Matt Sewell & Malika Favre
Matt Sewell..................4 Malika Favre.................6 Bibliography.................8
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Matt
Sewell
Background
by Katie Cosgriff
Matt Sewell is a wildlife Illustrator, Author, and avid ornithologist from Shrewsbury and has a quirky and recognisable style. He is known by many as the ‘Banksy of the Bird World’, having an ‘obsession with birds’ (Upper Space, 2013), as well as a passion for painting on walls. The 34 year old has written and illustrated the bestselling books: Our Garden Birds, Our Songbirds, Our Woodland Birds, Owls, Penguins and A Charm Of Goldfinch, all published by Penguin. These books feature his favorite subject to illustrate – birds – and are both beautiful and informative. The illustrator stated in an interview: ”I love to draw all kinds of animals, landscapes, letters.” (Cass Art, 2014). Sewell’s Illustrations have been applied to T-shirts, sculptures, walls (murals), posters and interiors and has exhibited work in London, Manchester, Tokyo and Paris. Some of his clients include Barbour, The Guardian, The V&A and Helly Hansen.
Work Process
Sewell uses watercolours, Windsor and Newton Artist’s half pans to be exact, on Arches Watercolour Paper, and believes it is important to use good quality materials to achieve a quality result. His love of watercolours comes from experimenting and making mistakes, which have helped him to develop his style and confidence as an illustrator. “I love using watercolours as it’s permanent and you have to make instant decisions.” said Sewell (CassArt, 2014). His process of illustrating birds begins with carefully studying and sketching them from reference, often from Field Guides or on Google Images. Reducing the subject to its simplest markings and understanding its shape and character are the basis of Matt’s characteristic illustrations.
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I love to draw all kinds of animals - Matt Sewell, 2014
Themes While there are no obvious themes or messages within Matt’s work, the consistency of birds in his work may act as a symbol for British Wildlife. In his wall mural, ‘Rachel’s’ (Fig 4), there is a definite feeling of living in harmony with nature and enjoying the outdoors in a non destructive way, depicting a girl enjoying nature. These themes could well relate to many or all of Matt’s work, as the central theme to his work is nature and wildlife.
Style
The whimsical style of Sewell’s work really stands out and his style of illustration is unique and recognisable. He captures the characteristics of birds effortlessly and these vivid works of art lend themselves fantastically to informative books, stationary and cards.
Meaning for my own work and practice I identified with Sewell as an illustrator because I too am passionate about illustrating wildlife and animals, and creating a message to protect wildlife through illustration. As well as this, one of my favourite mediums to use is watercolour, being inspired by the delicate yet vivid colours. Sewell has designed a range of clothing prints for the brand Barbour, and this is an area of the industry I would like to further explore. Like Sewell, I would like to develop my own unique style, and capture the characteristics of animals the way that he does so effectively.
Left and right page, clockwise from top left: Fig 1: Matt Sewell website logo, 2017 Fig 2 & 3: Barbour Womenswear, 2017 Fig. 4: Rachel’s, 2017 Fig. 5: Stamops, Isle of Man Post Office, 2017 All the above illustrations are sourced from mattsewell.com, 2017
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by Elizabeth Hunt
Background
Malika Favre is a French illustrator based in London. Favre grew up with drawing as her foremost passion, being influenced and coached by her mother who was a painter. But since she saw how hard it was for artists to make a living, she first opted to study the sciences, like her father had, only to later realize that this was not what she wanted or enjoyed doing. Instead she ended up studying art and advertising (again, shunning the idea of illustration as she did not want to be a starving artist). After moving to London, more studies and an internship as Airside that eventually turned into a full-time job, she started finding her own voice and realised that illustration could after all be a fully paid job. Now she works as a freelance illustrator, her work including everything from editorials to fashion, with clients such as the New Yorker and Vogue.
Style evolution At Airside she was taught to reduce the elements in her designs, attributing the limitations of screen printing forcing her to “simplify my design to the minimum and limit my colour palette” (Favre in itsnicethat.com article, 2016). According to Favre, she has always been obsessed with curves, organic shapes and the female body, along with a love for colours, which is clearly a foundation in all of her work (designboom.com, 2013). She eventually became known through her Kama Sutra Typography in 2013 (fig. 2), and for her sensual women (fig. 1, 3).
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Since then she has constantly strived to not be peg holed with her ladies and developed her style to cover more complex topics (creativeboom.com, 2016; thegreatdiscontent.com, 2012). This has meant she has managed to develop a distinct visual language instead, and is now commissioned based on that, rather than her sensual women (fig. 4). Favre’s work as developed to more geometric shapes, and has become more sophisticated in the art of expressing a narrative (designboom.com, 2013). Her style reminds me of Saul Bass, minimalistic yet powerful in the storytelling.
Work process According to Favre herself, she always starts a brief with an enormous amount of research, mainly photographic. She will take her own photos and research imagery online etc. After that she starts digitally sketching. Feeling that her art seldom translates well into pencil, this is the most natural way for her to sketch. The process is very organic and she will switch between sketching and more research when she finds new paths to go down. She produces quite a lot of sketches and then chooses a few to present to the client. Through experience she has found that often the best solutions are happy accidents (create.adobe. com, 2016).
