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1. The research and design of fashion and life-style illustration. 2. Memory Island, A picture book project by Diyou Wu. Thesis 2014 @ MFA Illustration Practice Maryland Institute College of Art
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This book records the process of my children’s book project Memory Island, and the development of my style from fashion illustration to life-style illustration. These processes occurred during my graduate studies at MICA between 2012 and 2014.
My project is dedicated to the people who helped me to make my dreams come true.
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Contents Background
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From Fashion to Life-style Illustration
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Introduction
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Fashion Calendar 2013
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Commissioned Work
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Selected Art for Thesis Show
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Thesis Show (Part I)
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Memory Island
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Inspiration
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Introduction
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Original Art
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Process
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Character Design
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Thesis Show (Part II)
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Children’s Illustration Porfolio
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Next Step
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Picture Book Direction
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Editorial Work Direction
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Background Diyou Wu (Decue Wu)
Website: decuewu.com Email: decuewu@gmail.com Instagram: decue_illustration Tel: +1 857 272 0087
I was born in 1990 in Shenzhen, China. Before coming to Baltimore to attend Maryland Institute College of Art’s Illustration Practice MFA program, I majored in Digital Media Art in Zhejiang University of Media and Communications in China. Drawing has always been my huge passion; I spent most of my spare time in college drawing in my sketch book. So I decided to pursue my dream of becoming an artist in the future. This was the main reason I travelled abroad to the United States and enrolled in graduate school.
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From fashion to life-style illustration
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Introduction
In my first year at MICA, the majority of my work focused on fashion illustration. Since I was a child in China, I have been an avid follower and illustrator of fashions, so when I came to America, I decided to continue. My research of the the American market for fashion illustration revealed that many fashion-related industries, such as publications, fashion houses, and advertising, have a significant demand for talented fashion illustrators. Many notable fashion illustrators add their own element into the illustration while showing a designer’s vision. They also document fashion shows as editorial illustrations for magazines, newspaper, and other publications. Although I am still developing my own unique visual style for my illustrations, my direction is clearer because of the created artwork, especially those that combine practical experience with innovative ideas. Fashion inspires me to create delicate artwork. The phenomenon of beauty has always been my fond subject of contemplation. My artwork presents fashion illustration as a fine art. I insist that fashion illustration dispels the idea that it is merely a functional tool for a fashion house or to instruct tailors, or to be manipulated as a marketing-and-sales device in fashion magazines or blogs. Instead, these exquisite drawings lift fashion illustration to its rightful place -- as a high-art from worthy of acquisition by a museum or a private collector. I suggest fashion is not just a base of clothing design. It is a carrier that supports and transfers story, history, emotion and personality. In illustration I seek emotional impact and not just focus on creating visually attractive designs. When I design fashion images, I can feel the emotion directly connected with the shape, volume, tone, color palette, subtle relationships between figure and silhouette, and the texture of materials. Gradually, I developed my unique style into abstract, figurative and geometric elements to capture the fashions of my imagination, and to tell a story to provoke the viewer to look for the hidden message and even give rise to a designer’s entire fashion collection.
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Fashion Calendar 2013
Fashion illustration is a recurring theme in my first-year projects at MICA. Fashion Calendar 2013 is a short-term assignment designed for the publishing project. Fashion, which is seasonally driven, is an interesting subject for a calendar. My publishing project was to create a 2013 calendar with the fashion illustrations I created in the first semester. All illustrations were selected from my favorite fashion designers’ collections, such as Raf Simons for Christian Dior, Junya Watanabe for Junya Watanabe, Hedi Slimane for Saint Laurent Paris among others. The pictures depict previous shows and the latest styles. Each image is arranged to match the month or the season. The calendar is constructed so that the first six months are on one side and the last six months are on the other side. The two sides have been hand-stitched together.
