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Earlier in the year our 3rd year Illustrators paid a visit to 4 different primary schools in Cumbernauld, as part of Edinburgh International Book Festival’s outreach programme booked! that delivers creative workshops to communities across Scotland.
The project saw the students working alongside the pupils, collaboratively illustrating stories that they wrote with the support of author Mike Nicholson, resulting in an exciting mixture of everyone’s drawings. As a follow up form this project students Terri Po and Madeleine Pinkerton were selected to do a live drawing event with Mike on stage at this year’s Book Festival.
The team worked in front of 350 primary school children with the aim to show how easy it is to develop a story about just anything. Mike, Terri and Madeleine responded to the children’s ideas with on the spot storytelling and illustrating.
At the end the pupils got to pick their favourite drawings and ask the artists questions about how they developed their drawing skills. The students explained that they were still learning and always would be, and that learning was an ongoing process. The audience was full of aspiring illustrators and storytellers, and we look forward to perhaps seeing some of them in our college studios in a few years time!
Our MA students have just completed a pattern-making project led by Artist in Residence Joanna Sokol, who we introduced in an earlier blog post. Spread across 2 weeks students received an introduction to surface pattern design and were then asked to create a moodboard based on particular fashion or interior theme, which they had previously pulled from a hat. During tutorials with Joanna the group was shown how to create a repeat surface pattern using Photoshop and through individual crits were given the opportunity to tackle any difficulties.
The photos below were taken at the final presentation this morning against our fantastic castle backdrop.
Over the last few months Sarah Bissell, an ECA alumni and one of last years artists in residence has been working with Edinburgh Collage Collective on an international submission of collaged based work themed around the subject of envelopes. Setup in 2016 by collage artist Rhed Fawell, the collective has been working on exhibitions and events over the last year and currently is showcasing their latest exhibition, G.L.U.E. in our very own Tent Gallery.
The collective (comprising of seven members including Sarah Bissell and another of our previous artists in residence Megan Elizabeth Taylor) believes that it is important to reach out and link to other like minded artists globally particularly in this turbulent political climate. Through their most recent project they have connected with over 70 other artists and gathered over 140 artworks for display in the gallery and the feedback has been incredibly positive with plans to travel the exhibition and future open submissions on the horizon. To get involved check out the instagram page and keep and eye out for future eventshttps://www.instagram.com/edinburghcollagecollective/
Sarahs work is part risograph and part collage as she runs risograph printers The Gutter Press https://www.instagram.com/thegutterpress/ . Collage has always been a focus of her work but since starting her business late last year she has also been making risograph prints created from her original collages. Her work for this exhibition was looking at the excitement and intrigue you have when receiving post and she wanted to celebrate this and inject an element of fun to her subject.
The exhibition is open until the 28th so pop by if you’re in the area. If you have an interest in risograph have a look at The Gutter Press website and contact Sarah with any printing projects you want to get produced. Also watch out for the Edinburgh Collage Collectives future open submissions, they would love more people to get involved and to connect with more lovely collage loving people.
This month three of last year’s Illustration graduates, Drew Starling, Felix Miall and Hari Connor, took part in the Stojkow Arts Residency Programme in rural Poland where they were able to do lots of drawing and gather inspiration for upcoming projects. In this week’s blog post Hari shares her experience and some of her lovely work created during her week-long residency.
The residency is on this beautiful farm in the rural south of Poland, surrounded by meadows, rivers and forests. I love going out of the city to work on drawings at a slower pace, and I’m always inspired by nature and by making work together with other creatives. I’m really interested in observational drawing as an exercise, how the process of drawing changes how you interact with a place, making you slow down and appreciate tiny details, and how the final artwork can reflect one’s experience of the space. It’s also really interesting travelling and working with other illustrators, and seeing how different artists’ interpretations of the same landscape or object can completely vary.
I’m currently putting together a new book called ‘The Way I See It’ that collects my observational drawings from the last few years chronologically, finishing up with the work from this trip. The book will be small, and include notes and prose that I wrote at the time – I wanted to recreate the feeling of handling something personal and intimate that you get when looking through someone’s sketchbook.
The book has gone to print, and should be arriving next week in time for launch at Glasgow Comic Con – I’ll be selling it online and bringing it to Thought Bubble after that. I’m doing a new, experimental comic that includes a huge amount of natural scenery and plants, but I’ve only sold short zines of my observational drawings before, so I’m really interested to see what people think of it in comics circles!
Stojkow Arts Residency Programme was set up by Jessica Kettle who graduated from ECA Illustration in 2014. For more information email jessicakettle10@gmail.com.
We congratulate our 30 new graduates whose degree show is currently in full swing!
Come to Evolution House / ECA to meet the artists and see the fruit of their work over the last year. There are a variety of things on display ranging from Graphic novels and picture books to printmaking, magazine design and 3 dimensional illustrated objects – and you’ll also be able to pick up a piece of affordable artwork in our degree show shop if you like.