Favre’s visual language Favre’s illustrations often allow for the viewer’s imagination to complete the piece. She uses block colours and very distinct shapes to create her illustrations, with a near-mathematical understanding for light and shadows. Favre’s work can be rather sexy and daring, but she does it with such elegance and a sense of cheekiness, it becomes sophisticated and sensual instead of vulgar and rude. Favre’s logo (fig. 5) is a great example of her style, the use of sparse visual elements and primary colours is the perfect calling card for her distinct design language.
always been obsessed with curves, organic shapes and the female body
Meaning for my own work and practice
Favre’s work has shown me that an illustration does not have to be complex to have a strong narrative. She creates a powerful narrative using very few visual elements.
Left and right page, clockwise from top left: Fig 1: Vogue Japan Cover. Fig 2: Kama Sutra typography, 2013. Fig. 3: Marie Claire Cover, Russia, 2012. Fig. 4: Imitation game, BAFTA, 2015. Fig 5: Malika Favre logo. All the above illustrations are sourced from malikafavre.com, 2017.
I also have a love for geometric shapes and patterns, something that Favre uses throughout her work. Lastly, she has a lovely sense of humour and cheekiness in her designs and I find her an inspiration in terms of being successful in finding that balance in her visual language. The only thing that actually stands in contrast to my current practise is that she digitally renders her illustrations and I am not very comfortable illustrating in software. But again, this is an area I would like to improve in so I could use Favre as a source of inspiration here as well.
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Bibliography Matt Sewell
Matt Sewell. (2017). About. [online] Available at: https://www.mattsewell.co.uk/about/ [Accessed 1 Mar. 2017]. Penguin.co.uk. (n.d.). Matt Sewell. [online] Available at: https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/matt-sewell/1069476/ [Accessed 1 Mar. 2017]. Upper Space. (2013). Matt Sewell - Upper Space. [online] Available at: http://upper-space.org/artists/matt-sewell/ [Accessed 1 Mar. 2017]. Caught by the River. (2017). The Cast. [online] Available at: http://www.caughtbytheriver.net/the-cast/ [Accessed 1 Mar. 2017]. Cass Art. (2014). START: Watercolour with Matt Sewell. [online] Available at: https://www.cassart.co.uk/blog/start_watercolour_with_matt_sewell.htm [Accessed 1 Mar. 2017].
Malika Favre
Create.Adobe, 2016. The Bold, Cheeky and Frequently NSFW art of Malika Favre. [ONLINE] Available at: http://create.adobe. com/2016/4/1/the_bold_cheeky_and_frequently_nsfw_art_of_malika_favre.html [Accessed 27 February 2017] Creative Boom, 2016. Malika Favre on bright colours, drawing naughty things and how to grow as an illustrator. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.creativeboom.com/features/malika-favre-on-bright-colours-drawing-naughty-things-and-how-to-grow-as-an-illustrator/ [Accessed 27 February 2017] DesignBoom, 2013. Malika Favre interview [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.designboom.com/art/malika-favre-interview/ [Accessed 27 February 2017] ItsNiceThat, 2016. How I got Here: Malika Favre, illustrator. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.itsnicethat.com/features/how-i-gothere-malika-favre160316 [Accessed 27 February 2017] TGD, 2012. Malika Favre. [ONLINE] Available at: http://thegreatdiscontent.com/interview/malika-favre [Accessed 27 February 2017]
Illustrations Matt Sewell
Fig. 1: Sewell, M. (2017) Website logo animation. [image] Available at https://www.mattsewell.co.uk/ [Accessed 1 Mar. 2017] Fig. 2 & 3: Sewell, M. (2017). Babour womenswear Matt Sewell range 2015. [image] Available at https://www.mattsewell.co.uk/#/new-gallery-85/[Accessed 1 Mar. 2017].
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Fig. 4: Sewell, M.(2017). Rachel’s [image] Available at https://www.mattsewell.co.uk/murals/#/rachels/ [Accessed 1 Mar. 2017] Fig. 5: Sewell, M (2017). Stamps, Isle of Man Post Office. [image] Available at https://www.mattsewell.co.uk/#/ new-gallery-72/ [Accessed 1 Mar. 2017]
Malika Favre Fig 1: Favre, M. Vogue Japan Cover. [image] Available at https://handsomefrank.com/illustrators/malika-favre [Accessed 13 Mar. 2017]. Fig 2: Favre, M(2013) Kama Sutra typography [image] Available at http://malikafavre.com/kama-sutra [Accessed 13 Mar. 2017]. Fig. 3: Favre, M (2012) Marie Claire Cover, Russia [image] Available at (http://malikafavre.com/future) [Accessed 13 Mar. 2017]. Fig. 4: Favre, M (2015) Imitation game, BAFTA. [image] Available at http://malikafavre.com/the-big-reveal [Accessed 13 Mar. 2017]. Fig 5: Favre, M Malika Favre logo.[image] Available at(http://malikafavre.com/future [Accessed 13 Mar. 2017].
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Matt Sewell by Katie Cosgriff Malika Favre by Elizabeth Hunt IDI Level 5 Illustration March ‘17