Monday, 5 January 2015

Developing into Outcomes

From the illustrations designed through the research of Beverly Cottrell I created a layered collage piece. The colour scheme was inspired by her shop front work. Although I already had some of the illustration material I felt it was necessary to simplify some areas and build up others. All of the final illustrations have a complimentary colour scheme and the composition of the final layout is proven successful and visually appealing. Everything was considered when layering up each piece with the foam pads.

To make this outcome I enlarged my original illustration, and using a scalpel cut out all the areas that I needed on card. This process was lengthy because of how precise, accurate and organised I had to be in making sure I had all the pieces I needed when I were to assemble them later on. I then used gouache paint to colour all of the pieces I'd cut, and used fineliner to add in all the details over the top. When assembling my work, I had to take into consideration which layer everything would be on, as I had to work from the back layer and build up. I really think this outcome is striking and bold and I think it's very successful as a piece.

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The Initial Ideas

Thinking of the brief, my initial ideas were centred around food and shop fronts, I furthered my research looking into artists such as Beverly Cottrell, Matthew Midgley, and Brad Young, which all had styles that would work well in tandem with my project and how I work. 

I was especially intrigued by the line work Beverly Cottrell (http://beverlycottrell.blogspot.co.uk) used, and immediately started recreating some of her illustrations and creating my own designs. The work included fineliner and watercolour. I felt that I could develop this work digitally, so I scanned in my fineliner illustrations, and colour dropped the pieces on photoshop, which created some really strong samples for my book. Beverly Cottrell has a unique illustrative approach to her work which is why I continued this hand drawn illustrative style into the digital version I made. My digital and hand made samples are shown below.



Matthew Midgley (http://matthewmidgley.com) focused on watercolour and fineliner food illustrations. The contrast between Beverly Cottrell and Matthew Midgley is shown through the difference of detail.  Matthew Midgley’s work is delicate and shows a strong drawing ability. I wanted to push my illustrations into a piece of work which showed the technical ability and understanding of watercolour. I feel I achieved this after recreating the illustrations below.




Brad Young (http://bradyoungart.wordpress.com) creates menu and drink illustrations, which is a sub-theme that I feel has a lot of potential for development within the coast and food glorious food topic. Whilst continuing my hand made illustrations, I also liked the prospects of typography within these pieces, and the hand drawn element. Looking at Brad Young's illustrations I decided to make my own through the use of watercolour, inks and fineliner. These muted colour pallets were the key to achieving such a nice quality piece. My wall art menu piece was created heavily inspired by his work, I used my own illustrations and typography to create this piece. I was pleased with how it turned out and I will be sure to extend this further on in the project. 


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