Week 2

Influence, Research and Practice.

As an illustrator, the key thing that you can do is research. Observe, collect, study. Everything around us can and does influence us, and when you are aware of this you can start to process it. We figure out what we are drawn to and what we dislike, and these are equally valuable. This goes hand in hand with practice. Record and draw everything you see that influences you , or it will be gone. This should be a constant cycle of learning and drawing and experimenting to develop your skill.

I am personally most inspired by people, films, dolls, nature and obviously other artists. It is important that when doing research and observation you should be recording primary data, always go back to something how it is originally and study it, rather than trying to imitate another existing style. Have your own life experiences. With practice and hard work, your style and skill will constantly evolve and improve.

This example shows how a even few frames from a film, here “The Shining”, can have a great impact and obviously inspired the artist Kelly Haigh, who painted the picture below. When we learn the painting is called “Trial Separation”, it brings on a new meaning. Notice how the original notion of creepy twins may have sparked a thought, but she took it further, researched and explored the idea, and brought something new to the concept. The medium choice of paint also allowed her to distort the features and proportion, and create a broody surreal landscape.

Audience.

Understanding you audience is crucial in professional visual communication. You need to know who you are communicating to so that you can make the message clearer and easier to grasp for that customer/demographic. Thinking about your audience will make your research and practice, and therefore your work much stronger . If you get the right people to respond the right way, then you know you’ve done your job well.

Just to take a quick example from one of my favourite stories, of which there are endless different interpretations and illustrated versions, Alice’s adventures in Wonderland. Shown below are two different images of the same thing, Alice’s scene with the white rabbit. Both inspired by and drawn from the very same words, but completely different in the hands of two different illustrators. The left picture (Macoto Takahashi) is much more likely to be used in a children’s book. Bright colourful, pretty and fun. Whereas the right picture (Fernando Falcone) is much more likely intended for an older audience interested in the more sinister undercurrent and hidden meaning in the story. These portray simply how audience can heavily influence the outcome.