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Illustration inspired by Jil Sander Fall/Winter 2012
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Illustration inspired by CÉLINE Fall/Winter 2012
For the other projects, some are related to fashion themes, such as pattern design, stop-motion based on a runway show, hand-lettering designed in fashion models, among others. Some of these projects just gave me opportunities to think and try different kinds of illustrations and experiment in different media and techniques to create fashion-related products. All have been very helpful and meaningful in finding new ways to express my artwork. Since my first year, my fashion illustrations have been featured in several fashion blogs, such as The Swide Dolce&Gabbana Luxury Online Magazine, Draw A Dot; Fashionay Hand. And I have kept designing editorial illustrations for publications, such as Vogue, L’ Hommes Officiel, For Him Magazine, Sillything,The Swide, Arty, Milk X.
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Commissioned Work Vogue China March Issue, 2014: The editor required me to depict ten specific collections emphasizing the accessories of each designers. The following credits from left to right are Christian Dior Spring/Summer 2014 and Valentino Spring/Summer 2014.
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Men’s fashion for Milk X September Issue, 2013: The editor requested that I create specific collections and create different background scenes to match each designer. The credits are Thom Browne Fall/Winter 2013 and Yohji Yamamoto Fall/Winter 2013.
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Vogue China May 2014, with the theme “Jet Set“: The editor requested me to depict a series of six revolutionary jet sets from steam ship to rocket, and to create six fashion models to match each period of transportation. 16
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Almond Blossom, The Swide magazine, watercolor, 2014.
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These successes have given me confidence to create fashion images. While I researched the fashion illustration market in the U.S., I came up with the idea to adapt my runway images into a full-color background, to translate drawings from fashion, rendering clothing and accessories to life-style images. I now concentrate on generating the relationship between the environment or space and the figures; designing my own patterns and textures to apply to the geometric shapes; demonstrating creative ideas using fashion images as visual communication.
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Selected art for thesis show
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Left: Untitled, digital, 8.5’’ x 11’’, 2o14
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Right: Pets, digital, 8.5’’ x 11’’, 2014.
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Illustrations from left to right are for Mocca Zine, incoperated with MICA IP MFA program. The theme is “Remembering the 90’s”.
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Untitled, digital, 8.5’’ x 11’’, 2o14.
inspired by CÉLINE coat, digital, 8.5’’ x 11’’, 2o14.
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Left: A couple, digital, 8’’ x 12’’, 2014 Right: Black Kitten, digital, 8.5’ x 11’’, 2014
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Home, digital, 11’’ x 8.5’’, 2o14.
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Thesis Show (Part I) @ Decker Gallery, Fox Building, Maryland Institute College of Art, 2014
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Memory Island A 40-page pircture-book project
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I am passionate about continuing this multi-faceted approach to making art. I had never tried a long-term book project before, so by the end of my first year, I decided to create a children’s book as my thesis project. I had collected the basic instruction and experiences of creating a picture book during my Graduate Teaching Internship for Senior Illustration class; and my Advanced Sequential Art elective course; in the mean time, I had been making a series of comics to practice my narrative story-telling skill. Thus, I decided to combine my fashion and life-style illustration to design a full-color children’s book.
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Inspiration
Alice and Marti n Provensen
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Ana Juan
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Introduction Target: 5 to 8 year old Media: Gouache, Watercolor, Color Pencil Author&Illustrator: Diyou Wu
The 40-page picture book by Diyou is about a girl’s strange and mysterious memory while on a small fantasy island. She experiences a series of surreal and magical events, such as a blue village with chartreuse trees, an animal circus and pink grassy field, which came to life with a whisper to the grass. It does not matter if the story is true or not; it may come from the main character’s imagination or expectation. Children believe what they expect, no matter if it is real or not. Till they grow up, everything seems like a beautiful dream hidden in their childhood memory. I did have the experience to travel a small island in my hometown of Shenzhen, China, where the shore was full of vibrant colored rocks. The background scenes inside the story also actually come from real life. For example, the blue village is inspired by the Blue City in Jodhpur, India; the pink grassy field is inspired by the Higashimokoto Flower Park in Japan.
