PROFESSIONAL
PRACTICE A RECIPE FOR SUCCESS
LOUISE WYATT
CONTENTS
P. 5
INTRODUCTION
P. 20
PUBLICATIONS
P. 6
EXHIBITIONS
P. 24
EXTENDED MAJOR PROJECT
P. 10
COMPETITIONS
P. 30
SELF PROMOTION
P. 17
FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD
P. 36
ASPIRATIONS FOR THE FUTURE
“It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.� - Oscar Wilde
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INTRODUCTION This quote reminds me that people will bring something of themselves to the my illustrations. When I look at my art I can see it reflects who I am. I’m inspired by life, In particular my life, my hobbies, belongings, adventures, friends and family, and I enjoy responding directly to objects and experiences from it. What may be the everyday to one person could be an adventure to another. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. My aim is to bring the mundane to life, encouraging others to form an appreciation for the little things in life we enjoy but take for granted. My professional practice is formed around this concept and my illustrations work towards this objective. Studying Illustration these past 4 years has felt like I have been part of a community. Working alongside like minded people, collaborating with other courses, learning from creatives in the industry. Being part of such a creative hub has contributed towards my work and to the person I have become today.
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EXHIBITIONS
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Bespoke, our fund raising exhibitions, gave me a lot of experience of curating and encouraged us to collaborate with each other. By exhibiting Bespoke outside the university we were able to promote it and ourselves in a different community.
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After our success with Bespoke a group of us decided to organise our own exhibition. Crayon was an eclectic illustration exhibition with no theme. We all have very different styles of working so there was work to please a wide audience. We curated the entire exhibition ourselves and organised the advertising for the event. I enjoy collaborating with others when exhibiting work and I look forward to continuing to showcase my work in this way.
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‘This Is
is a network of artists and designers driven by a desire to foster and expose the creative community in Bournemouth.’ - This Is They organised a bimonthly event where local artists were asked to submit a piece of work relevant to a short brief. It would then be exhibited for one night where the creative network would be brought together. This was a great opportunity to collaborate and network with Bournemouth’s creatives.
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COMPETITIONS
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Alongside my studies I also found time to enter competitions. This gave me the opportunity to experiment with different areas of illustration such as narrative, editorial and decorative. Competitions are a great way to get your work noticed in the industry.
D&AD One of the more popular competitions is the D&AD awards. This years student awards illustration brief was to design a front cover for ‘Little White Lies’ magazine using a range of film titles. The design had to reflect the atmosphere of the film. I chose to design the Super 8 cover because I loved the selection of colours and lighting used in the film, which were chosen to complement the brand of camera film it was named after. This competition allowed me to practice drawing portraits and to arrange the composition to fit the supplied template for their magazine. A good percentage of the course took part in this competition and I am happy to say my class mate Natasha Durley-Boot was elected as a Best of Year Winner for the D&AD Student Awards. This what she had to say about her design. ‘It was inspired by the special effects master Douglas Trumbull and the atmospheric scenes found with The Tree of Life. I wanted it to give the impression of nebulas or organic cells merging and interacting with the cells around it.’ I enjoy the way Natasha has compositioned the title merging with the portrait to form the side of the boys face, completing the image and leaving it aesthetically pleasing. 11
THE FOLIO SOCIETY
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“Books should be outstanding not only in literary content but also in their physical form,� - The Folio Society
PUFFIN BOOKS
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A book can be a delight to the senses and should not only focus on the text but also the touch, smell and overall aesthetics such as the books cover and illustrations. This is what I considered when I entered The House of Illustrators/The Folio Society competition. I used screen printing and lino printing for the books cover and traditional drawing skills for the illustrations. When I illustrate for a book I try to avoid giving too much of the story away. The suspense of a story can be broken depending on where they place an image in the story line. The reader could predict the outcome of the plot before they have reached the summary. I considered this when designing my own illustrations. The use of negative space, different angles and selective view have all been put into place to prevent the reader from discovering the plot line too early. It could also allow the reader to fill in the gaps for themselves creating intrigue and building upon the curiosity of the reader. We all contain a primeval curiosity which supports our instinct for wanting to continue turning the pages of a book. If our curiosity were to be broken by an illustration which divulges too much of the plot, then this would spoil the whole illusion we, as the reader, had created for ourselves.
