Scissors Front cover / Geoff Grandfield inspiration

I needed something to put on the front cover of my work and I didn't want to just use the same images I've already created, but something new, simple and professional. One of my inspirations from last years projects was artist/designer Geoff Grandfield. I really admire his use of silhouetted shapes to create forms and his minimilistic use of two or three colours. I wanted an image that captured the mood of 'point of view' podcasts, but also best showcased my work. 

So what I did was analyzed what worked as solid shapes in my work and found the scissors as the most appropriate shapes to use. I limited my colour palette and experimented with shapes and sizes, until I created the above image, which I think is a success. The reason for that is even though it looks different the feel and end product look similar to my other images, with the use of mark making again to bring the piece together. 

you can check his work out here - http://geoffgrandfield.co.uk

Snow Leopard

I really enjoyed creating this piece, as I always enjoy drawing animals. The idea of this one was to show a metaphor for trying to pursue Happiness and I related that being homeless ( confusing aha).  The snow leopard is a symbol of survival and isolation as leopards are often completely cut off from everything else. They have to try and survive so it was the ideal animal to relate to my subject.

With this piece there is a surreal feel to it, with the leopard meant to be almost part of the mountain - looming over the climbers, who are homeless people. In my initial sketches I wanted the leopard with its camouflaged fur to almost be invisible, just as homeless people often feel they are.

The mountain was so hard to create it almost gave me a headache, I focused on getting the shape and form right.


I wanted climbers to represent the struggle of being homeless and the effort each and every day takes just to survive.

Using mark making and a solid drawing I managed to create this.The eyes were the most important component in this as they capture the mood of the animal. 

Visual Metaphors

Visual langauge and being able to communicate an idea is integral if I want to make it as a professional illustrator. One way of achieving that is using metaphors to communicate a piece of text or an idea - whatever the illustration is for. its a really smart and precise way of interpreting something. 

I have over the last year started to bring this into my own work, but I sometimes dont make it really obvious what its about. So with this project the snow leopard idea that I have isn't immediately obvious, but you can piece together all the different aspects to create a visual metaphor. Its a way of working that I like to use as it differentiates my work and isn't the obvious. 

Paul Blow

Often humorous, sometimes risqué but always witty and intelligent, Paul Blow comes up with exceptional ideas. His work is what good illustration should always strive to be— clear, precise communication.

David Bonazzi 

Combines thoughtful symbolism worked into his compositions with considered drawings and painterly textures. He creates very interesting narratives within his image. 

My Newspaper ( Down and Out )

David Parshott's http://www.davidsparshott.com/portfolio/creative-review/

To get my work onto the next level and to push myself further I decided to create my own newspaper using the great website 'newspaper club'. Its a website where you can create your own layout and design and use your images..... I thought this would tie in nicely with my project as the images i'm creating are quite political and news orientated. However the problem I had at first was that Id never designed my own newspaper and there was a lot that needed to be considered, from composition, page layout and images relating top the text.

Research 

The only way I would be able to understand what it is that makes articles and images work was by looking at some. Creative Review is a magazine targeting the art scene, reviewing modern and contemporary art. The first aspect I noticed was the professional look the paper had and the seamless link between images and text. 

The images used were often clever and often metaphors for the text. Each image had its own meaning, but they always linked to the text and 

challenged me to try and find out what the link was. For example a magazine I saw had a picture of a magpie and the article was about stealing, which magpies are synonymous with. I want my newspaper to have the same professional feel and design. 

The core design and layout was the most important part for me, as it had to resemble that of a newspaper. This article on data presentation was a help. From my research I found most newspapers stick to the same formats, so font size, columns and image size. This is to keep a consistent layout and this makes artists design images to work with a format. So my aim was to follow the blueprint of arty magazines such as creative review and let the page work as one. 

Shadow Art by Kumi Yamashita

Born in Japan but now living and working in New York City, artist Kumi Yamashita does incredible things with light and shadows. Kumi has an impressive list of solo and group shows sine the late 90s along with a host of permanent collections around the world. 

In her series entitled Light & Shadow, Kumi uses a single light source along with an assortment of perfectly placed objects to create incredible shadow silhouettes and artwork on walls. One aspect I wanted in my own work was the idea of shadow and creating a mood. Shadows are a great way of creating a mood and the light and dark shades work very well, so this artist helped me to get a sense of what I wanted my own work to look like. 

Magpies

One of my original ideas was the use of magpies as they repseresnt stealing and homeless people are often unfairly associated with that. I wanted to keep the image simple and use negative space to keep it from looking too cluttered on the page.

Ive used mark making with the magpies as I wanted them to look playful and mimic what real life magpies are like, the colours work well as the vibrant blues and green contrast nicely with the dark black of the birds feathers.

The image on the left is the one I've used for my newspaper. I used different ink and block printing ink  to create the marks below the magpie. They are experimental, but help to form an interesting composition.

I dont like the straight edge of the second image, but unfortunalty time constraints limited me to coming up with some way to not make it look like the man was floating in mid air :)