Maryam: OCA Graphic Design

Brief

Choose a word from the list and draw everything that comes to mind. Don’t be concerned about the accuracy of your drawing or the prettiness of it. Use your drawings as a form of visual shorthand.
Have a broad range of materials to hand and during your visual brainstorm add swatches of colour and texture associated with your word. If the word sums up a scene try to deconstruct it into its constituent parts. Imagine you are moving around the scene with a camera and recording each element to create a visual checklist a catalogue of images.
Childhood – Exotic – Destruction – Kitchen – Wild – Fashion – Travel
Be conscious of the details and qualities of each subject or object you draw to communicate its qualities and function. Notice how you are developing a sense of visual editing and distillation of information. Adjectives are most difficult to draw. Be aware of the mental processes you undertake to generate subjects to draw in response to these less concrete words.
Developing the ability to give tangible form of abstract concepts is important for illustration and is a skill that can be honed over time.
Note how your drawing evolves when repeating this exercise. Can you see a flavour in the way that you are begin to document through these little drawings?

Self – reflection

For this exercise, I chose word “exotic”. I made some sketches that I thought can be related to this word. I didn’t include any colours, but probably adding colours can help with the concept.

Brief

Identify a piece of work by an illustrator whose work you find some connection with. You might, for example, choose a particular illustration because you admire its conceptual or narrative dimension.
Now try to write the brief for the illustration you’ve chosen. Starting from the context in which the illustration is positioned, write the brief which would have led to the creation of the image. Direct the illustrator in terms of what content should be included. If the context has text, identify the connection between the image and the written content.
Advise the illustrator about the role the image will perform. Consider whether it is extending the meaning of the text, decorating, informing or educating and potential ways this can be achieved. What colours? What flavour?
Be clear about who you think the intended audience for the illustration is.
Briefly indicate which stylistic aspects you admire. Describe the effects that you would like to see in the image, which aspects of distortion, and what use of tools and materials is appropriate to the idea.

Analysing the brief:

• Identify a piece of work by an illustrator whose work I find some connection with
• Write the brief for the illustration I’ve chosen
• The context in which the illustration is positioned
• What content should be included
• Identify the connection between the image and the written content
• The role the image will perform
• Extending the meaning of the text, decorating, informing or educating and potential ways this can be achieved
• What colours? What flavour?
• Intended audience
• Stylistic aspects
• The effects
• Aspects of distortion
• What use of tools and materials

Mind mapping

For my previous exercise, I made some research about some contemporary illustrators. After looking at some of their work, I really liked Erin Stead’s style and work. So for this exercise, I chose one of Erin Stead’s book cover design.

Writing a brief

Project name: Illustration for a children’s picture book

Author: Philip C. Stead

Number of pages: 34 pages

Reading age: 2 – 6 years

Dimensions: 19 x 1.87 x 17.93 cm

Colour palette: subtle, earthy colours

Style: watercolour effect

What to include: The story’s happening just before the winter. It should include one scene of the story, an image of a bear, with an image of an another character of the story; a mouse, a duck, a frog or a mole.

Summary of the story: It was almost winter and Bear was getting sleepy. But first, Bear had a story to tell . . . Bear found his friend Mouse, but Mouse was busy gathering seeds and didn’t have time to listen to a story. Then Bear saw his friend Duck, but Duck was getting ready to fly south. What about his friend Toad? He was busy looking for a warm place to sleep. By the time Bear was through helping his friends get ready for winter, would anyone still be awake to hear his story?

Typography: Bold, serif typeface for the title. Maximum two typefaces.

Self – reflection

I found this exercise a bit tricky. As I needed to take the reverse path that I used to take, which was writing a brief for an existing design. I’m guessing the publishers have their own template for their brief, which makes their life easier.

Brief

Choose an editorial from a newspaper or magazine. Read it for information or pleasure as you would ordinarily. Read it again and this time highlight or underline key words which you think are important to conveying the meaning of the piece overall. You may find that you are choosing a single word per sentence or that your selection is dispersed throughout the text and denser in some areas than others.
Read the text again. You may well find that your understanding of the text changes as you re-read it. This time focus specifically on the words that you have already selected. With a different colour, jot down the words that summarise the meaning of the entire text. Depending upon the nature of the content, this may be one single sentence or a string of words. This process of distilling and condensing the text will help focus on the message that needs to be communicated.
The words that result from this process are your starting point. You can now say to yourself “I’m going to create an image about….”
Now have a go at an illustration for your text. Try a number of different ideas or variations. Keep the drawings together with the text so you can refer back to them.