BURNT SUGAR ANORAK MAGAZINE WISH YOU WERE HERE TRENCHERMANS FOOD GUIDE
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V&A Many of the competitions I have entered this year have had a food element in them. Anorak magazine wanted a design for happy lunch boxes. I decided that nothing would have pleased me more as a child (or as an adult) to open my lunch box and find it full of biscuits. These biscuits have since been used for a entry to the V&A student illustration awards and have been so popular they are now part of my brand identity. Participating in these competitions has helped me to see where in the industry my work will and won’t fit.
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FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD Growing up on a farm we were never short of fresh home grown food. Both my Mother and Grandmother are cooking enthusiasts and I inherited their culinary skills. I see cooking as a form of art. It generally has to look good for someone to want to eat it, just as a piece of art has to appeal to you for you to want to buy it. I enjoy cooking for people because I find that food can trigger emotions and memories, making people happy. I want my work to evoke happiness. As a result I have a tendency to combine my two loves for drawing and Food. Eating and drinking is an activity that everyone shares. Therefore my work can reach a wider audience as people can appreciate the content and make a connection.
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‘I love food, and I love to paint, so combining the two seemed like a good idea.’ - Joel Penkman Joel’s work has been a big influence to my own. The hyper reality of his work makes me smile every time I look at them. I want my work to make people smile. Whether it’s from the humorous element or for nostalgia of a times past. My biscuit illustrations have become some of my most popular pieces. They are the illustrations which have gotten me the most work. Therefore I have made them part of my brand by using the jam sandwich biscuit as part of my logo. 17
Heather Gately and Emma Dibben gave me a lot of advice when I contacted them during my research for my convergence of ingredients unit. They told me when drawing food to ‘keep it simple, fresh and friendly. A mix of traditional and modern, but nothing too fussy.’ Even though this was specific for Waintrose I have continued to follow their advice.
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My deconstructed compositions are composed of detailed studies with clean backgrounds to make it easier for an audience to make a connection. I recently donated this piece to my course’s silent auction. The gentleman who bought it said ‘it made me laugh and hungry at the same time.’ 19
Escape with a cup of tea and a biscuit ... or 10
PUBLICATIONS
My name is Louise Wyatt and I am currently in my 3rd year of studying illustration at The Arts University Collage at Bournemouth. I am continually exploring the wild frontier of illustration along with developing my skills within a range of art subjects such as textiles, animation, 3D sculpture and teaching art itself. I have had many opportunities to collaborate with other illustrators as well as working with clients within acting, costume and fashion. I am always on the look out for areas in the industry, such as advertising, fashion and narrative illustration,where my artwork can represent, interpret, and heighten the meaning of the subject to the best of my ability.
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“Another Escape is about finding intuitive creativity that inspires and ignites an excitement only found when escaping the mundane. It is about infusing a sense of adventure and escapism, to deviate from ritualised life.” - Rachel Taylor Last year Rachel published the first issue of Another escape on issuu. Rachel started be approaching a group of us at university requesting work for the magazine. The theme was around the words freedom, escape and adventure. At the time I was also working on my Anorak competition entry drawing biscuits. This was when I realised that an escape doesn’t have to be big. The solution can be in the little things in life, often overlooked. As an escape from stress, even if its just for ten minutes, I like to have a cup of tea and a ‘couple’ of biscuits. I felt that most people would be able to relate to this every day, easy way to escape life. The second Issue had the theme of spring. I decided to illustrate a Easter message for the readers. 21
The AUCB is an arts specific university and I have found that amongst this creative environment there is a sense of community amongst the students. Rachel has harnessed this in the form of a magazine inviting people from all courses to contribute. This accumulation of work has been collected and bound together to inspire us all.
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Attending university has not only aloud me to collaborate with illustrators but with others courses as well. Over the past 4 years I have worked with Costume, Acting and Fashion. The latter gave me an opportunity to produce illustrations for a mens brogue magazine.
I have found that it is important to be exposed to other creative culture such as the theatre, cinema, books and magazines. This is so I remain motivated and inspired. It also keeps me informed of current styles and trends of the time.