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Story As far as my memory goes, my scout troupe spent our summer camping on a small island. The island was in the middle of the ocean; we had to travel on a boat from another island to get there. The shore was full of vibrant colors. There was a man on the island, and he told us a story about the island. He said he had been to the most mysterious and hidden part of the island, which was a small blue village, where the trees were chartreuse. Whenever there was a full moon the circus would turn up and all the animals were dressed like men and danced a jig together. The circus would vanish the next day when the sun rose. We longed to meet that circus. The old man took us to a pink grassy field on the island, and he told us our wishes would come true with a few whispers to the grass, so we all started whispering. I still wished for the circus to appear. When we left I turned around, and the field was green. We went back to the island as night fell. I heard the sound of a trumpet while sleeping; slowly I peeked out of my tent and saw a little monkey unicyclist playing the trumpet. And then I saw the animal circus. The moon was round as round can be. I joined the circus, and played with every animal. When the sun began to rise, the circus was about to leave. I chased them, and the monkey gave me his trumpet as a gift. The following day while everyone was heading for a swim in the sea, I was looking for every trace that the circus might have left behind, but I couldn’t find anything, not even the trumpet. Eventually we left the island. I kept searching, but never did find it...
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Oringinal Art
Blue Houses Hidden into the Chartreuse Forest, gouache and color pencil, 8’’x 8’’, 2013.
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Left: Cover of Memory Island, watercolor, gouache and color pencil, 10’’x10’’, 2014. Right: My physical book samle printed on Lulu.com, exhibited on my thesis show.
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Blue Village, watercolor, gouache and color pencil, 8’’x 10’’, 2013.
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Time Passing, watercolor, gouache
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e and color pencil, 8’’x 16’’, 2013.
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Pink Grassy Field, watercolor, gouac
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che and color pencil, 8’’x 16’’, 2013.
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Whisper, watercolor, gouache a
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and color pencil, 8’’x 16’’, 2013.
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Peek Out of the Tent, watercolor, goua
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ache and color pencil, 8’’x 16’’, 2013.
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The Animal Circus, watercolor, goua
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ache and color pencil, 8’’x 16’’, 2013.
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The Trumpet Hidden in Pink Grassy Field, water
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rcolor, gouache and color pencil, 8’’x 16’’, 2013.
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Process Thumb Nails Dummy Book Finish Arts Digital Text
This project was my first time to do a children’s book. The most challenging setback was to develop children’s style illustration altered from my fashion style. One thing that I have been constantly searching for is ways to improve my story-telling ability. At the thumb-nail stage, initially, I planned to arrange the scout troupe that was carried by a giant bird flew to the island. After a critique, I decided to change the bird into a ship, so the story would start from reality and move to the surreal, fantasy world, and then move back to reality. It makes more sense when story-telling is told in a line reality-surreality-reality sequence. I also expanded the length of the story from 32 pages to 40 pages, in order to present the story more fluidly. Story-telling means of communication, similar to a song or a movie. The direction and rhythm for the readers are essential. The whole direction of my book is from left to right, so I organized the ship to sail from left to right as it enters the island, and leaves to the right. The imaginary line of the direction is like a top parabola. The direction serves the rhythm, because the story is constantly moving to several different colored places. That way the readers can feel the movement as it pushes forward visually.
