Illustration 2 Assignment 2: TASK

Your local tourist board has commissioned you to produce a series of reportage illustrations that celebrates aspects of local culture. Base your illustrations on real local events, locations and people. Capture a sense of place through drawing from life. Produce between three and five pieces of work, at least one of which should be in colour.

The style of the illustrations is up to you, but the tourist board wants something that portrays vitality and life. They want to see people at a destination, engaging with activities or enjoying themselves taking in the views. As with the exercises you’ve done so far, use your sketchbook to document and gather information. Your final illustrations could be a selection of your best drawings or re-worked illustrations based on your sketches. Reflect on what sort of reportage you are most interested in and how you’ve produced your best drawings, then pick a place that supports this way of working. For example, if you’re interested in architectural illustration, focus your assignment on illustrating local buildings of interest.

Overall assessment and future developments

For this Assignment I produced a series of 4 illustrations of Cambridge in different seasons. The aim was to contrast the colours and feel of the different seasons through differences in style and line, and also different media. Showing the architecture and flowers and gardens, together with the multicultural nature of the city – tourists, students and local population.

I worked from Sketches on location – mostly pencil, but also crayon, pastel and watercolour. I supplemented these by photos and some video of activities like punting and skateboarding. I combined a selection of these sketches together in Procreate on my iPad as layered images that brought together different aspects of the scenes. They were done at a very early stage in development of my iPad skills, and I only had time to redo the final image in preparation for assessment.

In preparation for assessment I focused on composition and experimented with different cropping to simplify the images and give more impact.

As some of my first attempts at this sort of iPad montage I am quite please with the results. But there is a lot more work to do – maybe redrawing and experimenting eg if I do autumn in oil pastel, summer in crayon etc – and then recompose. I would also like to do some linocuts and collagraph based on these images.

I would also like to present the multicultural feel of the city more – possibly by making each image in a specific style or making the figures more obviously from different places. Or I might make the images more representative of different artistic cultures. I think that option would be more interesting as a set than trying to make them all the same style. Another option might be to do different series in different styles eg all Chinese/Japanese as this is a key market for Cambridge tourism – we even have market stalls where all the signs are only in Chinese. Or all Indian, African etc.

When I started this project I could not find many really innovative illustrators for inspiration – mostly rather conventional pen and wash work that does not really interest me. However as I prepared for assessment I discovered quite a lot of very recent work and websites. These have also suggested possibilities to explore with collage, paper cuts and combining gouache and oil pastel for texturing.

See Post Cambridge Inspiration

Spring: Clare College

The aim was to give the image a Japanese and Chinese feel – fluttery feel of the cherry blossom – and all the Chinese and Japanese tourists who had appeared as if from nowhere. The iPad image was a montage of a selection of the drawings, keeping fairly close to the physical layout of the place, but changing the proportions of the elements and composition to give impact.

I like the background and the use of the crayon drawing.  I did a lot of blending of the different colour sketches. I need to make the status of Confucius either strongly contrast – a critic of the scene? benevolent onlooker?, or make him blend in more eg by unifying the colours. There were also a lot of other tourists taking selfies with long selfie sticks. I would like to include some of those. The two gowned figures look more like burqas – though maybe that could also show inclusiveness and multicultural feel.

In drawing up the final image I experimented a lot with different crops, altering the layers of the image. In particular (following an accidental crop by my printer) I decided to leave out the balustrade on the right, to give greater focus on the figures. Unfortunately this has made the figures in the foreground a bit blurred. I would have to redraw to sort this out. But I find the dynamics of the picture much more interesting.

Summer: Millpond

I wanted to make this summer image green and langorous – lots of willow trees and leisurely punting. But actually summer is pretty frenetic with lots of tourists, punt touts and people punting with little experience. The final image is pretty laid back – swapping the original man for a woman photographer made it less voyeuristic. I also cropped in on the left to make the focus much more on the punters and people sitting rather precariously on the bridge.

I also enjoyed working with the quick pencil sketches on my iPad to make new humorous narratives. These are not yet good enough, but definitely an area of illustration I would like to take further.

The final image though uses a detailed sketch I did while having coffee one sunny morning – initially featuring my partner taking photographs for a photography assignment. I also took a lot of photos and made them up into an exploratory collage.

The final image started as a simple layered colouring of the pencil image, with some slight modifications, experimenting with different tonal and saturation possibilities.

But my partner did look rather like a spy – particularly later with the Me Too sensitivities. So I made the photographer myself. I also cropped out more of the lefthand edge so the flower was a frame rather than distraction and to focus in on the punters and people on the bridge.

I like this image – the final version increased the contrast to increase the focus on the punters under the bridge, and changed the photographer to myself as a woman so they did not look too much like a stalker!

