worried at first as to how it would be received, but humour is the backbone of my art and I felt like not making a funny card would not be in keeping with my personality, so felt this was the best way to stay true to me.

Below is the first sketch of that idea:

As with the previous idea - I re-sketched it with a little more detail.

After my preliminary sketches were done, I got my iPad out and began the process. I worked in Procreate and created a line drawing on one layer above my sketches (using a photo of my sketchbook imported into Procreate.)

Once the line work was complete I re-arranged and moved bits around so all the elements were balanced.

I then added the flat colours on a layer below, followed by the shadows and highlights to create dimension on a layer above the colour layer, but still below the line art.

The final Greetings Card:

I used a photo which I drew on for the Nutella as I thought it would be more easily recognisable and would make it stand out more. The pencils are mocked up onto this image as it adds to the presentation of the image.

I then mocked up the outer image onto a greetings card shown below.

 And the inner text on another mockup:

 Final Thoughts:

I really enjoyed the whole process of creating this Greetings Card. From initial sketches through to final illustration, I had fun with it! I know this is because the brief was so open and flexible, I was able to draw whatever I liked, and this always helps the creative juices to flow.

I have created many Greetings Cards for sale at markets in the past, so making another one was fairly straight forward, but I did learn that I really do prefer to sketch initial ideas on paper and create finished work digitally.

Looking forward to the rest of the course now!

Exercise: Getting the Gist

This exercise asks us to:

1. Choose an editorial from a magazine or newspaper.
2. Read it once as you normally would.
3. Read it again and underline the key words which you think are important to the meaning of the piece overall.
4. Read the text again - has your understanding changed?
5. Distill and condense the text to help you focus on what message needs to be communicated.
6. Create an image that conveys this.
7. Try a number of different ideas / variations.

Exercise: The History of Illustration

The aim of this exercise in my understanding is to research how illustration has evolved over the years by looking at artists from the early 1900's.

The course book asks us to choose an artist from a list of 6 and find out about them and the context in which their work was created.

The second part of this examination of early illustrators is to find a contemporary illustrator whose work I like, and explore and identify the differences in style, production and imagery between the 2 illustrators.

Main questions to ponder and answer:

• Did the work of the illustrator you chose from the list seem old fashioned? if so what made it seem so?
• What was it about the work of the contemporary artist that attracted you to their work?
• How did each artist produce their illustrations - what tools and materials did they use?

The last part asks us to draw an illustration in the style of each artist, selecting similar subject matter and media.

The artist I have chose is Edward Adrizzone.

Born Edward Jeffrey Irving Adrizzone in 1900 - he was a painter, printmaker, war artist, author and illustrator from England.

He illustrated many children's books and wrote and illustrated a series of books about a boy called Tim Pictured below:

Image from www.edwardadrizzone.org.uk

Media:

From my understanding Edward worked mainly in watercolours and ink as well as pencils.

An Illustration in his style:

For my mini illustration I decided to depict a sea scene as this played a large part in Edwards life as experience and knowledge of the sea was in his ancestry on both sides of his family according to this article. His father was an Italian sea captain and ship owner and one of his grandfathers had been a Captain Kirby - and left logbooks which he had illustrated himself.

Three images from Ardizzone’s classic picture book Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain, 1955.

My Versions / attempts to mimic Edwards Style:

I started off my attempting to copy 2 of Adrizzone's illustrations in my sketchbook, to get a feel for how he created his work.

To create my own illustration in his style I began by drawing 4 boxes or thumbnails to quickly jot down composition ideas.

However, as digital media will always be my preference, I started afresh on my iPad Pro, sketching a quick sea scene in a loose fashion. At the end, I preferred it over the sketchbook ideas, and decided to use it for my final illustration.


The Sketch:

My version: The Line Art Sketch.

When I had added the colour (subtle water colour effect with a bit of grain and texture) I decided to crop the image further as I didnt think the square shape was in Adrizzone's style, and something about it seemed a little "off". Once cropped I liked it much better.

To finish, I desaturated the image slightly to give a more subdued "old" effect, in order to mimic Adrizzone's style more closely.

I'm happy with the final result and really like the colouring. I wish I had made the line work even more scratchy and loose, but I felt like I was trying to control my looseness, making it all the more tight controlled. I also would have liked to draw the boy better, but have a difficult time with body proportions.

Final Piece:

My Version: Final Illustration in the style of Edward Adrizzone

'A Happy Accident.' 

While playing around with the line art layer - attempting to make it softer and less digital - I accidentally toggled no lines and the previous texture I had overlaid to mimic the paper texture changed the colours. This dramatically changed the mood of the image and I found it so beautiful that I decided to save this version and post it to my learning log. 

Contemporary Artist - Jon Burgerman:

Mural at A&P Motion, London

'Leonardoodle Da Vinci'

*Jon Burgerman is a UK born, NYC based artist instigating improvisation and play through drawing and spectacle. He is a purveyor of doodles and is often credited and referenced as the leading figure in the popular 'Doodle' art style.

His work is placed between fine art, urban art and pop-culture, using humour to reference and question his contemporary milieu. His is a pervasive and instantly recognisable aesthetic that exists across a multitude of forms including canvases, large scale murals (indoor and outside), sculpture, toys, apparel, design, print and people (as tattoos and temporary drawings).

Burgerman studied Fine Art at The Nottingham Trent University, graduating in 2001 with First Class Honours.

*Information from his website at www.jonburgerman.com

Learning Log for Illustration 1

Hi there!

I'm Denise (Dee for short) and I love to draw, sketch, doodle, paint and experiment with art supplies.

I've just recently started on the BA in Illustration Course via the Open College of Art and I'm excited to start. I've previously been on the Drawing 1 course ( quite a few years ago) but I found it wasn't as stimulating as I thought and found some of the assignments to be quite rigorous and very much towards observational drawing. I don't do realism very well as I don't enjoy depicting things EXACTLY as they are - might as well take a photo instead in my opinion!

I also work equally between traditional and digital media and felt I had to work traditionally a lot more when I wanted the freedom to incorporate digital techniques into my work.

So here I am starting Illustration 1 and I know this time will work much better as my style is naturally illustrative compared with someone who is going along more of a 'fine art' route.

Here's a link to my Instagram portfolio which is where I post most of my finished artworks and process sketches.