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Thumb Nails
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Dummy Book
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At the dummy stage, I always experiment to play and form a suitable and interesting composition, with the purpose to convey the story completely, and meanwhile shortening the texts. One of the most difficult parts is to apply the texts on the appropriate space of the full color image. I did leave the spaces for the texts, but when I executed the finished art, the space was always not large enough to put into the texts. My solution was to further shorten the texts and edit the image in photoshop. The other part was to discover the appropriate font. I researched and practiced different types to fit the illustration and the space; finally, I chose Sassoon Primary. From this project, I learned to sufficiently prepare the texts and spaces before starting the finished artwork. 61
Character Design Animals Human
During the process, I created many character sketches. I determined that the main character would have a horse-hair and wear a pink polka-dotted shirt, because the story was based on my memory. She would have the original appearance of me from my childhood. It is my passion to create different patterns and accessories on the children’s outfit. In my opinion, the various outfits can express different personalities and characteristics. The design of the animal circus became the most playful and interesting part of the creative process. I conducted enormous research on real circus animals, and translated the figures into comical and graphics shapes and forms; in addition, I applied rich patterns on their outfits. Organizing the position of characters proved very crucial. I composed a lot of methods to make the composition interesting, especially for the “Join Circus Scene� (page 66). Eventually, I cropped the designs and played with scale to display the art perfectly.
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Initial character designs for th
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he scene “Join in the Circus”.
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Join in the Circus I, watercolor, gouache, co
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olor pencil and digital edit, 8’’x 16’’, 2013.
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Join in the Circus II, watercolor, gouache, c
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color pencil and digital edit, 8’’x 16’’, 2013.
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Thesis Show (Part II)
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Children’s illustration portfolio
Left: Kids Excercise, digital, 8,5’’x 11’’, 2014. Right: Kids, digital, 8.5’’ x 11’’, 2014.
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Dropping Ice-cream, digital, 8,5’’x 11’’, 2014.
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Digging Nose, digital, 8.5’’ x 11’’, 2014.
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Next Step Picture Book Direction
Publisher
- Bloomsbury Children’s Book
- Sholastic Press
- Candlewick
- Shen’s Books
- Chronicle Books For Children
- Northsouth books
- Dutton Children’s Books
- Enchanted Lion Books
- Holiday House, INC.
- HarperCollins
- Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Children
- Penguin Group USA
- Kane/Miller Book Publishers
- Writers House
- Puffin Books (Penguin)
- Nobrow Press
- G.P.Putnam’s sons hardcover(Penguin)
- Simon&Schuster Books for Young readers
- Ramdom House Children’s Books
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Children’s Book Competition
- Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators: SCBWI - NamBook Festival 2014 - The Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards - The Independent Publishers Book Awards - The Indie Excellence National Book Awards® - Next Generation Indie Book Awards® - Hans Christian Andersen Award - Calliope Fiction Contest - Don Fewwman Memorial Grant-in-aid - Golden Kite Awards - Hackney Literary Awards - Mclaren Memorial Comedy Play Writing Competition
Magazine - Belly Kids - Anorak Mag - Inis Mag - Illustration Mag - Carousel Mag - Cricket Mag 83
Next Step Editorial Work Direction
Magazine
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- Small City Mag, such as Balimore Style.
- Nobrow
- Nautulus
- Airlines Mag
- Family Circle
- A Magazine
- Rookie
- Purple
- GQ
- Boston Globe
- ELLE
- Wallstreet Journal
- Harper’s Bazaar
- Time
- Vogue
- Washington Post
- The New York Times/ T Magazine
- Style.com
- The New Yorker
- Nylon
Gallery - Fashion Illustration Gallery
Submmissions - It’s Nice That - Pattern Pulp - Juxtapoz - Booooooom! - Ape on the Moon - Decoy Magazine - Bright Young Scribes - Cargo Gallery - The Draw&Cook - Design Week
Competition - Society of Illustrator - American Illustration - Communication Arts - 3x3 - Creative Quarterly - Graphics Competition - Illustration Friday - CMYK Magazine - Adobe - Applied Arts
- Show Studio - Dash Magazine - Trendland - The Ground
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All materials in this book may not be reproduced or stored without prior written permission from Diyou Wu and in no case for profit.
Copyright Š 2014 Diyou Wu. All rights reserved.
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