This collaborative project is inspired by and closely linked to the current exhibition ‘You are Here. A journey through maps’. The students from first year Illustration and Graphic Design worked in small groups and were asked to challenge what they know about maps, how they are made and how we understand them. They were encouraged to consider maps as a basis for storytelling beyond the attempt to represent factual information and investigate how maps may, for example, communicate emotional involvement in a place.
Each collective was given a series of tasks; this involved mapping a randomly allocated bus journey throughout Edinburgh, mapping their own personal journey from home to Edinburgh as a place to study, mapping a designated room at the National Museum of Scotland and lastly documenting the creative process of other students.
Throughout the 5 week project students were asked to attend a series of workshops and lectures led by Printmaker Jonathan Gibbs, Author Vivian French and Artist/Illustrator David Lemm to further enrich their skill set.
The group collaboration has been beneficial to our students who have been able to learn from their peers and experience their creative process. Skills were shared and tasks delegated amongst the group; for Illustrators and Graphic Designers this provides an invaluable learning experience building a solid foundation for their professional careers.
A selection of the work displayed at the National Library of Scotland until the end of May.
We are very fortunate to have such a very creative and productive programme director here in the Illustration department and are delighted to showcase is work whenever we can. This week our blog features Jonathan Gibbs’ current exhibition at the Rowley Gallery in London.
In my Scottish studio, I work on a table. Constructed in pine, it is rather battered but stable and came from a farmhouse in Gloucestershire. It was given to me by Lily Messenger, who had lived in Rodmarton before moving to Amberley, the village where we lived at that time. As our next-door neighbour, Mrs Messenger also lent me an attic room in which I worked for several years until we moved to Scotland in 1990. Before marriage, she had been Lily Bucknell, from a family of blacksmiths and wood-workers and who belonged to the Guild of Gloucestershire Craftsmen. This is only significant because my own Guild membership led to meeting highly skilled artists and craftsmen from whom I learned much concerning materials and ways of making things.
Vessels
Mrs Messenger owned a set of finely worked fire irons made by her cousin Norman Bucknell. These irons had a subtle, dotted motif to decorate their articulated forms, without appearing as superficial embellishment. They are excellent examples of craftsmanship, being both beautiful and useful.
Guitarra
At the present time, my work table is beside a south-facing window to the Lammermuir Hills. This location is somewhat distant from the Cotswolds, but is a deeply inspiring vantage point from which to paint, draw, and engrave various woodblocks. These prints in the Rowley Gallery show a range of subjects which connect to the origins of my work immediately following graduation, hence recollections of Mrs Messenger’s attic at the time when I began to seriously apply myself to wood-block printmaking.
Sturgeon
Blair Hughes-Stanton taught relief printmaking at the Central School of Art & Design, but my principal education came at an earlier time from Donald Potter, who taught us sculpture at school. DP had worked as an apprentice to Eric Gill, and he gave me the fundamental grounding in how to conceive and express ideas in three-dimensional form. Of course, this was also very much about working in wood or stone; how to make something well.
Also, when arriving at the school, Eric Rennick had said to my mother, “I cannot teach this boy how to be an artist, but I can teach him how to draw”, which was true, certainly.
My time as a lecturer has caused me to work out what can be taught or demonstrated to students, in relation to what I actually learned after leaving school and during six years at art college. At some point I realized that the study of sculpture deeply enhances knowledge about drawing.
Oak Tree
Many of these images begin as a simple division of the picture space, with a horizontal or vertical line, which is then subdivided or interrupted. This is a cross-like motif that supports or frames imagery of various kinds.
It may be of interest to note that this tactile and crafted process, allied to whatever philosophical or intellectual aspects it may have, completely liberated my mind’s eye in the way of making an image. When allied to the smooth surface of an end-grain woodblock, the fine sharpness of particular tools allows me to create and invent pictures as much as I have ever wished.
After Apple-Picking
Also, I like to make drawings of objects on window-sills, shelves or table tops. For example, these are stones & wood; feathers, shells & bones in baskets or boxes. All such collected items are an inspiration to me, for some reason. They refer to my East Anglian origins, as well as later travels and current location. Found objects hold a sense of time and poetic significance, as well as being formally intriguing. There is a subject to be found in what is placed in the foreground, with a window to divide the shallow space, and a view beyond to encompass elemental landscapes. Such subjects offer simple questions about the ways in which forms occupy space and how they can be visually expressed in two dimensions.
Back in March, artist and educator Brigid Collins came in to do a project with our second year students. The project involved approaching drawing and the creative process from a new angle.
The creative process is an ecology that depends upon the full spectrum of our resources – Shaun Mc Niff
Trust The Process (Shambhala, 1998)
Habits allow us to not think about what we’re doing . . . giving us the illusion of ease. When we are under the illusion of ease, not thinking about what we’re doing. Breathing the same old way, moving the same old way, thinking the same old way we check out of the present, out of happiness itself – Alex Levin
Thoughts are simply habits. We all have the potential to draw our way to new, more positive habits of mind and being and make connections with our creative selves. Part of connecting with your self is connecting with the world around you.
