Our degree show 2016 is in full swing! Here are some images of last week’s private viewing where we were delighted to meet our students’ families and friends and catch up with graduates from previous years.
The degree show will be running until 5th June, 11-5pm with late night openings on Wednesday 1st June and Thursday 2nd June from 11-8pm. Come along, see some emerging talent’s fresh work and perhaps even pick up an affordable piece of art from our students’ degree show shop?
Alfie Onion is here! Launched last week at the Edinburgh Bookshop, this is one of the many books of children’s fiction and adventure written by our very own Vivian French. We would like to congratulate her and wish Alfie all the best!
We are extremely lucky to have Viv as a writing tutor at ECA, where she supports our students in developing their own authorial language and storytelling skills, which benefit their picture books projects, comics or illustrated poetry.
As one of the initiators of ‘Picturehooks’, a Scottish Picture Book Illustrator’s mentoring scheme, Viv also does much to support the development of Illustrators after graduation, and has contributed much to the appreciation and awareness of picture books as an art form.
Viv’s great enthusiasm is not only valued by ECA’s Illustration department but was also recently recognised by Her Majesty when Viv was appointed an MBE for services to literature, literacy, illustration, and the arts. We’re proud of you Viv, keep rocking!
Stage 3 Illustration students of Edinburgh College of Art with the support of James Hutcheson, Creative Director at Birlinn/Polygon and lecturer Harvey Dingwall have created a series of double page spreads for James Hogg’s novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, first published in 1824. James has an ongoing fascination with with the novel, its very contemporary narrative structure and existential dark thriller qualities.
Each student was given a section of the novel and asked to illustrate it with pull quotes and imagery. They are presented in the order of the book but as the story plays with narrator and descriptive imagery of the same events an engaging confusion is compounded with these series of spreads. We ask you to enjoy the imagery and how each spread evokes elements of the book – if you have not read the novel then hopefully this will be an inspiration to do so!
Click here to see the book in full:
Confessions of a Justified Sinner Pages
On Saturday students and staff of Illustration travelled to Glasgow to attended this year’s Picture Hooks Conference at the Centre of Contemporary Arts. Now in its third year, the conference gives illustrators the opportunity to hear from leading experts from the world of children’s publishing.
There was an excellent range of speakers involved in both the making and publishing of picture books who shared their valuable knowledge with the audience.
Tessa Strickland, co-founder and Editor at Barefoot Books spoke about the things she would like to see in an applicants portfolio. “Can you tell a visual narrative? There needs to be a visible transformation, a character that changes throughout the story – there are people who are starters and people who are finishers. You need to be a starter and a finisher.” She also gave some general advice to illustrators who are trying to find their feet in the world of illustration “Life is short. Become the illustrator you want to be!”
Joel Stewart, award winning author and illustrator of over 20 books, spoke about the synthesis of digital applications and hand drawing and how the two seemed to increasingly blend together seamlessly within his work. It was interesting to hear Joel speak about how he considered himself more of an observational than an imaginative draughtsman and how he felt the teaching of academic drawing was an important part of Illustration training.
Andrea MacDonald, Executive Editor for Picture Books fromPenguin Random House gave insights in to how picture books work to comfort, challenge and open up new worlds to their audience. She gave advice on how Illustrators can approach publishers and spoke about the pressure author/illustrators can face when making a second book after a first successful one had been published.
Nicki Field, head of illustration at Jelly Agency, shared her experiences on the many other opportunities for illustrators to sell and license their work. As a Brighton graduate of Illustration Nicki was able to provide a unique insight based on her diverse background. She suggested that illustrators should define their practice and “work on what you think is you, your niche.” She advised not to set up multiple identities for different aspects for your work (just imagine they would all be called in for meetings at the same time) but instead to “be the same person but channel multiple aspects of your work in different ways” and “to be innovative and to do what you can to keep ahead”. She also spoke about the value of self-initiated work and how small ideas can have a big reach.
We met a lot of established and budding illustrators as well as interesting speakers, each offering a different perspective on the many aspects of the picture book and publishing industry. Altogether this was a very inspiring day for us!
Tessa Strickland, co-founder and Editor at Barefoot Books
Joel Stewart, Illustrator
Andrea MacDonald, Executive Editor for Picture Books from Penguin Random House
Nicki Field, head of Illustration at Jelly Agency
Catherine Lindow, one of last year’s Picture Hooks mentees
Lucy Juckes and Vivien French, initiators of Picture Hooks
ECA Illustration students feeling inspired after the conference
First year illustration students have recently completed their final project of the year. The title of the project was ‘Long Story Short’ and spanned five weeks, with the students experiencing a different form of storytelling each week and visually communicating their responses to these stories.
Week one involved a fantastic session of Scottish tales told by professional storyteller David Campbell. The tales were vivid and imaginative, evoking rich imagery and providing great source material for creating illustrations. The following week we met with Tom Clelland, who sang us some of his own story songs. These ranged from love stories, to dark tales of murder. We changed things up a bit the next week by visiting The National Museum of Scotland with author Vivian French. The students wrote and illustrated some non-fiction pieces in response to the objects we saw. Next the class was encouraged to look to the people close to them for their fourth story. Each student recorded a conversation with a friend or relative, and made images based upon the dialogue that emerged. Finally we allowed an element of chance into finding our stories. Each student went out to sketch people in public places, taking an open-ended statement as a starting point and allowing the people and places they encountered to build the story.
The students embraced the challenges presented by this project and have all produced lovely and interesting work as a result. Each student took a different approach, and the outcomes were displayed in a small exhibition held at ECA. We invited David, Tom and Vivian back to see the work and chat with the students. It was a great way to round off the project, as well as a very good excuse for tea and biscuits.
Today a slightly different kind of life drawing has taken place in the Illustration department. Our studios have been cleared in preparation for the degree show, providing us with lots of space to organise a rather unusual drawing experience for our students.
Our special guests and life models today were Edward the european eagle owl, Bonnie the barn Owl, Percy the peregrine falcon, Kenny the kestrel, Blue the red tailed hawk and Skippy the Australian boobook owl.
Their keeper Archie McCrone introduced us to each bird and its individual character. He spoke about the birds natural habitat, and shared interesting facts about their anatomy and behaviour. Many of our students are involved in character design of both human and animal figures and being given the chance to study this wonderful range of birds from up close was something quite special.
Now in its second year, ‘Bird Day’ has become an annual activity which marks the end of the academic year through a rather fun and at the same time educational event.
Armed with a zero-pound budget and a ferocious imagination, 6 illustrators recently planned and set off on a drawing trip to the Moon. Wearing artisanal, one-of-a-kind space suits and equipped with an abundance of materials, these third year students sketched and photographed their arduous hike across the rocky surface. Last night they opened a new exhibition in ECA’s Sculpture Court full of artwork made in response to the trip. Have a look below!
MoonLanding runs until the end of the week.
A wonderful screen print here from Molly Soar.
http://www.mollysoar.com/
Another quick peak here at some work from our upcoming degree show: humorous and vibrant work from Celeste Woodham-Clark.
The Edinburgh College of Art degree show opens to the public 28th May. Come on down to see some amazing work from fresh painters, sculptors, performers, architects, fashion & costume designers, product designers, graphic designers, photographers and, of course, illustrators!
Another post showcasing the work of our graduating students.
Look here at some sensitive drawings by (in order) Molly Soar, Mhairi Braden and Drew Walker.
