Author: cpascoe

Upcoming graduates – Arran Stamper

I’ve spent the last twelve months creating and developing creatures that live on the Moon. My degree show will feature an encyclopaedia that contains everything you would ever need to know about each of these species.

Their characters are based on behaviours that I’ve seen and recognised in myself and other people. This project has forced me to pay closer attention to the way people act and ask why that is. The characters are aliens, and some of them only have a close visual resemblance to humans, but they are based entirely on the worst and best aspects of human behaviour.

I have always considered drawing by hand to be absolutely central to my practice, using biro pens as my preferred media.

I have recently tried hard to break away from using biro by screen printing, ink and watercolour to try and inject some colour into my work. However, the struggle served to prove that, at least for my creatures, biro is best way to tell their stories.

Alongside my encyclopaedia I’ve been working on monochromatic, wordless comics, in which my aliens are going about their daily routines. I try and tell the most basic of stories with intense mood and drama, just to see how far it’s possible to dramatise the mundane.

16-plastecine-creature-models-footbeast-and-rupertarran-11creature-expression-studiesdevelopment-5gilbert-anatomy

Arran’s instagram – @azzastamp and website –  www.azzastamp.com

Edinburgh in Colour

Written by 3rd year Illustration student Savannah Petrie, the main illustrator of ‘Edinburgh in Colour’.

I first heard about the ‘Edinburgh in Colour’ colouring book project through an email that was sent around: the organisers were running an illustration competition. I thought that seeing as I do a lot of line drawing that could be the right style for a colouring book, I’d give it a go. I think it’s great to try to do competitions or commissions outside of your course work because it gives you a chance to expand your portfolio, and try things you might not have done before. I really enjoyed creating illustrations for various places around Edinburgh, and it’s exciting to see my work printed in a book!

The colouring book was organised by a group of business students at Edinburgh University, as a way to raise money for Children 1st, a Scottish children’s charity. The books are now printed and for sale, and over £2500 has been raised already! Many artists/illustrators from ECA have submitted work to this book, and there’s also lots of information about the charity and Edinburgh itself.

The fundraising colouring book project was mentioned in the following articles: Edinburgh College of Art and The University of Edinburgh and is available to buy through Etsy and other shops around Edinburgh including the EUSA shop and local galleries in Edinburgh (Fruitmarket gallery and Summer Hall) as well as Pop-up shops at Edinburgh Grassmarket.

The illustrations below were submitted by Savannah Petrie and Ella Bruty.

157ellaella2

UPCOMING GRADUATES – THOMAS SHEK

2

Hello, my name is Thomas and I grew up in Edinburgh. I have been drawing since I was a little boy. I’m always curious how different artists design such fascinating characters in animation and picture books and also I watch a lot of cartoons.

I like to work in digital media with Photoshop and Illustrator. My process begins with  sketching on paper, then I scan the drawings in and draw everything on top with the pen tool in Illustrator, then finish it in Photoshop. My style of illustration is a combination of caricature, cuteness and humour; exaggerating features is important in my illustrations because I believe it helps viewers to identify the character’s essential qualities. It is something I enjoy doing for my illustrations. I am interested in creating characters, so I study others in picture books and animation films, why they’re so successful and what adults and children like about them. So for my final project, I’m making a picture book for the Degree Show. I love words and tales to share with the world, filling up pages with cute little characters, each with their story.

41

The story is about this young girl that finds this lost tiger in Edinburgh and needs help and to find its way back home to its mother. They explore Edinburgh asking people and animals. This story was inspired by the “tiger who came to tea” by Judith Kerr and “lost and found” by Oliver Jeffers.

3

The Bunkhouse Project

During last year’s summer break four of our third year Illustrators ventured out in the wild in order to paint a mural based on the landscape and history of Glen Coe.

In preparation for the project Eden Reeve, Han Deacon, Jo Ruessmann and Rosie Hawtin paid three visits to the Bunkhouse hostel and met the owners of the hostel and Benjamin Tindall architects who accepted their design proposal and directed them during the process.

The interior was painted using emulsion paint in different sections of the building; to most of the group this meant working in a new way, to a large scale and in collaboration with fellow illustrators.

Alongside being attacked by midges, as we were told, the 4 spent many busy hours completing this bold and evocative mural. We believe it will serve as a wonderful addition to the bunkhouse visitors’ experience of the Highlands.

davhdrhdrhdr

hdrhdrhdrhdrhdrhdrhdrdav

UPCOMING GRADUATES – ELLIE WALKER

This week on the blog, we are featuring soon-to-be-graduate Ellie Walker!

img_0982-jpgMuch of my recent illustration is a concerned with the environment – sharing an appreciation for the outdoors, and using illustration to attempt to address environmental issues.

Some of my fourth-year work was spent designing rootmap, a map of where to buy local and sustainable food in Edinburgh. The decisions we make about food does not just affect us, it impacts our environment, the people who produce it, our local economy and much more. I think it’s important to be mindful of this. Designing rootmap was one small way to try and help others consider responsible and sustainable food options and practically point them in the right direction to find it! I like to make illustration that is useful and practical, this gives me motivation and purpose whilst designing.

