Becky Scarborough Final Major Project: Unit EGRD 3015 Independent Practice 3B: Summation & Production
Summary of initial proposal What? To apply my own illustration and design to products for commercial sale.
Who? My target audience is young creative’s, general public from the age of 20+, mostly females.
Why? My passion for handmade and making things, whilst exploring my own illustration skills and image making techniques.
When? Firstly, explore a broad theme to come up with content to illustrate and develop, and eventually focus. Continue to experiment with making things as project goes on.
Where? Sell products such as books, postcards, prints, tote bags etc through online shops or actual gift shops/fairs.
Theme: Habitat
Initial proposal & theme My initial proposal lacked scope, boldness and impact, because I was unsure of what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to make things for this project, realising that my strengths lie within illustration, and crafting products to sell. I also wanted to expand on my own independent practice and enhance my identity, by building upon my online shop and website. From previous projects I find I work better to a theme or word that I can explore, research into and work from. This then gives me a problem to solve. So I gave myself the theme of Habitat, thinking about both animals and humans. I knew I could explore it in different ways, so I wouldn’t end up being stuck for ideas at any point.
I began looking into other designers and illustrators who apply their designs to products to then make and sell, such as Gemma Correll or Rob Ryan. The book ‘Made & Sold’ by FL@33 was particularly good for this as it was full of quirky products and inspiration. I also thought about products that I would like to make, so inspired by the book ‘The Tote Bag’ by Jitesh Patel, I tried making my own tote using my feather illustration from the previous project, and t-shirt transfer paper. I did intend to make lots more of these depending on the type of illustration I would end up doing later on.
Family tree
“Knock knock”
“Home tweet home”
Mixing human & animal habitat
“Oh deer, not again”
From doing some primary and secondary research into habitat as my theme, and taking part in Martin O’Neill’s workshop, I was inspired to do some quick, small collages. I had an initial idea of experimenting by mixing animal and human habitat. I gave these collages captions to add further meaning and wit because without them they don’t have the same impact. Little did I know that this short evening task, I had set myself, would lead onto several other ideas to explore.
Thinking outside of the bird box These bird boxes also developed from thinking about mixing human and animal habitat. I decided to make a bird box with some human home comforts (Also inspired by a particular Robinson’s advert - see bibliography) After a trip to the dolls house shop and the garden centre, I had a bird-house. The inside of the house works better as the bird can be placed on the chair however, on the outside of the box they seem to be floating slightly. This is something I’d like to improve. At this stage I was reading a book called ‘Thinking Visually’ by Mark Wigan. I wanted to improve my conceptual thinking and understanding of illustration theory in order to add more message and meaning to my work.
This book made me realise that illustrators need a strong concept behind their work to set it apart from others, and for it to have a unique selling point. I found a particular quote useful, thinking that it related my own illustration practice: “The new flexible generation of illustrators is creating self-driven projects incorporating entrepreneurial skills, taking responsibility and control of the whole process from concept to final product”. (Wigan, M:2006)
No pun intended These deer puns developed from the small collage I had previously done, and the caption I had given it – “Oh deer, not again”. I came up with a total of 12 deer puns, all using wordplay of different names for deer. I thought it would be a good idea to illustrate them. My first step was to collect some primary research and visited Richmond Park, to take photographs. These were not the best quality, due to bad lighting conditions and camera, but they were good enough to draw from. I was excited about this and got some good feedback when I showed my initial sketches in a group meeting. These sketches went through a lot of changes as the project progressed. Initially they were pencil sketches with elements added using colouring pencil. To get the idea across this was okay, but when scanned it looked messy and unprofessional (using the ‘rain deers’ to the right as an example). I decided to re-draw the deer, this time adding more detail and shadow, and attempted adding the aspects of colour digitally. My first attempt of this colouring (topright) looked far too harsh against the delicate pencil sketch.
I was the inspired by an illustrator called Kelly Smith (example below) and her technique in adding colour. It seemed she sketched the whole image and then added desaturated hues in a layer behind. I used this technique in Photoshop by using ‘multiply’ and also reducing the opacity of the colour, making it more subtle. I was a lot happier with how this looked.
I left these illustrations and this idea behind just after the mid-point review. I was having concerns on whether they were leading anywhere and I think I had exhausted the idea. Visually I think they work well, although the funnier ones with colour seem more successful. I also decided to replace my original ‘Stagatha Christie’ with ‘very deer’. It was the odd one out as it was based on a real character.
Revisited again at week 12 A couple of weeks ago I decided to re-visit them again. From looking at them I realised how much my illustration had improved in such a short time. I spent a day re-sketching and scanning, and saw another improvement. These are the latest 12 versions.
Bright ideer Oh deer
very deer
Stag do
Tae kwon doe
Cookie doe
Rain deer
Bad ideer
Playdoe
Cluedoe
No ideer
Hello deer
Applying the design to stickers I saw the potential of these deer puns on products. They are exactly the type of thing you would find on a greetings / post card. Thinking the illustrations looked better smaller. I sent them away to be made into stickers, as a test to see how they applied to products. I believe this was successful, so in my spare time I now hope to develop this further as a personal project, eventually applying the designs to more products such as postcards and tote bags, and then selling.
