erin tuckwell

Evaluation

For this project, we were asked to conduct a selection of briefs that would showcase our working as an illustrator. These briefs would be completely personal. We were not asked to solve anything specifically; it was a choice. However, it was our opportunity to steer the work we completed to appeal to a future career. I chose to do 3 different briefs. I have had made a lot of changes from when the module initially started. It took me time to think the briefs through before I began to work on them. It was a matter of trial and error to gage which brief suited me. The briefs I chose were The House of Illustration and The Folio Society Book Illustration Competition, The Non-Fiction Poster Brief and The Otter-Barry Poetry Anthology Brief.

The Mansfield Park brief was the first brief I started and the one that I found the most interesting. I also feel I have gained the most from this brief. My research and inspiration came from a visit to Calke Abbey mostly. As well as getting an overview of the book from various TV adaptations. The book itself was obviously the main source of information. Luckily, iBooks had the novel available free and therefore it enabled me to save pages and search for keywords easily. It wasn’t a story I found especially stimulating visually, however this didn’t seem to cause an issue. In fact, I found that the rather prim and proper story allowed me to embellish easily in my own way. The brief asked for three different illustrations from a variety of places within the book. As well as this it also asked for a front cover. The internal illustrations were fairly free, with guidelines for size. However, the cover had very strict aesthetic rules in terms of colours, layout and style. The folio society is a publisher which creates beautiful books. The illustrations needed to be fitting with their aesthetic as well as suitable for the audience of a Jane Austin book. This is a mature and romantic reader. I have taken influence from other illustrators which have managed to keep a sensible tone whilst still being interesting. Combining the inspiration of the wilting wallpapers of Calke Abbey and a mature audience I landed on the idea of collage. The key, I began to find when discussing with others, was that less is more. The empty space was equally as important as the content. During the project I undertook a lot of experimentation with layering lots of different papers and textures. It was a very careful balancing act, one which I’m still working out now. It was difficult to develop from the original collages, because the same spontaneity and natural placement was gone. They had a certain charm when they came out of nothing. When trying to replicate an initial idea and then improve it, it was never quite the same. This was an issue I found a lot throughout this module. For next time, I think I need to think of a way around this. The final illustrations I made for this brief I was pleased with in their initial form. However, I did in an attempt to create a professional appearance print them. The charm was lost. This has left me also equally as lost. The end result wasn’t as desire which is a massive shame. For the next project I need to improve my finishing skills, to produce quality, well-finished results.

The Owen Davies brief was one which asked to almost create a piece based solely on the research.  The brief asked for an interesting way to display non-fiction about any sort of subject within the format of three posters. These posters needed to be stimulating to convey some sort of information. I based my brief upon the specimens at the natural history museum of Ireland. I visited the museum in the summer, it was such an interesting place it felt like a good choice. I did try to contact them to gain a bit of inside knowledge in to the specimens but did reply after the first contact. However, I continued to keep the specimens as the subject of the poster. Initially I wanted the posters to be as part of the museums informational marketing. The posters I created for this purpose were dull and rather flat. Whilst developing my work for these posters I had created some prints and a variety of different pieces of the specimens. By looking at the collection I had created it seemed to make sense to put them all together. They morphed then to something more fun and visually interesting. They began as A1 posters, very busy and full. After some feedback I decided to minimise. Similarly to my other work, I found that again less is more. Eventually the final pieces became risograph prints, layered and colourful. They no longer fitted a museum aesthetic, however they still delivered information about the creature in a much more interesting way. The final posters were minimised down to just one fact per poster, and the facts were more fun. I chose to do this because it suited the risograph much more so. If I was to do this project again I think I would work more on the idea of structure and hierarchy.

I undertook the final brief later on in the module and it was the one that had the least of my attention. It was asking for ‘pitch’ illustrations to show potential. The brief asked for two illustrations, one colour and one black and white, to accompany two poems. I looked at the idea of what we do when we’re anxious and feeling unconfident for one poem entitled sorry. The other looked at bruises for the poem entitled bruises. Both poems were hugely emotive and human I wanted to capture this feeling. To do so I used repetition in places to emphasise the conscious thought that happens. The final pitch illustrations were embroidered lie drawings. They are childlike and naïve and I felt this represented the feelings spoken about in the poem. They are honestly quite underdeveloped and I would of loved more time to spend on them.