AOI Competition

Hello my fellow bloggers!

Over the past few weeks I have been creating a piece of work to submit for the AOI Prize
for Illustration competition. This year the theme is 'Sounds of the City -an illustrated interpretation of urban sound'. The brief invited entrants to visually capture sounds heard in our UK cities in a single illustration.

My illustration was inspired by my walks in the Yorkshire countryside where I became interested between the relationship of rural and city life. It became apparent that urban life seemed nearby, whether that was a car driving by the roadside or the tall, shiny buildings on the horizon. I find it interesting how spaces interlink and change over a short distance. My piece therefore emphasises the entwining relationship between nature and the city by illustrating the layering of sounds, objects and atmosphere.

While creating the artwork for this brief I took the opportunity to document the process, as working digitally is something that I am experimenting with. People that know me well will know how frustrated I've been having not created that much of my own work lately, so this piece was a good excuse to experiment and get producing something in my own style.

All I have to do now is wait till November to hear who has been selected to exhibit at London Transport Museum, read more about it here

Enjoy the images below and as always let me know your thoughts :)
Thanks for your time.

Bye for now. 

Initial sketches and ideas

Final A3 sketch

Development work- Digitally colouring on photoshop 

Development work- Finalising colours and composition

Final image

MA Design Exhibition

Hello Everyone

Well the Private View for the MA Design Exhibition was a success! It was full of new friendly faces- all drinking wine and talking about Design.

I met lots of new and interesting people and got some lovely comments about my work. A big thank you to those who bought my work- I hope you all enjoy your new prints.

Here's some photos I took just before the show opened;

Here's how I displayed my work.
I'm so pleased with the frames, which were all done by Speed Frames in Lincoln. They are all white washed box frames, which I think act as a subtle backdrop against the busyness of the prints and gives the work a contemporary feel. The three pieces are priced individually at £70 unframed and £180 framed; they make a great bold statement in any space.

This little guy is called 'Horsey' and got lots of attention on the opening night, he's made out of MDF and is currently priced at £40.
I think he needs some friends to accompany him though so watch this space for more wooden creatures!

This paper pop up piece is titled 'Have you got any Polos?' and is inspired from the walks I used to go on as a child with my Nannan and Grandad in the countryside. We would always carry around a packet of polos with us and feed the horses with them, they used to love it when we walked by!
Safe to say that all the horses that lived near us had every minty breath!

Here's a photo of the gallery just before it was buzzing with people and got very warm indeed!
My work is on the far left; there's a great range of work displayed in the Show including illustration, stop motion animation, type design, pattern cutting, collaborative printmaking, graphic design and silversmithery.

The show is open Monday - Saturday, from 10am - 4pm and ends Saturday 27th September (my birthday) if your around then stop by and take a look.

Thanks for looking
Bye for now

A Walk In The Park

Hello Everyone! 

Thought I'd share what I've been working on lately, below are the final images for the triptych that I have been working on. The work is in response to the different walks I've been on over the past few months, as I've leant what I hear and see inspires me. 

The different character's are all created from visiting different places, such as YSP, Chatsworth House, Yorkshire Wildlife Park etc. 

The illustrations below include my surroundingss, overhead conversations, snatches of dialogue, my thoughts and the quirky things that I saw that day. 

For example on the third piece in the centre of the work there are two boxing cows, this is developed from when I walked around the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and I passed a cow in the Longside field, he was just eating grass minding his own business until suddenly one cow came charging up towards him and nearly pushed him straight into me! This then triggered an idea and sparked new imagery, which I wouldn't have created if I was not there in at that moment. 

Page 1 

Page 2 

Page 3

All the work is printed on 300g Textured Somerset Paper, more photos will be unloaded soon.

Thanks for looking, comments welcome.  

Image Update

Here is an image update with different colours, I've had a few issues with pixelation with my images when colouring and manipulating them digitally, I was wondering if anyone had any tips on colouring images on photoshop or if anyone has had similar problems 

Anyway for now here is how the image is shaping up like at the moment

Development

Thought I'd share how my previous images are coming along

Work in Progress

Some work that I'm thinking of screen printing, need to get my hands inky again soon!!

Let me know your thoughts

Work in progress

Here's a sneak peek of what I am planning at the moment, the images are in black and white at the moment as they are going to be screen printing.. still deciding on colours

The work is in response to my different journeys I've taken during summer and how the objects are related to folklore and mythology, more to come soon

Thanks for looking! Comments welcome

Summer time and Summer Research

So the Summer is well and truly here and I have been making the most of all the warm weather we've been having by walking in different parts of Yorkshire and using what I see and observe on my travels in my illustration work.

I am inspired by the theory of psychogeography, which was first developed by the Parisian radical group the ‘Situationist Inernational’ in the 1950’s. The key figure of the movement was Guy Debord who defined psychogeography in 1958 as, ‘The study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals’ (Debord 1981, p.5).

The Situationist’s developed the notion of the derive, which is known as the movement through the streets of the city in a manner that offered the opportunities of random direction, while also having enough sense of purpose to avoid the automatism of pure chance.

With this new interest in mind, I have a few sketches and drawings to share, while I continually collect research, material and data for my next pieces of work. 

These drawings were taken while on my journeys and might be used in a map format, the different  drawings where taken from:

• YSP
• Chatsworth House
• Yorkshire Wildlife Park
• York

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By considering the journey itself, I have the opportunity to develop my illustrations through observing the environment, giving me the opportunity to explore tourist locations and illustrate, informative, quirky and personal map for commercial publications. There are also additional opportunities to experiment with installation work for exhibitions, to develop story books, post cards, large painting and prints and so on. 


Next I will revisit some of the locations I have been too, which then makes connections to space and place, as well as time.

I will also be walking around places of nostalgia to me and see how I respond to these different places.

Reference:

Debord, G. (1981) Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography, in Ken Knabb (ed.), Situationist International Anthology, Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets, pp. 5-80.