Small side project: Deer Shooting zine (collaboration with Aaron Nicholls) Whilst having deer puns on the brain, I came up with one that was a little different. On another trip to Richmond Park, Aaron helped me take much better photos than my previous visit, as I wanted to make a zine called ‘Deer Shooting’. To begin with I put the zine together using laser printed images with a coloured cover, but I discarded this as I thought it looked too neat.
I realised for full zine-like appearance it should be true black and white, not grey scale. I used the photocopier to put the zine together and reproduce. I am happy with how this has turned out as a small side project, it is simple and quirky. Deer Shooting zine on Issuu - http://issuu.com/ beckyscarborough/docs/deershooting_scanned
Log Badges
New stock @ beginswithb.bigcartel.com
Log Book
Seeing as the brief I set myself was to make lots of new products for my online shop, I started coming up with some new ideas. From doing primary research into woodlands I had taken some photographs of logs and tree stumps. From experimenting with my badge maker I realised that these looked really cool. They don’t have much meaning behind them, apart from being representational of the forest habitat, but aesthetically they’re symbolic because of the simplicity. I have made four sets of two, and they are now for sale on my online shop. Following shortly will be Log Books - notebooks with covers made out of wood. To make these I learnt Coptic binding at the Advanced Bookbinding Workshop. It was really good to learn a new binding technique, so I decided to challenge it by drilling holes into the wood to make covers. The possibilities are now endless!
Final piece development
A brainwave whilst in the garden Knowing I had exhausted my deer puns, I felt a little lost and unsure of what to do next. I knew I wanted to continue working with deer, and the woodland habitat. I then had a sudden brainwave from a pile of cut down branches – antlers!
Mythology & folklore The concept behind this new work came from researching into deer mythology and folklore. One myth stood out, and was perfectly fitting to my imagery:
predator, and they are herbivores, so they are harmless to the other animals. They often remain on the edge of the forest borders and their only threat is man.
“In Celtic religion the stag was a symbol for the god Cernunnos, “The Horned One”. Cernunnos was often portrayed with antlers himself, and was a god of the forest and wild animals”.
I made the little bird house out of balsa wood to show how the stag is protecting the birds home.
I wanted to portray the deer as protector of all the smaller animals in the forest. In the UK deer have no natural
I was extremely happy with how everything was looking, especially with the shadows hitting the illustrations – adding depth. However my message was not clear, so I planned to continue experimenting and developing.
Bud feet & twig legs I continued to explore the garden and woods for materials to use. I wanted to illustrate birds using the same method as my deer. I cut twigs so they resembled a bird’s skinny legs, and I found some flower buds that looked like pigeon peg-legs. To begin with I used these with second-hand imagery from a book, but then realised it made more sense to replicate these by sketching them.
Putting the illustrations in their rightful habitat Through further exploration of the garden I found cedar tree pines, which were perfect in shape and colour for fox and squirrel tails, as well as pussy willow buds for rabbits ears / tail. I was beginning to have a whole collection of animals that I had applied these woodland elements to, but wasn’t too sure of what to do with them. I decided to put them back into the natural outside habitat and photograph them. I was extremely happy with how these looked, but some more than others. The birds began to loose their feet when in the actual tree.
Process & skills From working in and out of the garden collecting bits and pieces for my illustrations I became very hands on, and my studio space became a very messy place! I thoroughly enjoyed experimenting with different materials and using traditional techniques like sketching and collage, and I am always more confident when using nature and animals within my work. I think that using natural elements such as branches and logs has added another dimension to my work, something that definitely wasn’t coming across when doing my deer pun project. I hope this method and style of working continues in my future independent practice.
Testing & planning my final piece I now had a set of woodland animals, all sketched with a part of their body made from an aspect of their natural habitat. I decided a way to communicate my message was to use them all together in a large, 3-D illustration. They would all be inside a forest scene, in the deers antlers. This would then look as though he was protecting them by the forest which was part of him - Guardian of the forest.
I mocked up my idea into a small box frame. It would have layers so that a foreground and background was created, then I could include the fox and rabbit in the foreground as well as birds and squirrel in the background branches. I decided that if this was to be my final piece, it would have to be a lot bigger, so I planned to make it 4x the size, re-drawing everything to fit inside.
External positioning & target audience As I ended up making a large 3-D piece, which was different to my proposal, I had to change where my piece would be externally positioned and also the audience that would see it. Above are two of my favourite designers from the last two years of Pick Me Up: the contemporary graphic art fair. Both Claire Scully (top) and Arran Gregory (above) have featured 3-D pieces to support their illustration
work in the show. This is where I would love to have my work shown, in this sort of exhibition, full of young, fresh and contemporary design and illustration The audience that would see the work and appreciate it would be young designers and illustrators, the general public aged 20+, and also nature lovers because of the subject matter of the work.
