What I'm reading this week

At the moment I'm working on my dissertation so thats my main focus, but I have been reading this great book which I bought from amazon the other day. Its a really good read! It basically tells you about every area of illustration you would want to know about and has great tips on finance and dealing with clients. It also has a good section on how to deal with self promotion and the pros and cons of having an agent. I would recommend this to any students studying illustration or anyone interested in this field. Really great book! the go to guide for an illustrator.

Heres a link to it on Amazon 

Vogue Article

This semester at University we got to pick our own projects, for my first one I decided I wanted to illustrate a magazine article. I love fashion so I thought I would look in the library at the old 1960's/1970's vogue magazines. I wanted to illustrate an issue rather than just a plain article. I found an article which was about womens liberation which was perfect in a 1975 issue of vogue. It spoke of the sex discrimination bill as it had just been enforced. This bill therefore forbid all sexual bias in services and employment which made a huge difference at that time. Baroness Betty Lockwood was the main focus of the article, who is a labour party activist who promoted equal opportunities for women.

Thursdays Illustration

Every Thursday I've set myself the challenge of creating an illustration which depicts the month, so at the end of this project I will be able to put together a calendar in 12 weeks. My inspiration for this piece after researching about January was the idea of the Wolf Moon, The fact that january is Janus the God of gateways and doors, who is represented as two faces looking into opposite directions.

Location Brief- Revisit

I decided to have a re-visit to my location brief as I felt like it was quite boring. I tried to make it brighter and more exciting then it was previously. I played around highlighting certain things with bright coloured card and added more elements to the composition. 

Editorial Brief GIF

So the next step of the editorial brief was to create a GIF, that could be used on the internet alongside the print edition. One of the key things was that the digital couldn't explain more about the article then the print edition did, from that I decided to change little elements such as having the beaker fill up and changing Napoleons head to the other historical figures in the article.

Dead Famous

We each got given an article from the Financial Times, that we had to create an illustration for. The one I got given was about the decline of autopsies in modern medicine and how scientists spend a lot of their time trying to figure out what killed historical figures. One line which stood out for me was "take a turn playing a kind of scientific parlour game", I then had the idea of doctors sat around playing card games and guessing up how the historical figures died, highlighting how time may be wasted on trivial things rather than advancing modern medicine.

What I'm reading this week??

At the moment I've really been looking at the process of my work and how I get from A to B (from my initial idea to the final piece). I kind of felt as though I might be missing some key steps. The first book is the A-Z of visual ideas, theres a really good section at the front on all the steps you should take when working towards your final piece. It includes looking at research, making sure you know your audience and the subject matter, as this is always important. Its also helped me to look at my thumbnails before I create my set designs and made me realise I need to jot down a lot of my ideas before I just start to make things.

The second book is The Fundamentals of Illustration, this is a book I bought during my first year on the illustration course. Ive been re-reading this lately and it is still very relevant and gives great tips on jotting down your ideas and getting the most out of your briefs, to create a solution that is relevant.

I would definitely recommend getting these books as they provide you with very valuable knowledge you might not find else where. They can really help you look at the process in which you work to see where you might be going wrong, and thats never a bad thing. There an excellent read for when you need a cup of tea break.