David Hughes

David Hughes similarly to myself works with portraiture. Although he doesn't just focus on politics which I think is something that I need to do, as I don't want to pigeonhole myself just yet. He also turns his characters into book covers which I am considering doing for the Penguin Random house brief. Our styles may be different, but I think I need to look at his process to help improve my practice. 

Weekly Affair - Week 4

'Marmitexit'

This affair is quite delayed, as the marmite scandal was two weeks ago. But this image had popped into my head so thought it would be a waste to not include it into my weekly affair project. I really enjoy working with gouache, I definitely prefer it to just pencil, although it does take me longer to produce. But the colours are something that I feel make it so successful and is definitely something I want to continue with and improve upon. 

Post session thoughts

After having this morning session it has given me a better understanding of what to do for my briefs. Before I was worried about doing live competition briefs such as penguin and secret 7 because it didn't really relate to my work. But now I've realised that I just need to tailor them more to my own interests so now I have a clearly mind.

Penguin Random House: Draw characters from the books provided (for 2016/17)
>I want to draw characters because this will help with my portraiture skills, even though they're not my usual subjects, it'll still help my skills
Then collect these characters and turn them into the book cover
>This means I'm still taking part in the competition

Secret 7: Focus heavily on one or two songs and make a selection of artwork from these
>I need to improve the amount of research I do before I create my artwork as this let me down a lot last year for responsive.
Give my illustrations a political/satirical focus
>So even though album covers aren't something that I am interested in going into, the context and subjects of my illustration will be the same. Also editorial is about interpreting text, so having to take a piece of music and then create a visual is somewhat similar.

Weekly Affair - Week 3

Michael Gove revealed as 'Killer Clown'

This is my favourite so far from the three. I think gouache is a lot more impactful than just a pencil drawing, although it does take me a lot longer. Anyway, the killer clowns have been all over the news causing immense disruption, so I had to incorporate it into my work. I had also read an article about Michael Gove YET AGAIN tearing apart the creative sector in schools by getting rid of art history for a-level - https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/oct/12/last-art-history-a-level-axed-after-michael-gove-cull-of-soft-subjects?CMP=fb_gu So I had been extremely annoyed at him this weekend, making him the perfect candidate to be behind the killer clown mask.

Weekly Affair - Week 2

Trump and Hillary and excited for Drake's new tour

Second drawing for my weekly affair brief. This picture has been all over the internet so I couldn't resist drawing my own version. But I thought I'd give it an extra piece of weekly information as it was released that Drake will be touring, not like that should really be top news but oh well. So I combined the two together to bring two weekly affairs to one illustration, so I drew them singing a 'One Dance' duet. 

One a week brief - Weekly Affair

From thinking about my own personal practice, I think that the one a week briefs are going to be the best for my practice as editorial is something that I'm very interested in. So I wanted the one a week brief to be the most obviously relatable to my interest in political satire illustration and for it to explicitly be that. 

So I decided to do a character/scenario once a week based on the current affair of that week. I want my illustrations to not take more than a couple of hours to do, as in editorial work the turn around is extremely quick. I want to mainly work with pencil, but also gouache because it's what I work best in. 

I'm also hoping that this develops my character skill, so I become faster and anatomically better at drawing characters.

5 Statements... (Rationale)

> I want to...become a good editorial illustrator because... this is the field I am interested in, this means I will be able to... excel in that field.

> I need to... understand colour theory because... it will help my practice, this means I will be able to... create more impactful illustrations

> I need to... create work that I enjoy because... it's good for my mental health, this means I will be able to... produce more work as I enjoy doing it.

> I want to... become good at presenting because... it helps with my professionalism, this means I will be able to... use this skill in my future career.

> I need to... know how to get an agent because... I need someone to help get me work, this means I will be able to... be a more successful illustrator.

Initial Statement of Intent - Rationale

From thinking about my previous modules and what subjects I enjoyed and excelled in the most, I would like to explore editorial. This has made want to focus my briefs towards this area, with doing a few other different types of brief to keep my options open (like secret 7 for example). I also think that if I want to go into editorial, then the best kind of briefs for me would be quick turn around briefs as this would be similar to the line of work I’m interested in, making good practice. I found that there isn’t as many editorial briefs to that of publication or promotional campaigns, so I think I’m going to have to either adapt briefs or come up with my own rather than lots of live or collaborative briefs.

I want this module to keep me drawing and be an active illustrator rather than having to create work every now and again. I want to be pushed by deadlines and specifications to get me to the highest point I can be as an illustrator

Weekly Affair - Week 1

'If you haven't already checked out Louis Theroux's new documentary then get on it!'

My first weekly affair drawing is of Louis Theroux, because I have just finished watching his latest documentary on Jimmy Saville and as per always it was amazing. I think that the issues that he brings up and how you can relate them to either your own experiences or just general day to day happenings is something that makes his documentaries so powerful. Although my drawing isn't satirical, it's something that I still wanted to illustrate for that week because it really stood out to me and made me think. It's still character drawing experience anyway.

Briefs I'm considering

ALREADY COMPLETED:
(2 mini briefs)

Talenthouse is a website full of quick competition briefs. These briefs have quite a quick turn around, which is what I wanted to capitalise in my practice. They also provide very different subject matters, which stops me from creating the same kind of artwork.

Self written brief - Draw a character every week - must be contemporary, a current person that's relevant to today.

Secret 7 - Album cover brief - Although I don’t have a great interest in doing album covers, I would like to use my portraiture and exploration of colour in this brief. I think instead of doing all seven (unsuccessfully), I will heavily focus on one or two so I can really get my teeth into visualising the song

Penguin - Similar to Secret 7, I don’t really have an interest in designing book covers, but I would like to use this brief to explore colour and portraiture. I would like to maybe adapt the brief so I could not just do the book covers, but maybe extra ephemera such as posters and small illustrations of the book.

Find articles to illustrate - I currently can’t find any live editorial briefs. So, if I still can’t find any within a few weeks, I would like to have my own briefs. This will consist of illustrating articles which are relevant and up to date as possible