During these days of ‘serious play’, we each explored our unique individual creative ecology – how we, as individuals, become inspired to create – by engaging in activities that led us to focus on our
Breathing
Moving
Drawing
Writing
Making
We began in a seated position, listening to our own breathing, beginning to focus on finding space inside ourselves – allowing a deepening of our creativity through a process of self-enquiry and moving towards greater self-acceptance – and accessing the creative and emotional energy that lies ‘hidden’ in the layers of the body. By cultivating a sense of curiosity towards what we found, we saw how we could become more willing to befriend what lies, all too often unknown to us, within ourselves…
We then stretched and freed our joints (‘Pawanmuktasana’*), pausing to gather a ‘word hoard’, or personal collection of words/phrases that came to us as/when we began to travel inside our own being.
We then went on to use the practice of drawing as a starting point for exploring creativity – working in pairs and alone, making ‘blind’ drawings by using both our orthodox and our unorthodox hand – this very surprising process helping us to begin to establish an embodied listening post, or place, for
Being in…
Moving from…
Writing from…
Making from…
Reflecting on…
our experience, from moment to moment.
We next met and, after a body/breath awareness meditation and setting of individual intentions (‘Sankalpha*’), we made wire sculptures – drawings in space – of our model’s head, as a way of freeing-up our drawing and an exercise in looking by paying close attention. We followed this by stepping outside – into a brisk but bright Edinburgh morning – using our senses to engage with the moment and write simple haiku poems in response to our experience. We later constructed book forms, using wire, glassine paper envelopes and thread, to act as containers for our ‘word-hoards’ and haiku and within which the words have emerged from the process could be placed, to provide us with what could be seen as ‘shrines’ to our individual creative ecologies.
Our last session together began with a body/breath awareness meditation and simple movement, leading us into a series of drawings – using graphite and charcoal – made in response to different aspects of our own breathing, while using both our orthodox and unorthodox (or dominant and non-dominant) hand.
By taking shelter – by being inside the world of our own experience, in our bodies, rather than outside our selves, in the world of ideas – by working from the inside out, we moved towards accepting things as they are, rather than willing them to be otherwise. In this way, we learned that our thoughts and our experiences do not define us – rather they can provide us with a place from which the scope of our creative expression may be allowed to expand. The intention is that the tools introduced during this short ‘project’ can then help us to actively experiment with ways of moving between the different “worlds” that are encapsulated in the various roles that we play in life and encourage us to toy with the possibility of moving between our ways of being-in-the-world with an increased sense of flexibility and ease.
This has been a wonderful process, full of surprises and lightness, due to the letting-go of expectations and of pressure to ‘succeed’, especially in terms of measurable outcomes. The students engaged in this with willingness, open-mindedness and exuberance that made it a very special experience – thank you all!
Brigid Collins
March 2017
[* These are words in Sanskrit, from the yogic tradition]
This week we delighted to blog a post by Jonathan Gibbs, programme director of Illustration at ECA:
Mark Hearld’s exhibition at York Gallery has been The Lumber Room: Unimagined Treasures. This is an extraordinary room full of miscellaneous stored objects and artefacts, all of which are complemented by examples of his own work.
This magazine is the third Random Spectacular publication by by St Jude’s, entitled The Lumber Room in reference to Saki’s short story of that title. Simon Lewin and Mark Hearld have created an eclectic anthology of drawings, photographs, texts and illustrations to cast light upon this story.
My own contribution was to illustrate Saki’s text with a full-page illustration, and eight spot illustration to punctuate the writing. This was done in wood engraving, by making five different coloured prints from a big block, then cutting up the prints and making a registered collage of the bits. You will be able to see all my mistakes in this results. Or perhaps they are not mistakes . . . It was a great privilege to be asked to do this, as I have long admired Saki, whose last words were “put that bloody cigarette out”, just before being killed by a sniper’s bullet in the First World War.
Jonathan Gibbs
Such collaborations as Random Spectacular bring one into close proximity with like-minded artists and designers, and their various works are beautifully juxtaposed throughout this journal.
Simon Lewin’s highly skilled editorship and design skills have made this possible, to a very high degree.
There are various creative connections within this artefact. Notably, with Stage 2 ECA illustrator Alise Tipse, who shows some very fine drawings here. Chlöe Cheese, has visited ECA at various times and is an eminent artist, printmaker and illustrator. Likewise, Angie Lewin has lectured here, as indeed have Simon Lewin and Mark Hearld. Together, I believe that they make a powerful case for cross-disciplinary study, in theory and practice.
ECA alumnus Emily Sutton needs no introduction, and I was most fortunate in being able to see her standing in the York Gallery, for several hours, making these finely observed drawings of the glass cases and their contents.
The exhibition and this magazine enhance various fertile connections between the fine and applied arts. Their examples may be discussed from a conceptual or symbolic point of view, as well as their aspects of craft, design, typography and photography. It has been a truly inspiring process in placing imagery and objects together in an eloquent relationship to literature and visual culture.
Jonathan Gibbs
Emily Sutton
Alise Tipse