Exercise: The History of illustration
The history of illustration:
In this exercise, I will look at how illustration has changed and evolved over the last 50 years. To do this I will look at one illustrator and research their work.
The artist I chose to study and research was Edward Bawden, coincidentally he is the first artist on the list, but I promise this was not the deciding factor. That was his work, he has painted all over the world and even during WW2. He was an English painter admired by many graphic designers, he painted several books and painted murals in both the 1930s and 1960s.
Early work: He produced tiles for the London Underground that were exhibited at the International Building Trades Exhibition in April 1928, this was at a time where wages were £1 a day. One of Bawden's most familiar designs from this era was the "Puzzled Lion and Startled Unicorn" this was created around 1939
In his later life Edward become a war artist and that's the inspiration and context behind his most successful pieces which are displayed in the Tate. Being a war artist sounds like a monumental, dangerous and exciting task which took him all over the world, during his time he was posted in North Africa, witnessed the famous evacuation of Dunkirk and painted portraits in: Libya, Sudan, Cairo and Ethiopia.
Bawden was fascinated by watercolour. He rediscovered the British watercolourists of the late 18th century and early 19th centuries alongside fellow art student Eric Ravilious and their tutor Paul Nash. The style of this era was very restrained, paintings by Francis Town and John Sell Cotman seemed refreshingly modern after decades of a loose style that grew out of Impressionism. Described as ‘blob’ and ‘swash’ by one art critic. In their hands, watercolour drawings went from fusty to fresh. They reinvented a style purely by delving back into the past. I think this is very relevant to every creative area of life whether it be fashion, architecture or music. We are in an era of accepting more of the past, instead of writing it off as a new style appears in the industry. The important thing that happened here was that they took these styles and techniques of the past and seamlessly brought them into their ‘today’ because they combined them with their own style. They used clean lines and precisely applied colour with stencilling and collage.
The modern artist I chose to research is Micheal Kustsche he is a modern concept artist that worked on projects such as Tim Burton's 'Alice and Wonderland'. I really appreciate the work of concept artists, they have to produce work of high detail however the things they draw and paint are largely not of this Earth. Take for example the winged monkey from wizard of oz, Micheal has to bring something from our imaginations to the page, he isn't just painting whats in front of him.
He has such a vivid imagination and can combine that with his physical skills in illustration can create epic and fascinating pieces of art. That's what drew me to Micheal, don't get me wrong I do appreciate art grounded in reality but I myself have a vivid and wild imagination and have always had a love for films and games (which is where concepts artists produce the most work).
Micheal is a modern illustrator so he uses a lot of modern technology which is available to him, these include software like illustrator and photoshop as well as hardware such as drawing tablets. By using the technology we can achieve precision with tiny brushes and use every single colour possible at click of a button. When compared to the tools Edward had access to its vastly different, this is what I think makes Edward's artwork look old fashioned. A canvas and paintbrush are old fashioned tools for art, but even then those old fashioned tools have advanced a lot and the brushes and paints we have available today are different in quality and this can have a huge impact on modern paintings vs older paintings.
When looking at Bawden's work I would not say it entirely seems old fashioned, if I looked at one of his paintings without prior knowledge of who painted it and one I would not instantly presume it was old. However the same could not be said for Micheal If someone showed me his paintings I would know they were modern. Bawden's techniques as a watercolourist are still used today and that is one of the reasons I would be unsure, paintings that look similar to his are produced by artists all of the worlds. So it's not his style that would jump out to me as old fashioned, I feel a lot of his paintings lack any real colour, they seem old and dated in terms of their personality. Even artists who don't paint with colour provide some sense of character by creating stark contrasts and more detail if anything I would say his paintings look slightly muddy and a bit bland.
The next thing I did was to develop two different illustrations in the styles of the artists I had chosen. The first one I did was by Edward Bawden. I chose to use the Berliner Dom as my inspiration, it's a famous cathedral in Berlin as my girlfriend recently took me there for my birthday. Interestingly Berlin was one of the places that most inspired me in terms of graphic design. It's very bold and modern. I tried to collect as many leaflets and take photos of posters that caught my eye, a lot of it is very abstract and clean.
However what's more interesting is the architecture, Berlin is full of quite jaw-dropping structures with immense scale. The buildings are the furthest thing from the modern graphic design that surrounds them.
