a childrens book cover

a childrens book cover

i appoached this assignment with enthusiasm, i started by sketching various animals from the world, then refining the characters to a more stylised approach.   when i had decided upon a style i rendered other animals in the same style.

The characters where rendered in thee or four colours making a striking composition, i tried to pick colours with a distinctive contrast to make them stand out.

i then set to work on the covers i wanted allot of bright primary colours, the first design i chose a block approach separating three chosen animals.  the animal panels are in there environment. this is my personal favourite.

the second cover i tried to include more of an around the world approach, in a more litral way. i think this however while converying animals around the world lacks the punch of the first one. i think aswell that the text is in the weomg place and is not as clearly shown, this is a fault with bad planning on my part. 

the last one has more of an emphases ln the text and title then the other. perhaps i should have included more animals in the middle. i am also not happy with the contrast of the world word.

exercise museum posters

For this exercise we was asked to use an artifact from a museum, and then create an illustration for three age brackets , child, teenager and adult.

Child tumb nails

Artifact

i chose to use a smaller artifact for the childrens an eye,symbolising what the child would see, in my earlier concepts i tried to convey that the british museam covers cultures across the world. 

if i had more time i think i would redo this. 

Rough mock up - the colours on this only partially work I liked the blue British museum against the hands. It would be better if the hands where child size to.

Teenage sketches b movie horror film inspired 

when i started the teenage one, i had an idea for old b movie hammer horror style posters somthing that is recognisable even to teens. i wanted to make it cool and a little scary, safe scary!  even to young adults the idea of the howard carter curse in king tutnkhamons tomb is interesting. i wanted to play on this idea. the british museam currently houses a percentage of there vast collection on the left hand wing.

the collection is composed of large status and further in more specific items. 

Thumb nails 

Adult 

for the adults poster i wished to do somethng very monotone and graphite. with striking black and white text. i chose the bast cat as the main focus and statue.

Finished art work 

The colours I think work really well I tried to work on my lines, which I find hard generally and harder digitally.. I'm not sure if my pen needs re calibrating. I like the hand it's creepy and the look I'm going for, I could have added detail to the tomb? Ok again the text needs work. 

exercise identifying tools and materials

find a range of illustrators who use a particular medium. i have chosen water colour and ink.

ths medium i have chosen seems to be common for both fashion illustration and childrens illustration.

many notable illustators such as quentin blake and beutrix potter use this method.

the artist Beautrix Potter uses a combination of water colour and ink the image is composed to show the mouses profession and intellgance shown in the reading of the news paper, the paws are distorted to hold the paper as is the pose. the white highlights though im not sure if these are done in gouche or a pencil maybe chalk.  the artist also uses a one point perspective system to create depth.

the colour of the spool and the ears creates contrast with the more earth tones. 

the texture of the mouse conveying fur and the spoil also contrast with the block smooth textures of the paper and the top and bottom of the spool.

the mouses trade is symbolised in the tools of his professtion, ie the thimble and thread. 

the commonality between then is use of ink outlines and detailing to create caractors and definition. water colour is used as wash or to create fluid sweeps of colour. the combination of both gives fluid but defined images. 

Assignment 3 - a poster

This assigment i found really really difficult.  I seem to have got to a bit of an artistic block aswell as everything looking rubbish to myself..
I chose an evening of jazz maybe I should have chosen something with a bit more vim.

The orignal concept i came up with was something cross between a night on the rhone by van gogh and disneys princess and the frog. (the part where tatiana is singing about her resturant).
honestly i think its crashed and burned .. but oh well.
ok so going over everything i think really, i found this module very hmm well not very inspiring .. i understand why i need to learn it. if you cant present your ideas to a client then well your work will suffer.  however approaching it from my personal point of view i dont think i will ever work as an illustrator.(i dont think im good enough)
 I think i should have done more thumbnails, i think my work might have been less exploratory because of it.


the final piece  - im not sure what i was thinking! i picked three things im not really good at A) people B) perspective C) impressionst art. aside from doing tricky technical stuff i seemed to have relativly pulled it off. the perspective is on even if the buildings are a little bland. the sky hmm i think the sky is a bit well bland - the problem is i didnt want to take focus from the written words.
i curved the light pattens around to lead the eye back the the prosession of musicians and then processon leads to the text of the event itself.( yes i know light works in vertical line!
ok what i do like is the water i really had fun with pulling in greens and blues and highlighting.
mood board

Thumbnails

Sketches

Client Visuals 

watership down

book cover exercise rep sketches -watership down

Client Visuals

From the work you have collected pick at least two finished illustrations. these illustraions should contain a range of content.
I have chosen two boooks for this both childrens illustrations, orignally i was going to pick something from ImagineFX however with digital paintings like that im unsure as to where the line blurs between art and illustration.
The first book I picked was a dean and son rendition of adventures of the wishing chair by enid blyton. Probably some what contriversal in some peoples eyes the writer published hundreds of books and storys between 1950 and 70s. I picked this specific book because i always liked the illustrations as a child that where on the pages. though i think the naughtist girl was one of my favorates.

I love the illustration on this book, however im not so sure the yellow writing of the text works to great, but thats just my personal opinion.

I started by laying out the elements of the books and drawing of sections, im not in all very good at text or writing, probably because its a precises exercises where as drawing you can get away with being a little out. 

The first illustration is pretty much a complete redintion including some shading for depth. 

The second illustration gives an idea of the text and basic outline of the illustration.

The third illustration gives basic blocking for the text and a very basic outline, i think the last one still conveys the illustration of the book and the idea but, well if i was a client id be thinking that the person couldnt draw! 

The second i picked what harry potter and the order of the phoneix.  I love the cover of the harry potter books but this one in particular i think is very well done. 

ok so when i did this i basically photographed them the wrong way around. 

image furthis to the right is image 1, this is the detailed drawing including some shading to give depth, there was also basic background picked out in the picture but the camera didnt capture it.  over all gives you a very good idea of the finished piece. 

image furthist to the left is image 2, this is a refined version more of a outline. blocking out just the places for the text and the outline of the bird. i think it  still holds together pretty well. though i really really need to buy a ruler ! 

Image in the middle is image 3, intrestingly i refined this down to really just the blocking of sections, removed the text and just drew in a very simplistic outline of the bird. which turned out to be a swan. I think it holds together much better then the last one. 

Over all once i got into this exercise i enjoyed it. however i cant really see the point of the way that its been done.. ok so i can understand needing to get overall rough layouts okayed before work commences, possibly as an illustrator you would be given dimentions of text, font ect in the brief.
Just seems to me that the exercise is backward!