Frann Preston-Gannon

Frann Preston-Gannon's skeleton work gave me an idea for part of my Rapunzel book cover, as I wanted to illustrate all the men that have tried to save her from the tower, and I want to illustrate this by adding skeletons to my imagery and Frann Preston-Gannon's work inspired this idea. These are the skeletons that I have created so far, but I am thinking of screen printing these, as I think that if the ink runs a little bit it may give a nice feel to them and then they will not look so 'perfect' as skeletons are usually rotting and not perfect shapes. So screen printing might give a nice textured feel to them.
I also like the backgrounds on the top two skeleton images (coffin ones) having different shades and strips of one colour instead of one colour in the background, gives more depth and patterened feel to the imagery and makes the lighter colours stand out more.

Alice Lickens

Alice Lickens is a freelance illustrator & designer based in London also working as one fifth of Zombie Collective.
Lovely use of textures and shape, as i've mentioned in earlier posts this is what I work well with so I like to look at illustrators/artists that do this well, that will inspire me and my work and help me spark new ideas and possibly new ways of working and development.

I like the use of pattern and shape in the "atoms" pieces, they are unusual but it is nice to see some sciency illustrations!

The Art of Tim Burton: Creative Review

For Christmas, my lovely boyfriend bought me this book. The Art of Tim Burton, it's a book full of his illustrations and interveiws and notes of his friends/family and fans. So inspiring! I was expecting it to be pretty small, but it's huge! I was so surprised. If you are a fan of Tim Burton I would deffinatly recommened buying this book, it is a little pricey, £50, there are also other editions with post cards and signed thing, but they cost much more than this!

So many crazy characters and bright colours! He has the strangest imagination, but this is what attracts me to him!
There are lots of fold out pages, and lots of sketches from his first thoughts on characters for some of the films he directed/written.

I am inlove with his work and his crazy mind, I especially love his stories from "the Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and other stories" that I even have a couple of his designs tattooed!

The Melancholy death of oyster boy and other stories is another book I would reccommened, it's just a book full of short story/poems about wierd and random situations, for example, a couple who gave birth to a robot baby and the only explanation is that she slept with a kitch applience, I told you they were wierd! they also come with little illustrations on the side, very funny, very random and imaginative again, if you like strange things I'm sure you'll love both these books.

Kancho

A random shopping trip to ASDA, found these cute little biscuits! with cute little illustrations on the packaging.

Nicola Slater

Unfortunatly, I wasn't able to attend the talk by Nicola Slater, but as she is a professional childrens book illustrator I had a little nosey at some of her work.
I really like her work, the use of shape and texture is inspiring as I am becoming very comfortable using these, her child like animal characters are so much fun and child friendly, such simple shapes make very detailed characters.

I also love her typography, she seems to have many different styles of typography, and they all seem to somehow fit in perfectly with her imagery, even though they are done in a different style. I always try to make my typorgraphy in the same style as my imagery, but I can never get it right, maybe I should try something completely different and fit it in some how, in a similar way to Nicola,






She is a very interesting illustrator, her work inspires me and makes me feel good about my own work.
As I am quite interested in childrens book illustration, I may email Nicola and see if she would take a look at some of my work and give me some advice.

Her use of colour is also interesting, nothing to bright and alot of pastle colours seem to be used which work quite nicely and are not too bold and taking over the imagery.
I also like her use of shading and shadows, which is something I don't usually think about when illustrating, but when drawing I also add lots of shading, maybe this is something more I could add to my illustrations to give them a little more depth and make them more interesting.

My FMP

For my FMP, I have decided to take part in the Penguin 2012 competition, doing a book cover for Puffin's Grimm's Fairy tales! But obviously this isn't enough for a 16 week project, So I have decided to do 2 more book covers for a couple of the well known grimm's fairy tales, the ones I have chosen to illustrate are Rapunzel and Cinderella.

Along with the book covers, I am hoping to make some book marks using similar imagery which I will create.

As Rapunzel and Cinderella are both princess storys which attract little girls, I was hoping to also make things such as birthday cards and wrapping paper, creating characters and patterns.

I don't want to be too literal with my imagery, but again I don't want to go completely metaphorical or off top as the books are ment for younge children so they need to illustrate what the stories represent.

The main Grimm's book cover will be more of a challenge as I will need to encorporate differeont elements from a few stories as there are many different ones, but I think I will mostly work with the more well known ones, such as Tom Thumb, Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Rumplstiltskin, etc.

I want my 3 book covers to have similar imagery, showing that they are part of a set of covers, so you can tell they were done by the same illustrator, being me of course.

Julia Woolf: Portfolio Visit via Email

Hi Rebecca

I have finally finished my heavy work load and have had a good look at your on-line portfolio.

I think you have a very strong graphic look to your work. I particularly like your decorative skulls which you designed for Salford Zine Library. Great colours and shapes. Also very commercial which is a good thing, especially for getting work.

I think they are the most successful in your portfolio.

Next I like the image for 'Killer Fashion', a good strong graphic image. I think your work lends itself to editorial illustration.

I don't find your character work as strong as your more graphic images. I think characters can still be of a graphic nature, but you have to make sure that they are not too cartoony.

And if you are interested in picture books I think you will have to develop your style more.

Also if you are into writing and illustrating that is a very positive thing. Publishers are always interested in that combination.

Your story of the cat is going in the right direction but I think you need to look at whats in the book shops and see how they are layed out etc. The connection between text and illustration. There are some good books out there on how to make a picture book.

I hope this has been of some help, and good luck with your illustration. Great graphic quality to your work. I like that.

All the best and good luck

Julia

ps

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.