Doodling

Watercolour b&w I really like this 

Making patterns

I was really inspired by Broiny Clokes work, a graduate from PCAD, and I wanted to try a similar thing, I really like what I've created and will try it again!

Trying out different things

Combining typography with photography, it's not the best typography ever but I really wanted to just see how it looks, the photo I took of some shells and pebbles down at mount edgecombe in the summer. I really like the look of what I've created.

Inspiration

Another illustrator that I've followed for a while is Natalie Lines, I first discovered her work in 'Company' magazine and it was so good to see an illustrators work regularly in an editorial. I really like this collection she's created, that advertises her work, she's thought about colour, placement and images used to create a really professional portfolio piece. 

Inspiration

Another illustration I like to follow is Liz Clements, I really love her work because this girl can really draw!   She posts stages of her work online and I find it interesting how she builds her images up. I love the attention to detail, the line work and the tattoo references!

InspirAtion

I've always loved Lize Meddings work and have always been inspired by her colour characters and her great story telling, sometimes about simple but quirky stories. Also the techniques she uses is mainly watercolour/inks and sometimes she digitalises her colour, but she has a nice balance which is what I want from my work!

Autumn Leaves

Autumn Leaves I see on my walk into college, I just love the autumn colours

Cards for the shop

Here is my seahorse design on a card! Ready to sell in a shop on drake circus! And hopefully a greats piece to add to my portfolio! 

Swans

Some personal work on creating my portfolio, beautiful swans 

Christmas card designs

Last year I spray painted reindeer for Christmas cards, so I took the same design and tried using the same technique I used on the shell for the shelter module. I like the design, but I think it's an awkward shape to fit on a Christmas card, so I may redraw the shape and angle of the reindeer hen apply the technique.

Pirates panel

I was really struggling with my third panel, the information I need to include was quite important, and not that simple to convey. I tried so many different compositions, some close up with the panel split into two, then I decided to try and make it happen all in one panel, I gave my three crew pirates a job each, well 2 of them and the pirate monkey. It wasn't the best in the world, but it was better than previous sketches that I had. I'm not sure if it completely conveys the story either, and if I felt like it would contribute to my portfolio i would go back and tweak I few things! But for now I pretty happy wih the outcome!

Using the light box

After changing the way i was working, my tutor suggested that I used a light box so that I could build up layers, I also found that I was very useful when scanning you work because you could work directly on top of an image with pen so there were no rubber marks or pencil marks. So it would make the scanned image very clean!

Here is a picture of the super groovy light box that I hired out from the college!

Doodles

Just my people doodles that I like to do in my spare time

Pirates, last page

I tend to work backwards a lot and I'd had an idea for my last age composition, so instead of wasting time thinking about my second page, I looked at the last page i was going to complete. The pirates sailing off to Cornwall. 

I really love these guys and I'm enjoying working this way a load more than the other way just wish I had more time to work with the background as I'm only doing something simple. 

Inspiration from a book

This Is a book that I got out from the library, and has got loads of cute and inspirational  childrens bookillustrations to look at for my work. My main aim now is to be simple, not necessarily with my characters but with the background because that's what I'm struggling with. 

I love these little characters by Marc Boutavant, they are just really simple but so fun and entertaining and do their job in telling a story. 

I absolutely love the little story and characters of Meng-chia Lai she just really captures the expressions and her use of limited colour is what I'm trying to achieve. She literally just adds a splash of colour for the orange later on in the story but everything else is black and white.

It's really helped me to focus on what I'm doing, now that I'm just working in black and white. And I'm enjoying the work again, I was worried for a bit that I would get that enjoyment back again and would have to suffer to the end with these pirates! 

What you can achieve in 1 day

After talking to my tutor and expressing my dislike of the work that I was producing for my pirates,... I went home and had a serious talking to myself! I can do this. I can turn this around in 5 days, just won't have any sleep that's all! 

My tutor suggested that I go back to my original drawing because that's where my love began! So here are the first drawings for my first panel,.... Enjoy.

My pirates so far

I really loved my pirates, but I'm starting to lose the faith a little, and it's so sad. I love all my little doodles of my pirates that I did in the summer, when there wasn't a care in the world! But now, these pirates are getting serious, and as it gets more serious they are getting worse! I'm crying a little!

The colours are becoming sickening, and it's just getting really blocky and there isn't much detail, and with only five days to go til my deadline I've got to do something about this and my love for pirates!!

Inspiration

I love this girls work, I found it in one of the illustration now! Books, julia Sonmi Hegland I love the detail, the subjects, the little quirky characters. The colours. And also the finish of the piece. I would love to get my little character illustrations up to this standard!

The illustration just below is my illustration, then the two below that are Julia's.

There's inspirations everywhere

I love this fish amen on the side of a sea salt bag, I love the colour used and the simple illustration I'm trying to keep my pirate illustrations simple, so it's easy for children and easier for me to compose, as I find this hard. Putting subjects into a scene!

