123- Part 1

'Less Is More'

Yes yes, I know it's a very simple quote, that people have heard many times before, and many people may possibly use this as a great piece of advice, but for me, this is a great piece of advice. Through out my years of doing art/ textiles/ graphics and now illustration, I have always tended to cram elements and different things into my final pieces. I don't know why I do it, 'cause sometimes I know it doesn't look great, I think It could possibly be due to the fact that I am a very messy worker, I never tend to create a 'pretty' piece of work. But so far this year, I have heard the words 'white space' so many times that I am trying my best to encorporate this into my work and try out some new ways of playing with composition. I have also never been great at composition, not sure where to put things or how to place them, but the phrase 'less is more' is helping me to choose chertain things to put in my images instead of cramming everything in all at once. So hopefully, for the rest of my 2nd year and 3rd year I can learn to create images which are not so crazy and full and calm myself through my work, trying to create pieces that people will hopefully remember and enjoy to look at!

Tim Bradford

Recently discoverd Tim Bradford. I think the main reason I love his work is because everytime I look at it it makes me smile, his characters are really cute and quite simple. Simple flat bold colours also attracted me to this type of work. I would hope to be able to work like this at some point, with alot of practice I'm sure I could. Even though as of late I have been using alot of textures I'm still attracted to these flat coloured characters.

Pandora

A comic strip for Kerrang Magazine (used to read when I was younger) I think the artists name is Ray Zell. (www.rayzell.com/pandorastrips02.html). Just thought they were quite interesting drawings, and some funny comic strips. While bored one night and looking through these I decided to draw myself and my friends in a similar style to this.

Despicable Me

Brilliant film/animation! Absolutly loved it. Yes yes, it is a basic cartoon type for kiddies to enjoy. But the characters and storyline were amazing, sat with a smile on my face all the way through it. If you haven't seen it, you really should.
There are 3 young girls in the film and my friend said one of them was me, which I agreed to, which was also brilliant.

My James and The Giant Peach Book Cover

Here is (possibly) my final piece for my James and the Giant Peach book cover, I may make some more changes before I enter it into the penguin/puffin compotion.

I created my characters out of paper which I had printed paint onto with a sponge to create texture. I did them all with very similar shapes, mostly circles. The textures gave the characters a unique interesting style, very child like. Within the characters on my front page I added to text ontop of them, trying to incorportate the text into my image instead of just having the text hanging somewhere or put randomly onto the page. The text itself is a simple type face, but i changed each letter slightly by just altering the size or rotating it slightly which I thought worked quite well.

The shark on the back cover was created in the same way as the other characters.

I am quite proud of my book cover, And I think I have found a style of working which I am comfortable with and enjoy doing. Only thing I may alter/change on my book cover is the type face. I may try and create my own type face and use this instead, hopefully giving it more of a 'Becca' feel.

Sara Fanelli

I've loved Sara Fanelli's work since I was doing A-level a few years back. She uses a great combination of college, textures and prints. Very usual illustrations and book covers. She also has alot fo what look like doodles within her work which is quite interesting when they are sat next to something colleged/printed etc. Her characters are brilliantly illustrated, very unique and strange, which alot of illustrators and even children sometimes look for within images and book covers. I know when I was younger I always tended to go for something which looked very unusual and different to everything else.

I feel that Sara Fanelli is a great inspiration to illustrators, giving off a sense of surrealism and showing that not everything we do has to be 'normal' or pefect in every way.

My Comments Part 2

So far semester 2 is going pretty well. I very much enjoyed working on the James and the Giant Peach Book Cover, I feel that I have found a way of working which I really enjoy and can do well. This is working with textures and collage. I will hopefully start doing more of this process, I have started using this in the Well Spring Brief which we recieved about a week ago which is another brief that so far I am quite enjoying. So, woo!