Editorial

Sketches

Final design

Self-reflection

I found this assignment a bit tricky, as I was struggling to find an editorial article that I like.

After finding the article, I read it couple of times. I underlined the key information. Then annotated them and tried to find different words and concepts that can be related to each word. The only illustration, I thought would be relevant was the trains/ high speed trains. So I made couple of sketches, then I chose one of them and painted in watercolour.

I think in my future work, I need to get out of my comfort zone and think outside the box to make more exciting work in more innovative way.

Sources

• Independent. We must reimagine the future of the railway to help it succeed https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/railway-future-review-network-rail-b2321397.html. (Accessed: 10/06/2023)

Brief

In this exercise you will explore how illustration has evolved over the past 50 years.
Start by choosing one from this list of illustrators:

Edward Bawden, Kathleen Hale, Eric Ravilious, Edward Ardizzone, John Minton, E H Shephard
Then using books and the internet, find out about these artist’s work and the cultural context in which they created their most significant works.
Now find a contemporary illustrator whose work you like. Explore and identify the differences in style, context, production and imagery between the two illustrators.
Write notes in your learning log about the work of each of the two artists:
• Did the work of the illustrator that you chose from the list seem old- fashioned? If so what was it that made it seem so?
• What was it about the work of the contemporary artist that attracted you to their work?
• How did each artist produce their illustrations – what tools and materials did they use?

Now draw an illustration in the style of each artist, selecting similar subject matter and using similar media.

Research

E. H. Shepard – Biography

Ernest Howard Shepard was born on December 1, 1879 in London to Henry and Jessie Shepard. Ernest’s father, Henry, was an architect from a highly respected family, and his mother was the daughter of distinguished watercolorist, William Lee. Creativity being prominent on both sides of Ernest’s family, it was unsurprising that his father wanted him to become an artist. Though his early years of childhood were happy, his life changed at ten years old when his mother died. He and his two siblings moved in with their aunts until Henry Shepard could save enough money to buy a house for them all in Hammersmith. Once settled in their new home, Ernest attended school at St. Paul’s where his uncle was headmaster. It was clear to his teachers from a young age that Ernest would excel at art, so he was enrolled in an advanced drawing class. Like Gordon Browne, Ernest took additional art classes on Saturdays at Heatherley’s art school in London. Though Ernest envisioned a more adventurous life for himself, he pursued a career in art by winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy Schools where he continued his art studies in “irrepressibly high spirits.” Shepard’s friendly personality, fondness for practical jokes, and theatricality earned him the nickname “Giddy-Kipper,” of which the shortened version of “Kip” stuck with him for the rest of his life. While at the Royal Academy, Shepard met his future wife, Florence Chaplin, who was also an art student three years ahead of him. Neither of them had any money, so Florence agreed to marry Ernest when they had sufficient finances to start a life together. Coincidentally, the painting Ernest had successfully submitted to the Royal Academy exhibition of 1904 had sold for £100, while Florence had just received her payment for a completed mural commission; the two felt suddenly prosperous and decided to get married. The couple moved to Shamley Green, Surrey where they painted together and raised two children, Graham (born in 1907) and Mary (born in 1909).