(See more at www.edinburghrootmap.com)

walrus-6_800img_0387-jpg

Much of my work is inspired by being outdoors and I often draw whilst out and about, picking up inspiration from shapes, patterns, colours, stories that I see.

I’m also very inspired by literature, music and history – these themes also crop up in my work now and then

I’m currently working on a seasonal food calendar, wildlife-spotting book for kids, and doing some illustrations based on some favourite extracts of poetry.

08august-jpg

www.elliewalker.com

 

Upcoming Graduates – Laura Sayers

There are 18 weeks left before we present this year’s degree show to the world. In preparation we are starting a blog series to feature our soon-to-be 4th year and Masters graduates.

Today, meet Lovely Laura Sayers!

I’ve been working with paper for quite a number of years now after I was given a project in school when I was about 16 that asked us to make a black and white paper sculpture based on a myth. I went straight in with a pair of scissors and found that I loved being able to glide them through a sheet and make new patterns and shapes from something so simple. Since then I’ve neatened up my way of working, discovered my eye for colour and my pieces have naturally ended up a lot smaller and more detailed. I’m still using the same trusty pair of 89p scissors though!

Mansfield Pencil.jpg

hi-vis-vincent-and-housesnarnia-friends-copy

I’m currently reworking a little children’s book about a character called Hi Vis Vincent who is a chubby little guy who’s job it is to paint the words ‘bus stop’ on the side of the road, but he gets bored of painting the same thing and lets his imagination run wild instead.

I’ve become really interested in simple characters who live their dreams as a result of being bored – I love the concept of making fun out of mundane situations. I found a pencil sketch of Vincent in an old sketchbook that I’d forgotten about and I liked the look of him, so this is what he’s developing into.

A lot of my work centres around personalities and physical spaces as I feel this is what my style is best suited to. Literature plays a big part too, whether it’s a story or a poem that I’ve written myself or a piece of classic literature, I like the challenge of visualising the characters and bringing something new to their stories.

In my final year I’m also making some of my own handmade paper, keeping a journal and making patterns from the scraps left over from my pieces, and soon I’ll be starting a project which at the moment looks like it’ll be based on stories about the ugly offices that our studio faces onto.

First Year’s Poetry

Our first year illustrators have taken pen to paper and made their own series of illustrated poetry while exploring inventive layout, new methods of research and experimental image-making.

Inspiration was found in different genres of poetry, such as personal, nonsensical, satirical, political, dada, surrealist and beat poetry to name a few. Illustrations were based on students own writing, some of which was generated through word games, and explored the complex relationship between word and image.

During visits to the Scottish poetry library, ECA’s artists’ books collection as well as a drawing and research trip along Edinburgh’s Royal Mile students were able to gather further inspiration and make first-hand observations which fed directly into their projects.

For many of the group the project served as a first introduction to creative writing and digital page layout. At the end of the project students were asked to submit a printed artefact which frames all the work they have done; to build a sequence or structure which communicates their creative journey.

3456711110892

House Style Calendar Launch

Last night we launched the House Style calendar in ECA’s sculpture court.

The House Style brief was a collaboration between all of the Illustration Department’s students and staff, with each contributor making an image based on a book, using a limited colour palette. These illustrations were then printed in both postcard and calendar format by Allander Print.

Previously exhibited at Edinburgh’s International Book Festival this summer as a display of postcards, the work was this time launched in its calendar form, with an arrangement of all the work up on the walls of the sculpture court as well.

Thanks again to Nicky Regan, George Douglas and Sarah Bissel for all their work on House  Style, as well as Allander Print, and Adele Conn for organising last nights launch event. And finally a big well done to everyone who took part! We’re all looking forward to opening up the calendar in January to ring in the new year.

After the Storm

After the Storm is an exhibition of fine furniture constructed from timber from the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh windblown during Cyclone Andrea in 2012. Highlighting the beauty of Scottish-grown timber and craftsmanship amongst our Scottish furniture makers, the exhibition also focuses on the restorative and rejuvenating effects of storms in nature and trauma upon the natural and human environment.

The work of Jane Hyslop who teaches in illustration and who recently ran ‘Plants of the World’ with our second years focuses around flora and regeneration. For After the Storm she has made a series of drawings based on plants recorded in Gore Glen, Midlothian.

Several trees were destroyed or damaged there in 2012 during Cyclone Andrea and more have followed. The natural process of regeneration is explored through a fascination in the plants and the drawing process. Ranges of species are laid out in compositions created through drawing collected plants in the studio.

Hyslop has also created artist’s books that explore the subject of After the Storm through experimental methods of working with paper that extend previous works. Wood veneered paper vessels containing scrolls depicting plants from the site use the form and format of the artist’s book to exemplify the violence and destruction of the storm while offering a snapshot of regeneration at different stages in Gore Glen.

sunlight-after-the-stormgore-glen-after-the-stormafter-the-storm-ix-and-xii-scrollsimg_1995