New Blog for Personal Projects

From now on, I will be posting all personal project and side work on a new blog available at http://fialexandraillustration.blogspot.com/

This blog will be strictly for my work in the Locating Practice brief and side projects will be updated on that blog from now on.

Lecture with Salvatore Rubbino

Today we had a lecture with famous children's book illustrator Salvatore Rubbino, who gave us lots of useful tips about how to approach a new project and lots of advice on story writing. I made plenty of notes, seeing as my final project takes the form of a children's picture book.

 The main points I took away from the talk, is how important it is to draw what you are studying and make roughs of scenes, as I tend to focus on accurate drawing even when experimenting. He gave tips on how to build character, such as giving the character an object or a scenario to react to, and he stressed how important tension is in a picture book (making the character look at something that the viewer cannot see, in order to make them eager to turn the page!). And the most important part is to be interested in your subject and be able to engage with it!

Salvatore left out some of his books for us to observe, so I picked out 'A Walk in New York', which was the one that he had left with his rough, unfinished version, in order to compare the rough and final copy. 

Here are a few pages from the finished book that I really enjoyed:

Here are a few pages from the mock-up book that I really like:

In some instances, I was able to recognise areas where the mock-up had become a part of the finished book!

In this instance, I was able to recognise the mock-up front page and it's similarities to the final outcome. The building on the left in the mock-up was used, but from a different perspective.

I actually prefer the mock-up drawing to the final version on this occasion! The rough painting gives the feeling of urgency as if it was painted hurriedly, and that really suites taxis in traffic. 

I think the perspective of the mock-up is far more interesting than what was used in the final outcome in this instance.

Personal Feedback

As an aspiring children's book illustrator, I did not pass up the opportunity to seek advice and feedback from Salvatore Rubbino. I firstly showed him some past work, in order to show how my style has developed and how what I am producing for this project is different.

I began by showing him my foundation year final piece, 'The Adventures of Wellington Duck' and Salvatore really liked the character, especially his backpack and goggles. He liked the story a lot and suggested I write another with the same character, but have more breaks in the story as it is very fast paced. There was one particular scene, where Wellington takes a break at the hot springs, which Salvatore really enjoyed.

He particularly liked this drawing as the character is easy to relate to and we can sense his enjoyment in the hot water. Drawings that people can associate with are those that they enjoy the most.

I then went on to show him 'The Butterfly Dragon and the Pear Tree'. This book was not part of any main project and was for an experimental project. It is a wordless narrative and is written in a 'comic book frame' style. He really enjoyed the twist that I included in the story and stressed how important they can be to enhancing a story's plot. He suggested that with this story I alternate frame sizes a little more. He also insisted that I use this character in future work, and look up 'Clown' by Quentin Blake to assist with the writing.

I then turned to my current story, to get any tips on how to carry on with the project. He really enjoyed the gouache medium, and really liked how expressive my paint experiments were. He suggested that more characters will help improve the story, and suggested a possible twist in the plot to make it more interesting. Salvatore agreed that the subject matter is perfect for the target audience as children love dinosaurs. He suggested that I look up Simon James' book 'Rex' to assist me when developing the story, as it handles a similar type of plot and uses dinosaur characters.

All in all, I found the day to be very helpful and useful for my project!

Personal Project: Max

Today I have been getting on with a drawing of my lovely old dog, Max. This is a drawing that I will be giving to my mum as a Mother's day present. As our workshop was in the morning I have had a chance to get on with it today, and have made quite a bit of progress.

I began the drawing on Sunday, and this is all I managed to get done in the short space of time I spent on it.

I managed to get a lot of the fur drawn out, just need to finish the paws and add the finishing touches.

Screen Print Workshop with Erica Donovan

Today I attended a workshop which I had signed up for, to learn some advanced screen printing skills with Laura and Erica. I originally set out to use artwork of my character for my Locating Practice project in this workshop, but the image was not suitable for the process, so I decided to do my own artwork to test out the process.

