my sketchbook

Whilst thinking about my work and how I feel like I'm in a slump, I went back and looked through my sketches.. trying to see if there was one common theme that tied it all together and could be considered "my style"...

some of these have been posted here before, others are new and some are quite old but I've kept them because i liked the look of them... I'm actually hoping that my tutorial coming up in the next few weeks will provide some insightful information that will help me progress further but I'm also putting up these images so that I might receive some feedback on them and advice... thoughts on how to keep going, what to focus on and hopefully how I can make them into a finished piece, something more than just a sketch

actually.... I remember some feedback I got at the very start of the first year... when viewing one of my final pieces, my tutor was more drawn to my sketchbook, seeing how I developed my ideas, more interested in the process rather than the outcome (which seems wrong to me)... but later that year I was also told, people can be hired for their ideas etc rather than their actual finished pieces...(but surely isnt this just a way of people stealing your ideas and getting credit for it...? this has already happened to me once.. and i hated it)...

hmm... i just want someone to say here's what you should do... practice at it and you'll be set...

blind contour drawing:
i love these as they have so much character to them and each is unique, theres no denying that I have created these and each is my own... but after the sketch.. how could I add to them? screen print... what colours?

Cute characters:
this is a collection of characters that I have intentionally drawn cute or that have ended up cute looking :) I cant help it.. its a mix of my loves for japanese culture and cute animals :D

Concepts:

this is my sketchy, rough drawing coming into play... I particularly use this style only on a few drawings just because I like being loose in the detail, which allows for interpretation but also means nothing is set in stone, thus can be changed... (also again it gives them some sort of character... hence why I love ashley wood's work)

Odds & Sods:
These are all drawn in different ways but all my own... this is what i mean when i say I dont have my own unique style... some are more accurate than others, others include my sense of humour, most are doodles made during lectures at some point and quite a few are sketches that I intend/intended to put into illustrator... very comic in style with heavy outlines...

Brief sketches:
finally these are a few sketches from my recent brief and a previous fictional one to design a carpet for a Mulberry Flagship store... I am more excited and enthusiastic about my sketches for the editorial brief rather than the crap I produced... so... how can I use this to my advantage?

so... I hope this time next week im more excited about my future within Illustration than how I am feeling right now...

WTF

Rant no. 247

contents:

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intro

main rant

cry

summary

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the shit

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I've re-written this intro about 4 times now, not knowing how to start it or word what I want to say..... but long story short, I dont feel like I am progressing/developing and I'm starting to feel like I'm being left behind and as if i'm just tech support for people who dont quite know how to use photoshop and illustrator...

This recent project has really gotten to me... I struggled for days trying to finalise my ideas and then to make them, but I spent more of my time worrying about how to make them, how to make them look and feel and in the end I fell back on my knowledge of photoshop and illustrator to create some shit looking, cheap and nasty, tacky illustrations... none of which I feel any attachment to, except for the sheer amount of time I wasted on them...

now, Im not just being over sensitive, nobody was malicious or overly criticising of my work, but as I sat through everyones presentation during our critique sessions... i saw how people have started to develop their own way of working, their own styles... they all came up with interesting and differing ideas and all produced some great looking stuff... but when thinking about my own, I cant see any change in my work. I havent developed a new way of working... or drawing... i just rely on what i already know and I think it showed this friday.

I have ideas of drawing and creating characters as well as producing clean and concise vector images as I love the visual effect of it, but when I get the chance to... i fail at it... I want to create work that is unique and something that I can really call my own, something fun and possibly humorous but I dont know why I'm doing this... I feel like i should be taking some risks and trying new things, screen printing was one of these things and I love it... but Im not utilising it as much as i could...

I have had many a conversation with friends, peers and staff/professionals about the whole "style" thing and I know that it will eventually develop but I think i'm understanding why no one true/real style of mine is showing through... because I can mimic almost any style I see or because I've often been asked to recreate/achieve a specific effect or style means I'm becoming a mac monkey... someone who has no creativity, just the technical skill...

This is all really depressing for me, purely because I want to be employable when I leave the course... but at the same time I dont know what I want to do when I'm finished... I enjoy working in many different areas and particularly I like working in a studio environment, where I can bounce ideas off of people and develop new ones... being part of an art collective seems more appealing to me along with a little bit of anonymity, where I can pursue my own ideas but also as I dont like having ALL the responsibility... I wouldnt want any pressure on my shoulders... call it fear/cowardice/lack of confidence but strangely the idea of me becoming an art director was suggested a while back... maybe this is because I do enjoy looking at others peoples work or because i can be quite diplomatic when it comes to giving criticism but I cant exactly walk into an art director position straight out of uni can i! :/

Anyway....

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this is the bag of shit I produced.... (the brief was to produce a cover and 2 spot illustrations for an article looking at social networking as well as its application to business and the economy)

the first feels unfinished because I cut a few corners in completing it and then the 2 other illustrations not only look crap but were executed in an equally shite way...
I think they look like a kids drawings, something i might have made years ago and would now look back on and cringe at.... but instead I have the cheek to call myself an illustrator..

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I was going to add a lot of my sketches to this post but I dont want it to be soo long that they are lost at the bottom of the page and never seen by anyone... (see next post)

metabores

with the recent editorial and metaphors work, I've been looking at illustrators who work within these areas and others whose visual styles I like...

Tim Ellis (link)

David Semple (link)

Chris Garbutt (link & link)

Andy Martin (link)

Mick Marston (link)

Back in the 1st year, Jo showed me the work of Mick Marston for a project in order to get me using illustrator... now in 2nd year I feel like I have good grasp of the program and will be returning to Marston's work to start looking at character and shape. Although Marston's work looks like FreeHand vectored, smells like FreeHand vectors and tastes like FreeHand vectors... he has still managed to inject humour and character into his work... he's taken the best points in using digital technology but also stylized it and made it his own...

Also, since I have a passion/need to screen print.. illustrators such as Marston often have a background in other areas such as printing and it's great to see them still using this in their work. Rather than remaining on screen, the crisp lines and blocks of colour take on new life as they become tangible and printed onto stock.

I was also going to mention Stanley Chow whose artwork I really like, but I'm hoping to start filtering out artist's whose work I just like on an aesthetic level when compared to artists who inspire my own work... I just keep worrying about finding my own personal style/visual language.

I specifically like how Chow depicts characters, proportion wise, and I think I could recreate it quite well... but thats all it would be... I could quite comfortably copy any style given to me but it will never look like my work...

Similarly I've been looking at a few more artists, in hope of inspiration and influence for my own work....

stolen from: (link)

"Chiquita's latest ad campaign imbues its audience with an instant sense of wonder. Using playful illustrations on stickers juxtaposed to the iconic Chiquita stickers, the product and brand become more engaging to the consumer—plus they just look cool. We got a chance to ask the Art Director,DJ Neff, some questions about the process of making bananas (even more) fun"

These character are fantastic, in the way that they capture individual personalities but in that they are fun... the are enjoyable, playful and as mentioned above... 'cool'. I love stickers but what really inspires me about these is the limited colour palette... obviously taking reference from the previous/exisiting sticker colour scheme but I'm starting to notice some patterns in what I like...

more to follow in the next couple of days... ;)