Illustration evaluation

Illustration Evaluation (slightly more long winded than usual!)

When I initially got the topic for illustration I was thinking, as I wasn’t a mermaid person that to get something out of it, I would concentrate on ways of representing the sea and possibly the Outer Hebrides. That thought changed over time and I came to the conclusion that illustrations need figures and as the story is about Donald and a mermaid, they needed to be featured in the illustrations.

I was also thinking about my self-set theme for the year, which is movement, energy and weather.

I considered the purpose of illustrations which include transforming the story into something exciting and I wanted to get some oomph into my illustrations.

It was useful looking at illustrators to see what options there were for media to use and what I think makes an illustration work. I love the way Mairi Hedderick shows the islands and island life, and her use of details. I liked the heavily pen like doodles of Chrissy Lau. Maia Walczak’s use of bold colour, line and design really appealed to me, whereas Mae Besom’s style was generally too painterly and weakly coloured. Natalie Ragondet showed me that you don’t have to stick to the conventional colour scheme. Sholto Walker, Turin Tran and Richard Johnson showed how you can combine hand rendering, mixed media and digital effectively.

I considered other sources of inspiration which included my own photographs of holidays on South Uist and the islands, images from the underwater photographs of the year award, Alfons Mucha’s decorative theatrical posters and Turner’s the Snow Storm.

After that research my thoughts were to direct the illustrations towards children even though it was a dark story. As such, I wanted the illustrations to stimulate the imagination and increase observation. To me, this meant there had to be a lot to look at. However, I also wanted the children to be able to feel emotions when they looked at my pictures so I wanted my illustrations to evoke a mood.

I identified early on that I would struggle to get a figure right. My mermaid in my Turner-esque sea didn’t do it for me, nor did Donald in my Hedderick type scene. I also quickly realised that I haven’t the patience for detail so I rethought.

I did a quick line drawing then photoshop effort of the boat on the sea and I loved the vibrant colours. That led me to consider combining hand rendering with digital. I considered other sea options by using the gelli plate. I toyed with a split underwater and above surface composition however chose not to pursue it although I still think that would have been effective. I did a photo montage purely because I had a suitable bunch of magazines and I felt like trying something different. I considered again the composition of having the mermaid in the foreground and the boat in the distance, the problem being that the mermaid’s back would be to the viewer. I tried both watercolour paint and acrylic which reinforced that with acrylic the colour can be a lot bolder.

All these experiments had led me to the point of wanting to combine drawing, painting with acrylics and photoshop. I was keen to have another shot at improving my photoshop skills as I hadn’t worked on them this year. I also felt I hadn’t done any drawing or painting for ages in college.

So I experimented. I drew a mermaid, went over it in fine liner, scanned it and tidied it up on photoshop, then coloured it in. I layered it on top of one of my gelli plate sea backgrounds which had been tweaked a little in photoshop. I could see the potential.

I had been thinking about a composition of the mermaid pulling Donald into the sea/whirlpool, so I painted a circular swirly painting and drew the mermaid and Donald. I did the same as before and became more confident of the direction I was heading.

I quickly considered drawing in fine liner or ink, as Sholto draws in ink. I found the ink too clumsy.

I was beginning to formulate two contrasting images, one dark where the mermaid is pulling Donald to his death, and the other light e.g. the mermaid swimming beside the boat.

I can draw figures if I am copying from life or a picture, however I struggle to draw figures from imagination. Due to the lack of mermaids in my house and that any mermaids on the internet were not in the right pose, I used the wooden artist’s doll to help me get the pose and proportions. The doll doesn’t help with positions of the features and other details. I changed the mermaid from pulling Donald down by his hands to pulling him down by his foot so we could see Donald’s face.

I worked on the separate elements of the picture. The fine liner outlined picture of the two figures and the acrylic painted whirlpool effect. Then I worked on both in photoshop. I reverted back to my original whirlpool as it had more colour definition when it was “motioned blurred”. It also was less typically sea coloured which I think made it more interesting. When I got the picture to the stage it was almost there I set it aside and started on the other.

I planned for this one to be above water and I was concluding that a more close up of a figure would be a good contrast to my other illustration. I opted for the mermaid leaping up to catch the herring. This time I copied the shape of a netball player leaping up so essentially I think the pose and details like the hands work well. The fish was copied from a picture.

I painted another sea, this time choppy with a plastic card. Then I played about with both the figure drawing and the sea in photoshop, all the details are in the sketch book. I decided it needed sky as well so that was done fully on photoshop.

I had managed to get close with both pictures however I still needed to crack bubbles and splashes. I watched a few youtube videos which scared me a bit. My strategy is to slowly increase my photoshop knowledge one bit at a time, and using new techniques a few times to get familiar with them. I am just not a natural computer geek! However one element I took from the videos which I thought I might manage to do, was locate an image on google, cut it out and alter it by size or colour etc and copy onto the picture.

Hence my bubbles and splashes came into fruition.

What do I think of my final images? Well, I am still amazed that I can do this sort of thing at all. I think the seas work well – they are different, bright and bold. There is energy in the sky too. I like the pose of the mermaid leaping and the splashes are okay. If I wasn’t running out of patience I might have worked further on the splashes. I am inordinately pleased with the mermaid’s  hands – that has been a year long struggle! And strangely, I like my fish. I think this illustration works better than the other. My figures have let me down in other one and I realise that I get a better shape drawing from life or photos and I didn’t have these tools for this illustration. The facial expressions are weak, I didn’t get terror on Donald’s face and the mermaid, in general, looks a bit strange. It is really hard getting expressions right when you are drawing so small! I generally think there is a fair amount of movement and energy within them. There isn’t a lot to look at, i.e. details, so they aren’t great observation tools for children learning vocabulary etc. But in reality, this isn’t a story for young children.

Overall, while I wont put these pictures on my wall, I do see them as positive progress in my illustration skills.