Though two of Shepard’s paintings had been accepted to the Royal Academy exhibition and the Paris Salon the same year he graduated art school, he still considered himself “no good” at oil painting. He didn’t believe he could handle the medium properly, so he never displayed his paintings in public again. Instead, Shepard turned his full focus to illustration, which he knew he wanted to pursue professionally. He submitted ideas to Punch two or three times a week until they accepted two of his drawings in 1907. Since graduating art school, Shepard worked as a book illustrator on publications such as Tom Brown’s Schooldays by Thomas Hughes, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, Henry Esmond by W.M. Thackeray, Aesop’s Fables, and Smouldering Fires by Evelyn Everett-Green. In 1914, when World War I began, Shepard enlisted in the Royal Artillery and was assigned to the 105 Siege Battery where he battled at the Somme, Arras, the Third Battle of Ypres, and in Italy. At the end of his four-year service, Shepard was awarded a Military Cross and retired with the rank of Major. While he was at war, he continued to submit ideas to Punch regularly, drawing and painting the countryside around him in Europe. His perseverance clearly paid off, as upon his return home from the war he was offered to join the “table” at Punch. A full time position at Punch was Shepard’s dream since it not only offered a regular income, but would also allow him to sit where the revered Sir John Tenniel had once been, and work for the landmark publication that his wife’s grandfather, Ebenezer Landells had founded. Shepard had been so excited that he recalled “I nearly fell off my perch when I got the letter.”

The “table” of regular staff at Punch met on a weekly basis at dinners or luncheons to discuss the two political cartoons that would be in the upcoming issue. Shepard sat next to E.V. Lucas who was an important figure in the world of belles lettres and also a chairman at the publishing company Methuen. Lucas was also a friend and colleague of A.A. Milne, a prominent playwright, poet, essayist, and former assistant editor at Punch. In 1923, Milne sent Lucas a submission of children’s verses called When We Were Very Youngthat featured prose he had written about his three year old son, Christopher. After Lucas had received Milne’s script at Methuen, he suggested that Punch should publish some of the verses before it appeared in book form. Ernest Shepard was recommended to Milne as an illustrator for the text. Shepard illustrated eleven of Milne’s verses that appeared in Punch from January to June 1924. Once Milne saw the illustrations that Shepard had created, he was enthusiastic enough about his work to invite him to illustrate the entire book. When We Were Very Young was released later in 1924 and sold so well in America and England that it was reprinted four times before the year’s end.

The following year in 1925, A.A. Milne purchased Cotchford Farm in Sussex as a country home for he and his family to escape London on weekends and holidays. The house was surrounded by meadows and woods that would inspire the following books about the adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh and Christopher Robin. Though the scenery of Milne’s new house in Sussex had an influence over the setting of his stories, it was his son’s nursery toys that were direct inspiration for Pooh and his friends. Christopher Milne’s teddy bear became Winnie-the-Pooh, Eeyore was a well-loved stuffed animal whose head had started to sag by the time A.A. Milne wrote his stories giving him his “gloomy disposition,” Piglet was a present from the Milnes’ neighbors, Kanga and Roo were presents from Christopher’s parents. Owl and Rabbit were the only two characters that were invented by A.A. Milne himself.

Ernest Shepard had a wooden toy horse that he had loved dearly as a child but he was forced to part with when he moved in with his aunts after his mother died. It was this attachment to a beloved toy that may have helped him understand the importance of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories and the need to create illustrations that brought Christopher Robin’s toys to life. Shepard’s own son Graham had a teddy bear named Growler that he carried around with him, and it was this bear in particular that inspired Shepard’s memorable Pooh bear. In order to follow Milne’s clear instructions for the illustrations, Shepard travelled to his country house on Cotchford Farm to observe the area which inspired Milne to write about the Hundred Acre Wood. When Winnie-the-Pooh was published by Methuen in 1926, it received as much praise as When We Were Very Young, and prompted another two books: Now We are Six was published in 1927, and House at Pooh Corner was released in 1928, completing the quartet of Milne’s tales of Christopher Robin. As Susan Meyer states in A Treasury of the Greatest Children’s Book Illustrators, the relationship between between Milne and Shepard “demonstrates the finest example of a successful collaboration between author and illustrator.” Though the two men were not close, and harbored very different personalities, they clearly communicated in an effective way to produce a work of art that is still cherished by children all over the world.

