The Illustrated Self - Summary of Research

Since these 10 illustrations should summarise my experiences this year, I thought I should incorporate some of the illustrators’ work I have taken a personal interest in. These have been evidenced on my blog previously and I have selected a specific few who I feel have inspired me the most this year. I think ink is the medium with which I have achieved my most successful outcomes this year and I feel I have explored the variety of ways that this medium can be used - because of this, the illustrators I have chosen have specifically inspired my ink work. 

George Butler’s work interests me because he is a reportage illustrator, meaning he is capturing things that are happening before his eyes. Because of this, his work has a sense of immediacy and honesty which I am drawn to. His subject matter mainly revolves around current affairs and travel which means he gets to experience a lot of different countries and environments and his challenge is to make each individual atmosphere evident in his images. 

Holly Sharpe was another illustrator’s work I came across - she specifically works as a fashion illustrator and artist. It was her confidence with application of media and choice of colour that caught my attention. Colour is something I am still not entirely comfortable using so I am hoping to take inspiration from her work in the future to become more brave with my colour choices.   

I came across Lucinda Rogers’ work at the start of the year and I have felt that her work has impacted on my own ink work in a subtle way throughout the course. Her variation in weight of line contributes to her strong compositions and sense of foreground, mid ground and background. I can draw comparisons between her work and the work of George Butler because she too works in situ which means she has to consider composition and application of media quite quickly, giving her work the same sense of spontaneity as well. 

After revisiting the work of these three illustrators, I am forming an image in my head of what I want the style of my final illustrations to be like. I am going to do some mediate tests with ink using different drawing and painting tools to see what results I can achieve.