Risograph

Here is my shell almost separated into 3 different sections for the risograph printing! It's exactly what I wanted to create, I'm really happy with the outcome! 

First time using a tablet!

It was brilliant, and so useful for separating the shell into three different sections, I could also make it a lot more detailed ! And if I made a mistake I could just easily rub it out!! Will be definitely putting one of these on my Christmas list!!

Sheltered from the sea

This is the final outcome for the 'shelter' workshop, for this design we needed to make it only three colours so that it could be risograph printed. Separating the different colours into different images is a 

Long process but will look very effective once done. I really wanted it to be a vignette design on maybe a cream paper with a great texture. I've put it into the template and was debating wether to put anything on the back. This is one of my favourite designs so far!

Sandra Diekmann

I absolutely love this girl, a true inspiration to my work, I love the colours she uses the combination of digital  and traditional techniques. And how she doesn't lose her style thought her work. You can see more on Sandra diekmanns Facebook page, which links you to her website. I originally discovered Sandra when no guts no glory visited the college last year, Sandra is one of the contributing artist to their shop.

Sketchbook pages

These are some of my sketchbook pages from the first workshop, shelter. I'm trying to work in this way, just really loose and nothing permant. Playing around with composition, colour and line work. I'm finding it a really productive way to work. 

I really like the rain words!!

T re

First Mate, Steve

My second little character for my pirate story, I'll probably need at least 3 to tell the story. Bit I already started designing another character in the summer, Henri the chef. I really love how they are going, it's really different to my style, but I enjoy the differences, it provides diversity to my portfolio. 

I really stripped back to the basics when designing my little characters really thinking about how I could represent a pirate on a basic level, stripes top, a beard, a head scarf, a parrot, an earring. So that my audience can easily establish that these guys are pirates.

I like the pattern

Tattoo

I love seeing tattoo design in this line drawing form, seeing the complicated line work and really admiring its beauty. Another artist that I follow on Instagram is emily_rose_murray her work is traditional with a beautiful and modern twist. 

Inspired

I'm following this girl on Instagram callee 'birdyandme' I absolutely love her work, and it's another area that I'm interested in, fashion illustration. And I also love the way she combines her images with typography. It flows with the image. 

Aye aye captin

This is the first character that I have created for my forgotten story. I really wanted to create something that looked like a risograph print. So just limited colours which helped me, instead of too many colours being used. And I really wanted to create the off print look, things not quiet lined up with other things. So I serperated the image into 3 different sections, black, blue and yellow. These colours where actually thrown together by accident. And I really love the ! I painted the different layers in watercolour so to create different textures. I really like where its going.

Character designing

These are my really simple sketches, just me drawing but staying really loose, just playing about with facial expressions! size of arms legs and the body. I had aloof fun creating these, and it is a really different way that I've ever worked before and I feel like it more of creative way of producing things, I love it! 

Draw draw, draw.

Drawing for fun, continued.

This is my favourite outcome from my little characters on tracing paper. 

Drawing for fun.

This year my main aim: keep drawing for fun! So that I can add illustrations into my portfolio of things I enjoy! 

Some tracing paper line drawings of little characters,.. Can I take then further? Cards, package designs, etc

My final outcome

I absolutely love the final image I've produced for this workshop. I feel like it's really me, it is expressing who I am, what I do. I love it! I made it two sea horses to represent the bond between me and my twin sister. 

Tester sea horses looking a bit lonely.

Seahorses

The second workshop of the year, drawing fish in a pattern with a twist. I've always loved sea horses and jumped at the opportunity to get stuck in and draw something great to really kick start the year. So I did a lot of drawings from observation. And I really saw the benefits, I always forget these benefits of drawing from observation. NEED TO REMEMBER. 

My sketches

My inspirational pictures

My lost story.

The forgotten tale of the knot,

I did a Lot of sailing in he summer, another very inspiration aspect from the summer. Me and my dad where discussing how fast we had possibly sailed in knots. But was a knot, how did it measure how fast we where going how was it even created? 

So I started researching and found that the knot was first created when sailors wanted to discover how fast they where going, it was a very manual process, they used a lot of rope that had knots tied at correct distances with a nig bit of wood at the end at was designed so that it would 'catch hold' of the water so  when thrown over board would pull the rope as the ship continued to sail. Then he counted the knots tied in the rope as they went over board for a matter of seconds then calculate this to equal the speed of the ship. I wanted to keep it simple as I wanted to tell it as a children's story.

I would get pirates to tell the story of the knot. 

So I started looking at children book illustrators that possibly illustrated pirates, I wanted to see how they cartoon pirates down. This is one of my favourite discoveries Sebastia Serra and the illustrated book A Pirated Night Before Christmas by Philip Yates. I loved the colours used, the lack of line, and the fun and entertaining characters. It would be something really different then I normally create. But in the summer I just stayed loose, drawing brief sketches, with no restrictions to create. Just to enjoy. And some good little characters started developing.