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EXTENDED MAJOR PROJECT HOW OUR POSSESSIONS CAN PAINT A PORTRAIT OF US
For my EMP I considered how our possessions can paint a portrait of us. To some, the objects we own can define us. We can be distinguished by certain recognisable objects we posses and collect. Some may have value and meaning to us for different reasons. However people can form opinions on us by the objects we own. But is that really who we are? During this unit I analysed these points but also why we experience positive feelings for the items we own and acquire.
Instead of using my friends and family as my subjects, who only I and a handful of others would be able to guess, I decided to analysis book characters from my childhood, in particular Villains. I narrowed the characters down to Captain James Hook, The Child Catcher and Miss Trunchbull. I started by considering what objects they may posses that would allow you to easily acknowledge the character without seeing their face or knowing their name.
I believe that no-one is born evil, and so I decided to give each character a back story to be explained through the items they had kept. Each story would tell the audience how the character became the person they read about as a child. 24
Joel Penkman, Michael Mapes and Laura Manfre are a handful of artists I researched who inspired me throughout this unit. Their skills in painting and the way they compose their art in particular are styles I really admire. Artist Michael Mapes creates extraordinary specimen boxes by dissecting photographs and then compartmentalizing individual fragments within plastic bags, glass vials, magnifiers, in gelatin capsules and on insect pins. The boxes are between photography and sculpture, functioning both as portraits and as fascinating scientific canvases that makes the audience question the logic behind the organization of each piece. I deconstructed my characters possessions in a similar way. By placing the objects in this organised manner it allows the audience to connect with the individual items in their own way.
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After I had sourced my reference images I started to compile each characters story according to the objects they possessed. Then I began to roughly draw the objects I was considering which resulted in a range of compositions tried. At one point during the project I was considering including the characters outfit and then making the objects interact with it. However I felt the introduction of the outfit would be too easy a giveaway to the audience when I wanted them to consider the objects they saw before they realised who the character was.
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In previous projects I had found that colour pencil alone was very pale and I could not achieve the brighter colours that I wanted. Therefore I started to experiment with using watercolours and colour pencils. When I combined a base colour of water colour with the details added in colour pencil, I was much happier with the results. This technique was also quicker and I still got the quality of shading I was used to. My work has always been about making the mundane appear more interesting. One of these objects on its own would not get the characters story across to the audience. However a collection of items would tell a story on its own. Once they have worked out the character from acknowledging the obvious possessions, they will then become confused when they start to notice other items which wouldn’t normally be associated with that particular character. The exciting part is that each person could create a different story conducted from their own opinion of the character. 27
I chose to make my final pieces A1 so that the objects could be closer to life size with plenty of space around each so the images were not too crowed, therefore allowing the audience to find it easier to make a connection with the items.
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I wanted the collections to feel very personal. As if these were the possessions of a person long gone and by seeing this collection of objects you were only just finding out who they really were. This is how I want adults to relate to the work when they think back to their childhood and first heard the stories and received their first impressions of the characters. I would like a younger audience to see these pieces and understand the reasons why people do bad things. 29
SELF PROMOTION
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DESIGN BUDDY: SARAH SLEE This year I took part in the design buddy project. Students are matched with a mentor from a local design industry who provides us with an insider knowledge of the industry and eventually a foot in the door. My design buddy was Sarah Slee, Editor of 3D Magazine at Imagine Publishing. In our first meeting I took my portfolio. After we went through it together we then discussed where my work would fit in the industry. We talked about the options of books, newspapers and magazines. Then onto merchandise such as bags, towels and cards. After which we moved onto my web presence and how this could improve. For our next meeting I had to prepare a CV, improve my web presence and start thinking of promotional material to get myself acknowledged. Sarah brought to our second meeting examples of magazines that would hire illustrators and she told me how to spot others. Her main advice was to check the stock because if a magazine cares about the stock they use they are more likely to spend money on illustrators. After Sarah showed me some business cards she received through work we discussed my own ideas for business cards and other promotional material. By the third meeting my blog was improved, CV was finished, I had a website in progression, and my promotional material designs were ongoing. Sarah helped me to rewrite a cover letter I was writing and we discussed my Extended Major Project. At the end Sarah told me she had a new job at Mollie Makes Magazine and that she would be happy to help me get my foot in the door. Having Sarah as my mentor was an influential experience and has really improved my professionalism, both in my work and address. I feel confident enough now knowing my CV, online presence, portfolio and promotional goods are all ready and that I know the right people to contact.