From looking at Edwards pieces he produces very precise bold lines. I started by sketching out the Berliner Dom inside a watercolour sketchbook I have, I took pictures of the various stages of its 'construction'
The painting process Is where I feel I ruined the drawing. The colour was too dark and when I added the darker shadows it just created this brown muddy building. I didn't have any watercolour so I had to use the brush pens that I have. They have a paintbrush like character and act and respond exactly like a paintbrush but I think the paper wasn't the best for them and the pigment wasn't that consistent. I also didn't like how my pencil outline is shiny and reflects the light. It just gives the whole thing an ugly aesthetic in my eyes. It was also really hard to retain detail whilst using paintbrushes.
For Micheal, I decided to take an animated character and give them a splash of realism. His concept art specifically for Alice and Wonderland seems to use this style and it's so cool and interesting. I think people are so used to friendly animated characters, but in this world that Micheal has helped craft life is grittier and not all sunshine which is closer to the real world so its fitting the characters don't have 'cute' animated features.
I then used a 0.3mm fineliner to ink the drawing, this process does tend to make the image feel flat in my opinion, because the sketch isn't as precise, once you take away that and just add one fine line it starts to have less depth and character.
In this exercise, I will look at how illustration has changed and evolved over the last 50 years. To do this I will look at one illustrator and research their work.
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| Puzzled Lion and Startled Unicorn |
Early work: He produced tiles for the London Underground that were exhibited at the International Building Trades Exhibition in April 1928, this was at a time where wages were £1 a day. One of Bawden's most familiar designs from this era was the "Puzzled Lion and Startled Unicorn" this was created around 1939
In his later life Edward become a war artist and that's the inspiration and context behind his most successful pieces which are displayed in the Tate. Being a war artist sounds like a monumental, dangerous and exciting task which took him all over the world, during his time he was posted in North Africa, witnessed the famous evacuation of Dunkirk and painted portraits in: Libya, Sudan, Cairo and Ethiopia.
Bawden was fascinated by watercolour. He rediscovered the British watercolourists of the late 18th century and early 19th centuries alongside fellow art student Eric Ravilious and their tutor Paul Nash. The style of this era was very restrained, paintings by Francis Town and John Sell Cotman seemed refreshingly modern after decades of a loose style that grew out of Impressionism. Described as ‘blob’ and ‘swash’ by one art critic. In their hands, watercolour drawings went from fusty to fresh. They reinvented a style purely by delving back into the past. I think this is very relevant to every creative area of life whether it be fashion, architecture or music. We are in an era of accepting more of the past, instead of writing it off as a new style appears in the industry. The important thing that happened here was that they took these styles and techniques of the past and seamlessly brought them into their ‘today’ because they combined them with their own style. They used clean lines and precisely applied colour with stencilling and collage.
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| Cairo, The Citadel: Mohammad Ali Mosque |
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| Guns firing on Metemma |
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| The refugee line |
The modern artist I chose to research is Micheal Kustsche he is a modern concept artist that worked on projects such as Tim Burton's 'Alice and Wonderland'. I really appreciate the work of concept artists, they have to produce work of high detail however the things they draw and paint are largely not of this Earth. Take for example the winged monkey from wizard of oz, Micheal has to bring something from our imaginations to the page, he isn't just painting whats in front of him.
He has such a vivid imagination and can combine that with his physical skills in illustration can create epic and fascinating pieces of art. That's what drew me to Micheal, don't get me wrong I do appreciate art grounded in reality but I myself have a vivid and wild imagination and have always had a love for films and games (which is where concepts artists produce the most work).
Micheal is a modern illustrator so he uses a lot of modern technology which is available to him, these include software like illustrator and photoshop as well as hardware such as drawing tablets. By using the technology we can achieve precision with tiny brushes and use every single colour possible at click of a button. When compared to the tools Edward had access to its vastly different, this is what I think makes Edward's artwork look old fashioned. A canvas and paintbrush are old fashioned tools for art, but even then those old fashioned tools have advanced a lot and the brushes and paints we have available today are different in quality and this can have a huge impact on modern paintings vs older paintings.
When looking at Bawden's work I would not say it entirely seems old fashioned, if I looked at one of his paintings without prior knowledge of who painted it and one I would not instantly presume it was old. However the same could not be said for Micheal If someone showed me his paintings I would know they were modern. Bawden's techniques as a watercolourist are still used today and that is one of the reasons I would be unsure, paintings that look similar to his are produced by artists all of the worlds. So it's not his style that would jump out to me as old fashioned, I feel a lot of his paintings lack any real colour, they seem old and dated in terms of their personality. Even artists who don't paint with colour provide some sense of character by creating stark contrasts and more detail if anything I would say his paintings look slightly muddy and a bit bland.