The success of Milne’s stories was bittersweet for both author and illustrator. Though both men were happy with the fruits of their labor, neither wanted to be associated with this single collection of writing for the rest of their lives. Milne declared that it was “easier in England to make a reputation than to lose one,” and Shepard is known to have been frustrated that his illustrations for the Winnie-the-Pooh tales overshadowed the rest of his work. For example, the publication of When We Were Very Young in 1924 completely covered any recognition he should have received for his illustrations in E.V. Lucas’ Playtime and Company, released immediately following Milne’s work. A.A. Milne tried his best to lose the reputation of “children’s author” though Ernest Shepard continued to illustrate Pooh for the rest of his life, creating illustrations for new editions and exhibiting his original drawings to sell in galleries. Shepard had made some money from the success of the Winnie-the-Pooh books, but he had accepted a flat fee instead of royalties as payment, meaning that he could use the money made from the sales of his drawings, especially after the sudden death of his wife, Florence, in 1927. Shepard made some of his best artwork after the publishing of the Pooh books and was pleased with the amount of commissions that were sent to him in the late 1920s.

By 1931, Kenneth Grahame invited Shepard to illustrate his children’s classic The Wind in the Willows. Shepard stated “I was more excited when they offered me that than Pooh.” Though Grahame had already asked three other illustrators to work on his book, he hadn’t liked their interpretations of his famous characters calling them “puppets.” Arthur Rackham had been invited to illustrate the story but had to turn it down due to a conflicting publication. (He would later have the chance to illustrate the story as his last artwork before his death.) Before beginning his illustrations, Shepard met with Kenneth Grahame to discuss his plans for the book and take a tour of the forest and river that inspired Grahame’s stories. The second time Shepard met with Grahame was just before his death when he had the chance to show him some of his line drawings for the book. Though Grahame would never seem them published, he told Shepard “I’m glad you made them real.” The illustrations for The Wind in the Willows were Shepard’s favorite that he ever drew.

Throughout the 1930s, Shepard maintained his work ethic, illustrating fourteen books, dust jackets and frontispieces, and continuing his contributions to Punch. The new editor of Punch in 1932, E.V. Knox, married Shepard’s daughter, Mary in 1937. Still working at the magazine now run by his son-in-law, at the start of World War II, Shepard began drawing a series of cartoons attacking Hitler and other leaders involved in the war, though this motivation for political cartoons was short-lived and ended along with the war. Shepard admitted that, though he greatly admired Tenniel, he was not adept at caricature and continued with his usual humorous cartoons. A great deal happened as Shepard aged; his son was killed at sea near the end of World War II, Ernest himself remarried at the age of sixty-five, and he was “sacked from Punch” by the new editor, Malcolm Muggeridge. Between 1954-55 Ernest illustrated nine books, traveled, gave lectures, and even wrote two autobiographies: Drawn from Memory (1957) and Drawn from Life (1961). In that same span of time, he also wrote an illustrated Ben and Brock and Betsy and Joe. Ernest continued to draw in his nineties, his last work being the color illustrations for Winnie the Pooh. The publisher, Methuen, had printed his drawings for the first set of books so he could paint over them in watercolor. In less than four months, Shepard painted 240 drawings for the books, an impressive feat at ninety-three years of age. Ernest Howard Shepard died three years later on March 24, 1976, the same year as Winnie the Pooh’s 50th Anniversary.

After looking at some illustrators, I chose

Erin Stead – Contemporary artist

Erin Stead is the Caldecott Medal winning illustrator of A Sick Day for Amos McGee, also named a New York Times Best Illustrated Book of 2010 and a Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book of 2010 (A Neal Porter Book, Roaring Brook Press, 2010). She and her husband, author and artist Philip Stead, with whom she co-created A Sick Day for Amos McGee and Bear Has a Story to Tell, live in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Bear Has a Story to Tell was named a Best Children’s Book of 2012 by Kirkus Reviews. Erin also illustrated And Then It’s Spring written by Julie Fogliano and named a 2012 Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book and a Best Children’s Book of 2012 by Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly.

Analysing

Self-reflection

I really enjoyed working on this exercise, as I needed to do some research and practice some illustrations at the same time.

The research helped me to know more about some of the famous illustrators and compare their work with some contemporary artists. By analysing their work then copying some of their art work, I needed to understand their style in depth, which was very interesting.

Sources

• Illustration History. E.H Shepard. At: https://www.illustrationhistory.org/artists/ernest-howard-shepard (Accessed: 01/06/2023)
• R. MICHELSON GALLERIES. Erin Stead. At: https://www.rmichelson.com/illustration/erin-stead/ (Accessed: 01/06/2023)