Final piece + supporting pieces
Final piece - Guardian of the forest This is my final illustration in the box frame (without glass) photographed where it should be – the forest. This particular photo has shadows, giving it the effect of depth within the forest. It is 16x14 inches big and 3inches deep, designed to be in an exhibition or on someone’s wall as a 3-D piece of illustration.
Guardian of the forest - booklet I realised that the message behind my illustration may not come across from just looking at the piece. I knew a caption would help, but I also decided to make a small booklet to accompany it and to make the message behind it clearer. The main inspiration behind this was a small book I picked up from a solo exhibition by John Dilnot at the Rebecca Hossack Gallery. Dilnot also makes 3-D illustrations in wooden boxes. In themselves they are beautiful pieces of work, but without explanation in the book of what they are about, you may not immediately get the underlying message behind them. The guardian of the forest book tells the story behind the piece and the mythology that it is based on. I used
photographs of branches for my end papers as this is where my initial idea and concept came from. I have printed and hand bound several copies of this however for a digital version please go to: http://issuu.com/beckyscarborough/docs/guardianforest_book
Mini frames - peg legs & twig feet I also came across some smaller box frames, and made two smaller 3-D illustrations. These act as close-ups of the larger piece, focusing more on the detail of the birds featured. These are designed to sit next to the large illustration, to make a set.
Evaluation Looking back at my proposal In my initial proposal I stated how I wanted to design and make my own illustration-based products for commercial sale - I both have, and have not done this. The work I ended up doing towards the end and for my final piece was not the sort of illustration you would find on products such as tote bags and badges. They are sketches - so they don’t scan particularly well, they are designed as 3-D pieces, and photography doesn’t do them justice. They are also one-off unique pieces. However, I do see some opportunities for putting this work into print, such as my supporting book and personal identity. In response to my initial proposal - this is not what I saw myself doing, but it is where the project led me, and I am happy it did. More to my project Rather than having one large body of work I feel like I have done several smaller projects – although they all still linking together under the over arching theme of habitat / forest / animals. I don’t necessarily see all of these smaller projects as finished, so I’m hoping I can continue with what I have been doing as it is my independent practice. I feel like I answered my own set brief in other ways, as these mini projects I have been doing I have made into products. Such as log badges and book, deer shooting zine, and deer pun postcards and stickers. Some of these I intend on selling eventually. These are more appropriate to apply to products because they are easier to reproduce. Still more to be explored I also feel like there is more to be explored within my final concept. I only worked on one myth in particular due to the time I had left at that stage of the project, but I really want to research deeper into mythology and folklore of the forest, and other animals. I still have lots of ideas in my head, and although it was a very long project, because I had so many ideas, I seemed to have run out of time. However I believe my time management has been consistent throughout, and I am happy with the amount of work I have produced. Dead ends and failures I did encounter a few ends and failures throughout. I am glad I moved on from my deer puns, otherwise I wouldn’t have ended up what I was doing eventually, which I think is a lot stronger. My final piece took a lot of skill and patience to put together, as everything had to be measured precisely to fit inside. This took a few attempts to get right, but I learnt from each mistake made.
Influences and inspiration I found that I didn’t let myself get too influenced by other illustrators and designers, something that I might usually do. But as the project progressed I was more comfortable with developing my own illustrative style, that I didn’t need influence from others. The research that I did was more to find out about theory, method and process behind other work, rather than style. Target audience and external positioning The fact that I ended up making a 3-D piece of work means that my target audience and external positioning of the piece changed. For this piece of work in particular I see it being placed in an exhibition space, a bit like John Dilnot’s one off box frames he creates and sells as pieces of art. However he also makes a lot of more reproducible work that he sells at book fairs and online, such as hand bound books and prints. I see my final piece as a better way to showcase my potential illustration skills. Personal development and the future My illustration has definitely improved a lot over the last few months. I have had the opportunity to practice and I am a lot more confident. I also think my conceptual thinking has improved from doing more reading, and even with practice. I have found myself coming up with better ideas and meaning behind my work than in previous units. Over the last few months, I have been given two opportunities to illustrate for magazines. One of which wants me for the recent work I have been producing, as they want me to illustrate an article about forests. So this final major project has already opened a new door for me.
Bibliography • Robinsons “Be Natural” Bird House advert 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3btjAslx- OY&feature=player_embedded • Made & Sold fl@33 (2009). Made & Sold: Toys, T-shirts, Prints, Zines and Other Stuff. London: Laurence King. • Thinking Visually Wigan, M (2006). Basics Illustration: Thinking Visualy. London : AVA • The Tote Bag Patel, J (2011). The Tote Bag. London : Lawremce King. •Photograph of Claire Scully’s work - taken at Pick me up: contemporary graphic art fair at somerset house 2010 •Photograph of Arran Gregory’s work - taken at Pick Me Up: contemporary graphic art fair at Somerset House 2011 • Kelly Smith image taken from: http://www.birdyandme.com.au/ • Deer folklore & mythology http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/forest/mythfolk/deer.html • John Dilnot exhibition booklet Dilnot, J (2010). John Dilnot. London: Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery.