Obviously any illustrator would be happy to take a commission for something within their ability range, but equally, it’s nice to feel you have a bent towards something in particular, some area you have an understanding and feel for. I think with me, it’s the children/young people and the mental health arenas. I’m a trained counsellor and child therapist and was once a teacher and youth leader. I guess, then, that the interest predated the choices of those occupations to some extent. And I find now I’m usually drawing young people or mental health issues. (The young people/child focus obviously…
Category: thoughts
Always looking over our shoulder
The internet has given us fantastic empowerment in so many ways, yet there are still one or two drawbacks that are going to be felt for generations to come. As a former child therapist, the one that sticks out for me is the way our young people are totally taken over by the need to present an online persona that is Liked and accepted. The way this shows up is in constantly checking (all night sometimes) to see if people have Liked a comment or responded to something important, or said something that they need to know by the next…
Thinking about creativity
There is research out there that shows that either persistence or flexibility will end up producing a creative idea – apparently the danger is picking neither path! Phew, I’m OK then. I usually pester one idea to death till something emerges, or flip from idea to idea till something grabs me. Staying in bed is not the way forward (but I knew that anyway!). Faced with portraying this general idea as an illustration for a putative article, I decided that children drawing flowers was a point in hand. They do it all the time in Reception. So – you could…
Working on children’s illustration
I have used a number of styles over the years to illustrate children and settings for stories. It would be just so easy to copy the prevailing style and say job done. But then, who would hire me? Art directors have trusted illustrators already who do those styles and do them well. Many at the moment are prepared or finished off in Illustrator, it seems. This is not an app I like for my main artwork. And lots of other images of children have super-sized faces and very flexible and stylised arms and legs. I do love them. Just that…
Working to a self-imposed brief is fun
Sometimes I have wondered if my first idea is my best. Obviously I carry on either way – you have to hand over a couple of good ones to an Art Director. And especially not a version that you’d hate having to work on! Anyway, having had a good rest this summer, I set myself the task of illustrating the dangers of obsessive internet use by young people, for whom collecting Likes has often taken over from real socialising in person (not always but often). I came up with four ideas, two of which I quite liked and two that…
Mixed media, hand made or digital?
Ticking upload boxes on portfolio sites, such as the Association of Illustrators in the UK and the Directory of Illustration in the US is always problematic for me. Nearly everything these days ends up digital. If you just scan it in and send it to the client, I guess it is hand made. Anything added and it could be deemed digital. On the other hand, visibly digital is quite different from using digital means to an end (isn’t it completely obvious who has used Illustrator or some special Photoshop brushes?). So what are art directors expecting if they key in…
A raft of flowers
I like this sort of project because there is a rhythm to adding the next illustration all the time. I did them over a recent week after my father suddenly died. It was therapeutic as much as anything. He loved his garden. I also like working with a soluble ink pen. I have two Rotring ArtPens in Fine and Extra Fine. They work a treat for sketching in the image and then wetting it judiciously to make the tones. I often use a Derwent water brush for this part, because a real paintbrush can often hold and release too much water. The…
