Cat's eyes

From the age of 11, when I had my first art lesson at school, I have developed a fascination with drawing eyes. Not only are they beautiful to admire but its a real challenge trying to capture the shine and depth of light through the convex surface of the eye. So when I was given the project 'Cat and Dog' in my second year at uni my immediate thought was that of studying cats' eyes. Here's one of my initial sketches for the project, drawn from a photo of one of my many cats!

'A Sound of Thunder'

This project encouraged us to look at book cover artwork and depicting the essence of a story in a single image. I was given the science fiction short story 'A Sound of Thunder' by Ray Bradbury, based on the concept described as the butterfly effect. The text could have been a lot stronger but I intend on improving my typography skills during the next year of my course. Particularly when we start looking at illustration used in advertising.

'The Strange Feathery Beast'

Some observational work acting as visual research for the task of creating 8 black and white vignettes to accompany the short story 'The Strange Feathery Beast'. I tend to work in black and white so I really enjoyed this project (as well as being given an excuse to look at the work of John Tenniel and Quentin Blake!), but I need to experiment with using colour and improving my skills using other materials. N.B. Break out of your comfort zone!

19 Chickens + 1 Fox

This was a final piece completed for the second year of my degree. I was particularly happy with the outcome of the chickens in this piece, drawn using continuous line in fine liner. The fox, however, didn't turn out as well as I'd have liked and I think it would have provided more of a contrast between the chicken 'tail' if the use of watercolour was less spontaneous and more controlled. I'd like to revisit the 'continuous line' technique in the future as it forces you to think carefully about the object you're illustrating to ensure the drawing is readable, and not a scribble. The flowing movement was surprisingly therapeutic as well!

Seahorse

Poor quality photo as I didn't have an A3 scanner at the time, but this is a pencil drawing of a dead seahorse my brother found whilst on the beach several years ago. It was an observational drawing required for last year's summer project, 'Jumble'. I'll upload a better quality image when I get the opportunity.

Geri

Geri from the Pixar short film 'Geri's Game'. A self-initiated sketch I did some time ago when I found myself at a loose end.

Life Drawing

During my first year we had a module to encourage us to study, and better observe, form and practice drawing figures from life. Despite it taking place in a small, cold, converted barn at the top of a very steep set of steps, I found it very enjoyable and rewarding! I'm hoping to attend some of the life drawing sessions available to us this year to build on the skills I learnt. In the meantime, here's one of my earlier sketches.

'Think Outside The Box'

This was a project from my first year at university whereby we had to create an artist book based on one, or a collection of, 'buzzwords'. I chose the phrase to 'think outside the box', something I believe people rarely do enough of nowadays.