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After receiving advice from Sarah and Haley Potter, a visiting tutor, I created my promotional material. I chose to use a series of my images on my cards to show the range of my work. I can now also select cards that are suitable for certain clients I wish to contact. The postcards will be sent as promotional gifts to clients and I am also considering using them to write my cover letters on. The stickers were designed to also be used as promotional gifts, however they can be used to stick onto letters and parcels I send out to promote my website. 32
WEB PRESENCE As an illustrator, having a good web presence is very important. With the selection of social websites available to us we can now reach a much wider audience. My blog will demonstrate my working style and inspiration whereas my website is my online portfolio which is the fastest way for clients to see my work. Sites such as Twitter are an efficient way of networking and keeping in touch with contacts. It will also keep them updated of your practice. I have kept my sites similar to reinforce the idea of myself as a brand.
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LOUISE
WYATT Education/ Qualifications
Email: louwyart@live.co.uk Website: louisewyatt.com
An illustrator with experience in working on live briefs, competitions, external commissions and self directed projects. Louise is always interested in continuing to learn from clients and collaborators with ideas for existing projects Louise is inspired by the everyday and enjoys responding directly to objects and experiences from it. Her aim is to bring the mundane to life, encouraging others to form an appreciation for the little things in life we enjoy but take for granted.
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2008-2012 The Arts University College at Bournemouth BA (Hons) Illustration Short course in life sculpture, Photoshop and InDesign 2006-2008 Holyrood Community College A level- Fine art (B) A level- Textiles (B) A level- Photography (C) AS level -Fine art (A) AS level- Drama (D) AS level- Textiles (B) The Arts Leadership Award (Gold) 2005-2006 Holyrood Community School GCSE Textiles (B) GCSE English Literature (B) GCSE English Language (B) GCSE Maths (B) Total of 10 GCSE’s
LOUISE
WYATT
Technical Skills Drawing, Painting, Screen printing, Etching, Lino Cutting, Clay Sculpture, Pottery, Book binding, Felting, Sewing
Exhibitions & Competitions
Software Skills Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, InDesign. Employment/ Work Experience 2011-2012 - AUCB Student Ambassador. 2011- Home Hardware Sales Assistant 2010-2011 - Summer art teacher at a holiday resort. Mawgan Porth, Cornwall. 2007-2008 - Woolworths Sales Assistant 2006-2008 - Year 7-9 art class teaching assistant 2006-2007 - Organised and Ran illustration and animation classes for year 7 students as part of my Arts Leadership Award. Holyrood Community School 2006 – co-directed a year 7 play. Holyrood Community School
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2012 D&AD Little White Lies competition 2012 The Folio Society, House of Illustration 2011 Trenchermans Food Guide competition 2011 Another Escape magazine 2011 Spring Open Exhibition The Meeting House – Illminster 2011 ‘Crayon’ Exhibition- Moon tree, Boscombe 2011 Anorak Magazine – Food is fun competition 2011 Burnt Sugar packaging design competition 2011 Puffin book cover competition 2010-2011 ‘Bespoke’ Exhibitions– Boscanova, Boscombe 2010-2011 ‘This Is’ Exhibitions – Sixty Million Postcards, Bournemouth 2009 Arts Leadership Award Exhibition – The Brewhouse, Taunton 2009 Somserset Arts Week – Holyrood Community College, Chard
ASPIRATIONS FOR THE FUTURE While at university I believe I have tried my hand at most areas in the industry whether through competitions, commissions, workshops and units. These have all influenced my decisions on where I believe my work would be best suited. I have always been a huge collector of books. Sometimes purely for aesthetic reasons. This is why I have a keen interest in narrative illustration and designing book covers. The publishers I would love to work for the most is The folio Society as they produce beautifully high quality books that people will collect, cherish and pass down to the next generation. My other love in drawing is of food and this is why I aim to get my work on food packaging, published in a culinary magazines or cook books and hopefully one day write and design my own cook book.
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JAMIE MAGAZINE
One of my favourite magazines that I wish to work for is Jamie magazine. They use a range of photographers and illustrators with various styles. The stock the magazine is printed on is very tactile, encouraging people to feel the paper and turn the page. Every issue has a theme, such as baking, and each month they have an article on the cuisine and local area from a particular place in the world. 37
louisewyatt.com