I began by drawing out a black and white artwork, and then drawing a blocked area using a light box, for the background colour. I then photocopied both of my drawings to produce two completely black copies. 

We then covered the copies in oil, drying off any excess, to produce a transparent copy. when laid together, the two drawings show the area that the coloured ink will cover.

We prepared plates, and then created our images in the plates by using the black areas to block out areas to allow ink to pass through. The prints are always created using positives in the screen printing process, and the images are transferred the right way up.

Once transferred and washed down, the plates were left to dry. This gave me some time to decide on which colours to use for my prints. I decided on blue, green and black.

I secured my plate to the bench, and taped down the corners with brown tape to ensure no ink ran over the yellow parts on the side. I began by printing the colour first.

I then lined up my paper with the colour work, and then marked out in 3 places where the paper was on the bench.

The colours I used were blue and green, and I printed the two together at the same time so that they blended together as I made my prints. I actually really like how the print looks without the black linework, the colours alone with the white detail looks really good on it's own!

The final layer to add was the black detail. I lined up my blue and green prints with the screen and made new marks on the bench in order to ensure that the two layers lined up perfectly. My lining up seemed to be pretty accurate as the majority of my prints came out with the linework in the correct position. I created many copies of this print, with one being lineart only, a few colour only, one without green, one on a faded colour print and one on blue paper.

I am very happy with my print! I think it is a rewarding outcome for a hard days work and I feel that it looks very impressive.

My cleaned plate once that black ink had been transferred.

As a result of my work in the workshop today, I have come up with an idea that uses the process in order to create an additional piece for my final outcome! I have decided to make a small 'fossil guide' zine which is aimed at children, which will be an A5 booklet made from an A3 print. The colours will be that of my main character (yellow, pink, green, black) and the print will be layered, including pictures and information. This is only an idea for now but I hope that I do get around to creating it!

Side Project: Secondhand Stories

Inspired by my workshop with Maria Middtun a few weeks ago, I have decided to start a series of short stories based on things I have found in charity shops. In a way, I will be giving life to the unwanted objects by telling a story about them. In the workshop, I wrote a short story about a Deer named Oscar based on a little figurine that I bought in a second hand shop. I am yet to edit the paintings together into a book as I have been busy with my work for Locating Practice.

A few paintings from the Maria Middtun Workshop

The title of my series will be 'Secondhand Stories' and it will be a background project that I will work on every now and then when I am not busy with work for Uni. As I have said, I will be creating stories based on what interesting things I can find in charity shops, whether it be an object or a character. 

The Cover art for 'Secondhand Stories'

So far I just have the one story about Oscar the Deer that I made during the workshop. Since writing that story I have picked up another little figurine from a charity shop, which is a small yellow chick (perfect for Easter!)

I haven't decided on a name for him yet as I have been focussing on other work! I will write a story for him when I have some spare time!

Archie the Archaeopteryx Character Design

After deciding on a path to take within the Locating Practice brief, I have been researching and experimenting in my sketchbook with potential subjects to become the main character of my children's book.

The dinosaur I have decided on is the Archaeopteryx, which was a flightless bird and was a rather ugly dinosaur. I aimed to create a cute version of this dinosaur, which people would find adorable out of pity for him. I played around with a few designs before focussing on a short, big-headed version of the dinosaur, which lead to a final design (The coloured design in the sketchbook). 

My final design came about after a bit of experimenting with facial features and expressions.

As I would like to do the illustrations for this book using Gouache paint, I thought it best to test out the design with the paints. I am very happy with how the character looks, and feel that the colours I chose suit him better than the brighter ones I used previously.

Archie the Archaeopteryx in gouache colour!

I also had a bit of a play around making extra characters for the book, such as antagonists and Archie's close friend. This is what I will be developing next! 

My Illustrated Year: February

Here are February's coloured diary entries! Some of this month was spent at home for reading week, but it was mostly a moth of work, both towards Visual Thinking and the beginning of the Locating Practice unit.