Tag: ECA Illustration

Picture Hooks Conference

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!

1Tessa Strickland,  co-founder and Editor at Barefoot Books

2Joel Stewart, Illustrator

49Andrea MacDonald, Executive Editor for Picture Books from Penguin Random House

15Nicki Field, head of Illustration at Jelly Agency

17Catherine Lindow, one of last year’s Picture Hooks mentees

18Lucy Juckes and Vivien French, initiators of Picture Hooks

20ECA Illustration students feeling inspired after the conference

 

 

Long Story Short

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.

 

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Bird Day 2016

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.

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Artists in Residence Ceramics Workshop

Last Wednesday we had the first part of a two day ceramics workshop in the Illustration department, led by two of our artists in residence, Rebecca Brown and Sarah Bissell. Working with stoneware clay, everyone handbuilt whatever they fancied – whether it was inspired by a larger project, a functional piece or by playing with different ideas in order to get used to a new material.

By the end of the class we had created a collection of pieces that included mugs, wall hangings, spoons, dogs, cauldrons and cacti, among a variety of other bits and pieces.

The pieces will be fired this week and on the 23rd the second part of the workshop will take place, which will involve painting and glazing the work before it’s fired for a second time.

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Creative Material Play

Creative Material Play was an interactive workshop run by Eleni-Ira Panourgia and Katie Forrester, both PhD candidates at ECA, as part of Innovative Learning Week 2016. The workshop took place in the illustration studio and participants came to take part from many subjects across the university. The concept of the workshop was to provide various ‘raw’ materials – such as wood, metal and paper – for participants to ‘play’ using their intuition and imagination to make artworks.
These artworks are now on display in Matthew Gallery, Minto House from 9-5pm during the week, until 3pm on Friday.
 
Photographs courtesy of Meilin Su.
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Superheroes

During the past eight years we have run the Drawing Book projects with various primary schools in Edinburgh, as well as in Orkney. This has involved tackling a variety of themes in collaboration between art students and school pupils. Animal Characteristics, Feelings, Olympics, Sea Monsters, Opposites and School Meals are but a few of these, and now we have Superheroes.

All of this has been made possible by Vivian French, who has guided us through Drawing Book collaborations, far and wide, with great skill, wisdom and good humour.

Our visits to Wardie Primary School have been a totally inspiring and creative experience for everyone. The children are natural, spontaneous, wise, and good humoured.

To make a connection between art college students and children at the very start of their education and causes us to consider the fundamental values of drawing, thinking, telling stories and picturing things.

The Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh City Council Literacy Department, and the University of Edinburgh have given their support to Drawing Book.

What powers would one wish to have, and how might these be used towards the greater good of mankind? This is the question. We learned the answers and much more besides from the Wardie Superheroes project.

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Mapping the City

First year illustration students are really getting to know Edinburgh now, and this week they completed a unique map-making project. They were set the task of creating a map that would communicate their relationship with the city. The maps did not have to be geographically accurate and could depict any area or aspect of Edinburgh as they have experienced or perceived it.

We began by visiting the Central Library on George IV Bridge and were treated to a look at some of the maps in the library collection. We then explored the various passageways and rooms around the library and sketched the views of the city from these vantage points. We also visited the ECA Library to look at the fantastic collection of artists’s books. These gave students inspiration for the physical format their map might take.

The students then developed their research drawings into maps of their own. The class produced a varied body of work, including intricate hand drawn ‘memory’ maps, digitally made board games based on their adventures around the city and fabric collages incorporating hand-stitched routes and motifs.

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Work in Progress with Jim Hutcheson of Birlinn Books

Our studio is busy this morning with a pop up crit for a project led by Harvey Dingwall and visiting lecturer Jim Hutcheson, creative director of Birlinn. As part of their studio practice our third year students are presenting their work in progress and receiving valuable feedback from a publishing expert.

Students were asked to illustrate a section of James Hogg’s ‘The private memoires and confessions of a justified sinner’.  A dark gothic crime novel with an innovative structure written from the perspective of the editor or sinner himself. Written in 1824 it is reflective of the passion and innovation of the period.
Each student was given an about a 3000 word section of the book to illustrate over x4 A3 landscape pages ie x2 double page spreads. From this they were to select pull quotes or small blocks of text to be placed alongside their illustrations. The challenge is to create a dynamic and engaging layout.

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Former ECA Student Holly Sterling Nominated for 2016 CILIP Award

Talented ECA illustration alumni Holly Sterling has been going from strength to strength since her graduation in 2013. She has illustrated two published picture books to date; Nativity Story and 15 Things Not To Do With A Baby, written by Margaret McAllister and published by Francis Lincoln. Her beautiful illustrations for the latter of these books has resulted in her being nominated for the 2016 CILIP Kate Greenaway award.

Hardworking Holly has a further six books set to be published next year. In addition to her illustration work, Holly frequently visits schools to hold drawing events and workshops, as well as giving talks to art college students.

Check out her work on her website:

http://cargocollective.com/hollysterling

Congratulations Holly!

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Pattern making in year 1

A new group of first year illustration students have arrived in Edinburgh and begun to explore the city. Their first project was a pattern making endeavor, and we decided to head to Edinburgh’s Botanic Gardens to gather observational drawings and inspiration. We spent the morning drawing flowers, plants and naturalistic forms as well as the architecture and characters populating the gardens. Students also collected leaves and paraphernalia they found along the way.

We returned to the studio and began to research the history of pattern design, looking at motifs, colour palettes and techniques from all over the world. Students gave presentations on their findings before trying out various techniques themselves. We also looked at the ways in which patterns may be applied, including furnishings, textiles and books.

After demonstrations in relief printing and mono printing, we looked at how to make a repeat pattern by hand and using digital methods. The students then developed their drawings and prints into patterns of their own. The students embraced the new techniques with enthusiasm and as a class they produced a varied and impressive range of repeat patterns. This project involved the first of many observational drawing trips and was a great start to the semester.

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