What I made last semester

The past couple posts have been very technical about my working processes, so for this one, I thought it could be a more relaxed post about my general thoughts and feelings, along with some fun pictures to look at.  

I’m in my last year of university and It’s crazy to think I’m so close to graduating. I used to be scared of graduating a couple years ago, mostly because I’ve spent most of my life in a rigid educational setting and soon, I will be flung into the wild west which is the post grad life. No rules, no timetables, and no organised modules to guide me. I’m sure most uni students feel this way.  

I began my final year, and as time went by, I began to reconcile these fears. Time is something you can’t stop, and I’ve learned to accept that. 

The Happy Prince

I just wrapped up my first semester, and I’d like to share some of the work I’ve made.

I illustrated The Happy Prince, which is a novella by Oscar Wilde. The story follows a migrating swallow helping a statue prince relieve the suffering of the townspeople he oversees from his tall monument. Through naiveté and self-sacrifice, the story ends with both their deaths. 

I had a few goals coming into this project. I wanted to find a working process that suited my creative inclinations. I love making immediate and spontaneous works of art, but how do I refine them into a cohesive outcome? The challenge of illustrating a book, which requires consistent characters, intentional design, and world building seemed like a good place to start. 

I began by reading the text and drawing freely on loose sheets of printer paper. I mostly drew from imagination and drew excerpts that brought pictures to my head. I thought of these drawings as experiments and nothing more, until my tutor encouraged me to make them my final outcomes.

I expected to plan several rough storyboards, tons of character design sheets, and colour tests. Instead, the visuals just unfurled on their own, and the story found its own aesthetic while all I had to do was trust the process. I can’t even begin to describe how “Type A” I am and how unnatural this felt for me. 

Despite my inhibitions, it was really fun drawing in this way, and I learned a lot about my practice.

When it came to refining my work, I decided on digitally combining monoprints with my drawings. I learnt about this process from these really cool illustration by Lars Henkel. This way of working allows for more possibilities and flexibility with image-making.

Here are my two double page spreads.

Finally, here are some spot illustrations.

I was surprised at how easy the project felt and how despite that, I’m really happy with the outcomes and what I achieved. Maybe there’s no virtue in stress. Who would have thought?!

An Editorial Illustration

After finishing up the previous project, I still had a week till my deadline. I thought I could work on an illustration responding to a news article.

The article explored the rise in facial recognition surveillance and some of the ramifications of this; like the data being sold to private companies. I thought about a dystopian future where this is commonplace. The author proposes a scenario in which insurance companies could charge you based on your surveillance data.

How funny would it be if an incredibly reckless individual was applying for life insurance in this dystopia? Where footage of them chain-smoking, carelessly crossing the street and a tendency to look down cliff edges was easily accessible to an insurance agent.

This character was developed through mono-screenprinting (a process I love very much and that deserves its own blog post). This process is great for backgrounds and more abstract work, but I find that whenever I print faces they always tend to look a little stupid. Which is exactly what I was going for!

The rest of the cartoon was drawn with pencil and charcoal. And finally, I digitally collaged everything on photoshop.

Two very different projects both in style and subject matter. But both really fun!

Moving Forward

I’m now in my last semester of uni, and I’m really excited to apply everything I’ve learnt over the past few years.

When I first began this blog I intended to update it monthly. Strangely enough after two posts I ran out of things to say. Which is really weird since as a person I seem to have opinions about everything.

Being in my final semester of university is not only bringing in a lot of interesting and personal work, but also a lot of reflections about my practice. So stay tuned for all of that! Newsletter is coming as soon as I figure out how to work that!