Robert Stewart Designer

I came across a book on Robert Stewart who is both an artist and designer (1946-1995).  The use of colour, faces and characters in his work grabbed my attention.  His work reminds me of Salvador Dali and there is a strong theme of theatre, mystery and alchemy.  As I approach the end of university the emphasis of thinking about how your work will be applied in the industry is greater than ever, and I need to think about how my work could be used as in the context, what could it be applied to? Cushions, Fashion or Children's books. 

I problem I have struggled with is bringing my work together into context at the end of the project, I have no problem generating ideas and work but I seem to open up projects so much that I struggle to bring it together, and this is something I need to start focusing on and over come as I emerge into the industry.  Below are some images of Robert Stewart's beautiful work and some examples of how he applies his work in a design context.

See: http://www.classictextiles.com/pages/index.cfm/robert-stewart/

 

His work has also been applied to ceramics, tankard and his work has also featured in the Edinburgh Tapestry Company during the mid 1950's.

Talk by Holly Wales (Illustrator) - Tuesday 11th February

Today Holly Wales came into college to give a talk on her work, clients, methods and offered some really helpful information about the industry. Holly Wales graduated in 2005 and since has worked for many high class clients such as V & A, Esquire, New York Times and Converse to name a few, her style is loose, colourful and playful and she uses felt tip marker pens and collage techniques to make her work.  Holly explained how she responds best to briefs that are more controlled and where the content is provided, for example she explore a lot with the idea of maps as the content already exists.

A really useful point on portfolios was that you should fill your portfolio with the type of work you want to get commissioned and that best suits the needs/theme of your client.  Holly's work also is moving with technology as she is starting to animate her typography in essence with the ipad, she mentioned that illustration really is content driven and obviously you would and may be illustrating things you have never done before or that you hadn't thought of, it's still great experience to try new things and to also constantly be exploring personal work and methods in your own time, for example Holly showed images from her sketchbook of some print exploration using a Riesergraph and Omnipron to produce textures and shapes.

Other interesting points that emerged from today's talk; collaboration is good, being able to apply your work to other surfaces such as cushions will further expand your work and portfolio and that producing a seasonal limited wrapping paper can be a great marketing tool to get your work out there as a starting point.

Below are some images of Holly Wales work and were sourced from: www.hollywales.com

Mixed Media Animation Research

I have started using a mixed media approach in my making and collage work as it adds depth, texture and mystery and it seems natural that I use this approach for my animation.  Thinking of animation that combines different mediums - Mirror Mask the film by Dave McKean springs to mind, a film about a girl who is bored of her life in the Circus and is swept away to another world.  I adore the film and the feel it evokes, I was left wandering what was real and what was not, as Kean combines drawing, photography, digital animation, textures, collage and real life actors to create a world and it is hard to decipher what is real - which adds to the magic of this film.

Below are some images from Mirror Mask (2005)

I also looked at the music video 'Black & White' by the Raveonettes, the films was created by Chris Do and uses Shadow Puppetry, silhouettes, drawings and digital techniques to evoke a monochrome spring, it's a beautiful video and again the viewer is left wondering which is what I would like my animation to evoke.

Refugee Project - Friday 7th February

On Friday I worked with two groups of adults and helped them with rehearsing their stories whilst using the Shadow Puppets behind the screen, it was really magical seeing the narratives come together and I never realised how powerful a simple method can appear.  It was a really good day and I thoroughly enjoyed it, the rehearsals were filmed and will be sent of to a local drumming group who will record music and sound effects to work with the narratives.  I hope to get some photographs of the Shadow Puppets in action soon and will post them on here.

Sketchbook Research

Below are some images from my sense of place sketchbook, I have been putting together rough ideas of characters, worlds and colours to build ideas along the theme of 'Circus'.

Sun print

Following my very helpful feedback from my Guru, who suggested adding texture to my collages to create depth and enhancing my style I have started to play around with printing shapes that I then build upon with collage.  Below is the Sun I made, I cut the shape out of card and painted it with orange acrylic ink, I then printed it onto paper and it created a distressed feel, I then painted over it with water colour paint.

I hope to use it as a face of a lion or a sun dancer as one of my characters.

Circus Characters

Below are a few more collages of circus themed characters I have made..