The next thing I did was to develop two different illustrations in the styles of the artists I had chosen. The first one I did was by Edward Bawden. I chose to use the Berliner Dom as my inspiration, it's a famous cathedral in Berlin as my girlfriend recently took me there for my birthday. Interestingly Berlin was one of the places that most inspired me in terms of graphic design. It's very bold and modern. I tried to collect as many leaflets and take photos of posters that caught my eye, a lot of it is very abstract and clean.
However what's more interesting is the architecture, Berlin is full of quite jaw-dropping structures with immense scale. The buildings are the furthest thing from the modern graphic design that surrounds them.
From looking at Edwards pieces he produces very precise bold lines. I started by sketching out the Berliner Dom inside a watercolour sketchbook I have, I took pictures of the various stages of its 'construction'
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| Reference image |
The sketches did take quite a while, I did a really rough outline with a 2H pencil and then started with more precise lines, in terms of the sketch I was happy with how the process went. I managed to get the scale right and parts of the building lined up with where they were supposed to be. The perspective was also something I tried hard to get right, buildings aren't something I draw very often and I found it a challenge to get the perspective right and ensure lines were straight, it didn't go completely to plan and there are some lines that looking back on it aren't straight.
I then took a 6B pencil and added the thick black lines that Edward sometimes uses. The hard thing I noticed was that when drawing the straight lines it was hard to then go over them and draw those lines a second time. 6B isn't as forgiving and wasn't as easy to correct. I don't particularly have the steadiest of hands.
The painting process Is where I feel I ruined the drawing. The colour was too dark and when I added the darker shadows it just created this brown muddy building. I didn't have any watercolour so I had to use the brush pens that I have. They have a paintbrush like character and act and respond exactly like a paintbrush but I think the paper wasn't the best for them and the pigment wasn't that consistent. I also didn't like how my pencil outline is shiny and reflects the light. It just gives the whole thing an ugly aesthetic in my eyes. It was also really hard to retain detail whilst using paintbrushes.
For Micheal, I decided to take an animated character and give them a splash of realism. His concept art specifically for Alice and Wonderland seems to use this style and it's so cool and interesting. I think people are so used to friendly animated characters, but in this world that Micheal has helped craft life is grittier and not all sunshine which is closer to the real world so its fitting the characters don't have 'cute' animated features.
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| The caterpillar from Alice and Wonderland |
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| Fox from Zootopia |
This was where I started, I chose the fox from Zootopia. He does definitely resemble a fox 100% but a human fox that talks. I then found reference images for real foxes and began sketching.
I would've liked to have created this illustration digitally, but I don't have the tools to do that and producing something like this with a mouse wouldn't have ended up looking any good. So I chose the next best thing and a medium that I'm very comfortable with. I have been using markers for quite a long time now just for fun, it's the closest to digital art in my opinion.
I started with just a rough sketch, I made the lines a slightly jagged just to create the idea of fur, I didn't want it to look too fake and usually fur is fine and not large pieces. I feel this worked well.
I then used a 0.3mm fineliner to ink the drawing, this process does tend to make the image feel flat in my opinion, because the sketch isn't as precise, once you take away that and just add one fine line it starts to have less depth and character.
I then picked the colours for the face, I found lots of different shades of orange and then a light grey for the bottom of the mouth. This is a feature that the fox from the film doesn't have but is closer to a real fox. The real head I used had its mouth open and sharp teeth exposed, I used this because it seemed the most real and brought the fox into reality.
I then coloured the rest of his outfit and body.
I finally used a 0.7mm fineliner to add shadows, I found a tip when watching a tutorial that using a thicker pen to add detail where lines connect just brings the whole thing together. It stops it from looking flat and lifeless. I think because how well this tip worked it just resonated with me and I used it all the time.
In conclusion, I did enjoy this exercise and the research part of the exercise helped me to discover new artists which is always positive and go through and analyse their own work. I've also learnt a lot, I read about different techniques and styles and thought that was beneficial, specifically I thought the way Edward looked back into the past and away from the Impressionism he was surrounded by was great and really helped modernise watercolour. I still do appreciate the abstract art from people like Monet but thought what Edward did, really helped the industry. From a physical standpoint, when I painted the Berliner Dom the whole process did teach me a lot, I don't think using the thicker pencils actually replace the use of ink and doesn't give the same effect, it makes the drawing look shiny and in my eyes it's unprofessional.
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