Illustration

Illustration

experimentation: 3D, Graphics and 2D

20/05/15

After creating numerous illustrations using Jason Thielke and Lis Clements as inspiration, I realised that, while at first I was very happy with my drawings, they could use a lot of improvement. To do this, I abandoned the drawings for the time being and began to think about how I could improve the drawings. 

I wanted to use flowers and people so that I could make a collection of drawings that united both nature and mankind, even if in a minimal way. To do this, I began researching different types of flowers, focusing mainly on flowers like Peonies, Carnations, Ranunculus, and other flowers like this.  This also gave me an opportunity to try to loosen my drawing style so that I could become more expressive with my illustrations. 

Later, I thought about using different media, and having some 3D aspect within the illustration. So taking this idea, I began researching how to create paper flowers, and also experimented using fabric and tie dying material. 

The instructions to make the paper flowers were, at first, a little difficult to get my head around, however, after doing it how I thought it should be done, the instructions then became a lot clearer.

the end result was a little messy, however, for a first attempt, it was very good. 

The material flowers were little short of a disaster. I had made a flower using material once before, however it was a long time ago, and so the knowledge had slipped my mind, so I tried using different types of material, such as netting, a silky material and some regular scraps of material, I attempted to create flowers. 

The first few attempts were very bad, and quickly allowed me to figure out the capabilities of the different materials. The silky material was very useful in terms of making rose like designs, however the other materials were either too stiff or too heavy and so provided no structure to the designs.

As well as experimenting with different 3D materials, I also experimented using 2D materials, such as Acrylic paint, Graphic markers, Water colours, pen and pencil.

Tie dying:

The tie dying was relatively easy. I used a canvas material and tied it in different ways and then soaked it, so that the dye would absorb easier. I then put two different pieces of material into both a bucket of red and blue dye, poked it down using a stick so that I was sure it was all covered, and then left it for about 30 minutes. The red dye took a lot more to the material than the blue dye, as the blue dye washed off, and I learnt that folding the canvas didn't work. Next time, I would also use a different material, as due to the canvas' almost waterproof properties, where the material was folded, no dye for into that area.