Autumn: Jesus Green

It was autumn when I started this project. Autumn could have been windy, with movement and people holding onto hats, or melancholy. But the best sketching time was a series of beautiful sunny crisp autumn days towards the mid/end of October when the leaves had turned and just starting to fall. Lots of people playing and sitting in the sunshine. And warm enough to sketch.

So I did sketches in different mixed media – watercolour, pastel, oil pastel, pencil, ink – to explore possibilities, covering a number of elements around me. I also used some action video.

The final image cropped off part of the left side and brings the image in a bit through adjusting the different layers, and also lightening the yellow to make a more vibrant image.

 

My original feel for this one was Van Gogh. The very striking colours in the avenue of Horse Chestnut trees. I was not at first sure about the bright colours. And would like to have got more wind movement as in some of my sketches. But it has really grown on me, and responses from my tutor and other people who have seen it have been positive.

Winter: Christmas Reindeer

This is the image for which I have the fewest sketches and need to do more – I had to wait till winter, but then it was very cold, particularly with RSI.

I was lucky though to be at the Round Church the one day the reindeer were there before Xmas. I like the image – better than the one originally sent to my tutor. But I need to work more on the blending and get rid of the ink lines.

Summer

I wanted to make this summer image green and langorous – lots of willow trees and leisurely punting. But actually summer is pretty frenetic with lots of tourists, punt touts and people punting with little experience. The final image is pretty laid back – swapping the original man for a woman photographer made it less voyeuristic. I also cropped in on the left to make the focus much more on the punters and people sitting rather precariously on the bridge.

I also enjoyed working with the quick pencil sketches on my iPad to make new humorous narratives. These are not yet good enough, but definitely an area of illustration I would like to take further.

Working Process

I started by brainstorming a number of possibilities for the theme of the image as a whole, going through a series of ideas.

Theme 1: Bridges, willows and reflections

One of the most noticeable things about Cambridge in summer are the bridges, and reflections of green willow trees in the water. It is beautiful! So that was the idea I started with.

Theme 2: Punting

At the same time the easiest place to draw was just sitting by the river watching the punting.

Sketches

iPad sketches

I enjoyed making these into little narrative vignettes later on my iPad – particularly Sketchclub or Sketchbook Pro with their sketching brushes.

Punting photo series

I also took lots of photos and video to be able to study the movement of the figures later at home.

Theme 3: Leisurely coffee at the Millpond

The final image though uses a detailed sketch I did while having coffee one sunny morning – initially featuring my partner taking photographs for a photography assignment. I also took a lot of photos and made them up into an exploratory collage.

Photos

Final image

The final image started as a simple layered colouring of the pencil image, with some slight modifications, experimenting with different tonal and saturation possibilities.

Video of development in Procreate

But my partner did look rather like a spy – particularly later with the Me Too sensitivities. So I made the photographer myself. I also cropped out more of the lefthand edge so the flower was a frame rather than distraction and to focus in on the punters and people on the bridge,

Autumn

It was autumn when I started this project. Autumn could have been windy, with movement and people holding onto hats, or melancholy. But the best sketching time was a series of beautiful sunny crisp autumn days towards the mid/end of October when the leaves had turned and just starting to fall. Lots of people playing and sitting in the sunshine. And warm enough to sketch.

So I did sketches in different mixed media – watercolour, pastel, oil pastel, pencil, ink – to explore possibilities, covering a number of elements around me.

I am quite pleased with the final result, and have had good feedback from my tutor and other people I have shown it to. I could see if I can make the other three images more vibrant and with a similar texture through using watercolour as the basis. Or I could make the seasonal contrasts more obvious.

Autumn trees

Photos

Action

Sketches

Photos

Videos

Composition sketches for final image

Video of first version of the final image development in Procreate

Final crops compared

The final image cropped off part of the left side and brings the image in a bit through adjusting the different layers, and also lightening the yellow to make a more vibrant image.

Winter

Winter was the most problematic because of the cold for sketching particularly with RSI.

Sometimes the light is really beautiful and I had some nice photos.

But I was not able to get many sketches – partly also because winter is the time I travel a lot for work.

Idea 1: Round Church

This was the image sent to my tutor, based on a few sketches of people and the corner by the Round Church – a good place to sit.

I also took photos of the architecture and people for reference

But I could not get the image to work using the same techniques as before because the sketches were not so dynamic. I wanted it to look bright and welcoming, so did not want to tone things down too much.

Idea 2) Reindeer Christmas

But the following Xmas as I was preparing for assessment, I went into town one day and there was a reindeer event run by some local shops – just for the day. This was really colourful with distinctive winter feel. So I decided to do a completely new image.

I did some sketches, working also in watercolour and crayon later from reference photos.

Final image

This made a more interesting and seasonal image. But as with the others, I experimented a lot with details of the composition. The final image cropped quite strongly to bring the image in for more impact. But as this was very near to assessment deadlines I could not finish the image and sort out issues with the ink lines – it really needs redrawing.