Sneak peak...

Here's a sneak peak at some of my work being displayed at our end of year degree show. These designs were for a competition by UK Greetings and were created with collage, lino print, acrylic, rubber stamp lettering, and photoshop - I finally feel relatively confident at using photoshop now, it's only taken me 3 years!

Ill upload the rest of my work and photos of my degree show space after my assessment on Tuesday afternoon. Wish me luck!

'An Assortment of Illustrators'

I know, its been a while! I've been meaning to post on here for a while now as I've been conscious that I haven't posted anything since Christmas (*slap on the wrist!*) but I've been furiously working on my two final units of my degree - scary times! Next Friday 24th May is our final EVER university deadline, so once that is done and dusted I'll be uploading all of the work that I've been producing.

But until then, I thought I'd show you all a piece I did as part of a collaborative project within our year. Entitled 'An Assortment of Illustrators', each person from my year has produced an illustration based on collective nouns, mine being 'a string of ponies'.

I decided to produce a papercut; a technique I've recently become fascinated by and have wished to explore myself, so I took this opportunity to give it a go! Initially I used a photographic background but it was felt by a few of my coursemates that the background distracted attention away from the papercut. So I opted for a textured colour instead. I found the method very therapeutic; carefully carving out the design, ensuring you don't cut the wrong bit!

The small group of students responsible for the fund-raising, organisation, design, publication, and promotion of the book have done a truly fantastic job and deserve so much credit for the time, effort, and professionalism poured into the project, to ensure its success! I feel so proud to have been a part of it.

Incidentally, our final year degree show is also serving as our book launch! Following the opening night on Friday 31st May, the show will be open to the public from 1st - 14th June. There'll be some fantastic artwork on display; showcasing work of the final year students on the BA(Hons) Illustration course from the University of Lincoln, and our book 'An Assortment of Illustrators' will be available to purchase! Visit http://uolillustration.co.uk/ for more details and a sneaky sample of everyone's work.

"How to Write a Book in 30 Days"

For our final editorial we were required to design the cover for a supplement featured in a magazine, the aim of which was to encourage readers to become writers, using the methods in the supplement. I photographed a composition of items typically associated with a 'work process' then used Photoshop to add the text and edit the image.

Madness of crowds

After using it whilst re-doing the past couple of editorials, I was feeling a little more confident at using Photoshop so decided to assemble this piece digitally. Using acrylics to paint the poker chips and the bear, and ink to draw the bear itself, I then used PS to finalise the composition of the piece and add some collaged ephemera.

Sun, sea, sand... and sniffles

 

The article discusses leisure sickness, so I chose to combine the idea of sipping cocktails on holiday, with taking medicine. I love traditional pen and ink work and it is something I've always enjoyed doing, so after fiddling around with the composition I drew the image in black ink then added the colour digitally.

Why small victories matter

 

 

I think this is my most successful editorial piece. After a discussion with a couple of my tutors, I decided to go with the theme of 'seeds' for this article on the importance of celebrating small victories, instead of chasing large challenges. I liked the message that even the smallest of seeds has the potential to grow into something enormous, so after many, many variations I decided upon this idea. Using this as an opportunity to explore alternative techniques I chose to do a lino print, which was then scanned digitally on to a collaged background.

 

How to... decorate

 

For our first unit, 'Contemporary Illustration', we were assigned the task of creating a series of editorial illustrations, whereby we had to encapsulate the content and tone of a body of text in a single, readable image.

I found this fairly difficult at first so my initial ideas weren't great! But I feel I improved as the weeks went on, so I found some time to go back and revisit my editorials using the knowledge and techniques I'd acquired, to get them up to (what I feel is) a higher standard of work.

This article spoke about the futility of self-decoration; covering up natural beauty with the intention of expressing one's identity. I decided to base my illustration around the quote "Earrings are the light fittings of the head" by digitally layering monoprints, and using a peacock feather as a backdrop.