Ouch

Todays crit was painful.... Being told by Marcus Oakley that my drawings looked like clipart was the biggest slap in the face but I can see what he means. At the time I was hoping that the ground would just swallow me up to be honest but I guess it was kind of what I needed to stir me out of this self-induced illustration coma that I'm in at the moment. I'm pretty down on the whole thing, but I'm going to try and use todays embarressment to galvanize me into working my arse off over the next few weeks, taking on board what Marcus and Joel said and producing some good work that I'm proud to put in my portfolio. But for the rest of today, I'm going to allow myself one little sulk.

Another route that I've been exploring is imagery based on how some of the data in the CoML baseline Report is presented -


This diagram shows how catches of big fish have declined over the years. I love the simple squares and colours, and the way its overlayed onto the map. As a simple piece of scientific data I think it's quite beautiful. So anyway, I've been experimenting with my own images of this data.



I don't know if it will go anywhere, but I kind of like it. I'm so confused with this project now, I've basically dug a hole for myself and I'm really struggling to find a way into and even enjoy the project which is a shame as it's about a subject that I love. I don't really know how to rescue it at the moment, hopefully I will be able to!

So here are the ingredients needed for a home embossing session -


The idea is that you do your drawing with the pen, shake the powder over the ink while it's still wet, and then melt and set the powder onto the paper with the heat tool (which is hilarious, the packaging and design of it really make it look like something a bit more 'feminine'). It sounds so simple, but it has it drawbacks - its not possible to get a pen with clear ink, the closest I could get was light blue which is fine on blue paper but not on anything else; when you're melting the powder its really easy to burn it so it ends up drying all bubbly and rough; the powder itself is quite shiny so not only is it embossed it looks glittery; its hard to get a really fine line out of the pen and the ink dries quite quickly so you have to emboss as you draw which is just hassle. Results posted below.

Marcus Oakley

The lecture that Marcus Oakley gave us today was really informative, and a good insight into the illustration industry. One of the main things I picked up up from what he was saying, and I'm sure this isn't the same for everyone but I get the impression a lot of his clients are people he knew already, especially the work he's done for Pointer. This highlighted to me the importance of networking to acquire clients, as people you meet may one day be running a company that might need some illustrations... His work is completely different from mine, but I like it, especially his patterns and his 3d stuff.


I found it really inspiring listening to him talking about his influences, and what informs his practice as much of what he was saying I recognised in myself, and I'm hoping that this will spur me on to make some really good images for this project as to be honest, I'm still struggling.

Todays talk from Salvatore Rubbino was great, and it was fascinating to see how the images were made, from initial sketch to finished article and it was really good to see the process he went through to produce his book 'A Walk In New York'. The two main things I picked up from what he said were - draw everything, and draw from memory as well. Two things I must do more often.

I've been looking into the possibilities regarding embossing and spot varnishing etc, and in order to see what the illustrations might look like it seems the best thing for me to do would be to get a home embossing kit. It looks to be quite cheap, but as is the case with most home-crafts it will probably look quite shonky... Anyway it would enable me to emboss a line drawing so it's got to be worth a go. My idea at the moment would be something like this -


Basically, I'm thinking of having the one bold drawing or image (need to experiment more) in the middle of the image, and all the shadowy shapes around it embossed or spot varnished or even laser-cut out of the paper so that the viewer has to really look at the image to see that they're there. I dont normally do line drawings so this is a bit of a departure for me, but I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere with the direction I'm going at the moment so I'll give this a go and hopefully it will lead to something good.

I did get some good advice from todays tutorial , especially the website that was recommended to me - the Atlas Obscura. Other than that, I just need to start researching into what's possible when it comes to disguising elements of my illustrations through embossing or die cutting etc, i.e. if it's possible or not to emboss or spot varnish a line drawing for example. Once I know what I can actually do, then I can really start making work and this will hopefully allow me to get into my project as for some reason this year I've struggled. I don't know if this is because of the change of course, or the long break over the summer but I just can't get into it. I'm sure I'll turn it around, but I am conscious of the ticking clock...