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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