Naomi's Illustration Adventure

Assignment four:  Magazine Illustration For this assignment I have chosen to work with the word 'lost'.   Brainstorm:  What came of my brainstorm was the emotional aspect of 'lost', feeling lost. 'Escape', 'lost at sea', 'boat', 'storm' 'ocean', 'vast', 'space'. These are the words I am going to carry forward into my work.  Mood board:  Research and inspiration:  I particularly like this piece of work by artist Judith Brandon entitled 'Cleveland Scene' . There is separation between the ocean and the sky yet the same tones of blue remain throughout the painting. The marks in the sky depict fireworks. The movement in the waves is visible. I like the style of the painting, informal, playful and different.  I also looked at exampled of magazine illustrations for research into what works. They are dramatic enough to reach you, yet uncomplicated/ colourful and dynamic. All ...

Character Development I have a character in mind for this exercise, the story that my character takes centre role in is a children's story, so here I am going to take a close look at examples of children's story characters.  Rachel Bright:   Block colours. Rachel Bright's characters all have very big and round eyes, with just black pupils, this is very effective at showing expression. I love her personally designed typography too.  Tony Ross:  Pen and ink drawings.Very loose lines and clean bright watercolour washes. Again, as Rachel Bright, the eyes have only the black dot of a pupil, now colour. Enlarged noses and ruffled hair add personality.  Quentin Blake:  Tony Ross and Quentin  Blake are very similar in style. What's interesting here is that Blake's characters are sometimes so simple, they only have a pen dot as eyes at all and line drawn noses and mouths. The scribble nature that he works with adds ...

Visual distortion  Step 1: A cat... I had to sketch quickly here as I chose to use my neighbours black cat as my subject. With not enough time to even get comfortable, for fear he would run, I used very quick loose lines with a black watercolour wash. 'The black assassin', so black it was very hard to make out eyes and a nose. Jet black from head to toe.  My describing words: Mysterious, tall, regal, majestic, secretive.  Step 2: A collage... I liked the idea of all of the myths, superstition and witch craft that surrounds the mythology of a black cat. I selected words out of the newspaper that emphasise this. What I liked the most here is that the white of the newspaper contrasts the jet black of the real cat. To add the regal element of the cat, I used emeralds for his eyes. Exaggerated ears decorated with a floral, royal print. Exaggerated whiskers.  Step 3: A drawing... I used mixed media to create this drawing, coloured pen...