Tag: Edinburgh College of Art

14th August 2019

House Style 2019

The Edinburgh International Book festival is in full swing and the Illustration department is on board too, proudly presenting ‘House Style 2019’.

This project saw every student, from Stage 1 to MFA2, and all members of staff choose a book published in the UK in the past 20 years and creating one illustration in response.

Everyone was asked to work in black and white as well as one out of 4 available spot colours which were randomly distributed after choosing a book, and part of the challenge was to work with this allocated colour.

The master-list of 150 books was assembled by literary critic Stuart Kelly, who helped us launch the project by giving introductory talk to the department. A big thank you goes out to him for his support.

The resulting works have been printed as postcards and exhibited at the Edinburgh Book festival as a full set, to represent the range of work coming from this Programme, in all its considerable variety.

All postcards are on sale now – grab one while you can!

Aug 14, 2019

15th July 2019

Macmillan Prize 2019: student success

Two of our recent graduates have every reason to celebrate:

Seobhan Hope’s book ‘Summer’s Sleep’ has been highly commended and Amy Steele has won 3rd prize for her book ‘The Lunchbox’. In this blog post Seobhan and Amy speak about their books and how it feels to be shortlisted for / awarded this prestigious picture book prize.

Shortlisted: Seobhan Hope

“Summer’s Sleep’ is the story of Summer, the giant, who can’t go to sleep. I spent my final year falling in love with and researching folk tales from around Scotland, and was particularly taken by the Story of Samhuinn, or Halloween, where tales tell of a summer and winter king, who fight to see who will be next to rule the kingdom each year in Autumn. I reinterpreted the old tale, wanting to create a meaningful story that was going to encapsulate ideas of sustainability and raise awareness around climate change and global warming in a gentle way. In my story, we find a giant called Summer exhausted, not being able to sleep, and not knowing what to do. He personifies the warm season, which can not end because its gotten too warm for winter to come. Included in the story is also a diverse group of little characters who -slightly cluelessly- set out to help the tired giant. The final result is a colorful, hopefully amusing and thought provoking wee book. The process of coming up with the story, creating the characters and assembling the book was so much fun, and I am delighted it came highly commended at the Macmillan Prize Competition!”

Winner of 3rd prize: Amy Steele

“The Lunchbook is about a banana who lives in the fruit bowl but dreams of making it into the lunchbox. Like all fruit, he wants to be taken to school and eaten up, every bit. But being a banana has its difficulties and Banana ends up lonely in the lunchbox as all his new friends get eaten. As the story goes on, Banana gets more and more forlorn and begins to rot as he struggles with his emotions. The book aims to differ from other books with food characters because these characters WANT to get eaten, which (I hope) makes people laugh.

Being chosen for 3rd place in the Macmillan prize was super exciting and actually, relieving, because I had been so worried about the story all year – the main character essentially dies – so it was a good boost to know that publishers like the idea even though it’s absolutely bonkers! I went down to London for the private view which was really interesting. I enjoyed getting to see all the other entries and chatting to the illustrators – everyone was so talented! Macmillan also asked me to come into their offices and have a chat about my book and my portfolio while I was down, which I did, and it was SO helpful to hear their feedback and encouraging words about my work.”

At the award ceremony

Jul 15, 2019

11th July 2019

Illustration staff Astrid Jaekel wins AOI award

A Teaching Fellow in Illustration has been awarded a prestigious Association of Illustrators (AOI) World Award for her recent street art project, “If These Walls Could Talk”. For the twentieth anniversary of Wigtown’s book festival, Astrid Jaekel decorated 11 buildings on the small town’s square with her illustrations.

Astrid’s illustrations were inspired by the townspeople

A Wigtown resident stands outside his shop decorated by Astrid“If These Walls Could Talk” was a temporary project which challenged the perception of how older generations perceive street art, which is often associated with youth culture, and perhaps not the Scottish countryside.

In the 1980s and into the 1990s, many businesses in Wigtown ceased to exist and the small south-west town declined. In 1997, however, it was awarded the status of Scotland’s National Book Town, which has, over time, helped to regenerate the local economy. Now, Wigtown’s many cafés and second-hand bookshops attract book lovers all year round.

Astrid began her project by going door to door around the town square in order to learn about the buildings and find residents who might like to “donate” their houses to be canvases for street art. The town embraced Astrid’s vision.

Astrid decorated buildings with inspiration from the town’s love of books

“I’d like to think that the project made the people of Wigtown feel proud of their town and gave them the chance to continue telling their stories.”

Astrid Jaekel

Many locals have played a major part in growing the book festival as volunteers, and “If These Walls Could Talk” was intended to shine a spotlight on Wigtown and its residents. The project was also meant to encourage visitors to mingle with locals, and to get the visitors to see the place as more than just a charming festival town.

“I’d like to think that the project made the people of Wigtown feel proud of their town and gave them the chance to continue telling their stories to the festival visitors,” said Astrid, “I believe that that’s exactly what street art should do. It should generate conversation and make people reflect upon their surroundings. It should connect people with one another.”

A project of this grandeur proved to require a few extra pair of hands. Astrid enlisted fellow artists as well as ECA graduates, including Irish street artist Joe Caslin.

One set back during the project was Storm Ali. It decided to pay Wigtown a visit just after Astrid installed the wallpapers and many sections were left in tatters or destroyed completely. Through resilience and dedication, though, Astrid and her team managed to repair the damage to produce an award-winning project that seamlessly unites storytelling, illustration and street art while capturing the essence of the small town.

All of the 200 shortlisted entries of the awards will be displayed at an exhibition at Somerset House in London 11 – 28 July, with in-depth presentations of each of the category winning projects.

To learn more about the exhibition, check out Somerset House’s website.

Jul 11, 2019

10th June 2019

New Course – Creative Book Works

‘Successful artists’ books utilize the whole design and production process to reinforce the message of the subject matter. Shapes, folds, text patterns and materials can be used to nudge the viewer in the direction of the artist’s message, producing a unified coherent statement from the outset’

Bodman, Sarah (2005), Creating Artists’ Books. A&C Black, London.

In the Illustration programme we read books, write books, illustrate books and make books, exploring and playing with picture books, comics, magazines, zines, artists’ books and much more. So we were excited to launch a new elective course in 2019 completely dedicated to using the book form creatively. Students came from a variety of Design backgrounds and broadened their skills in printmaking and bookbinding whilst tackling some quick and low tech publishing of their own. The work was rooted in a historical overview of creative publishing, yet the main rule of the course was simply to play! We cannot wait to see what great projects will emerge next year…

(Banner image: Map of an unmade bed by Sally Delahooke, 2019)

A manifesto in the form of a creative bookwork by Alison Laing, 2019

Sculptural books Bryce Starks-Browning, 2019

Jun 10, 2019

6th June 2019

Degree Show 2019

IT’S DEGREE SHOW TIME AGAIN and we have a lovely eclectic mix of Undergraduate and Master students’ work on display. Don’t miss the chance to see it! The show is open daily from 11.00 – 17.00 until Sunday 9 June. Tonight is Late Night so we’ll be open until 20.00! Looking forward to seeing you on the 4th floor of Evolution House!

And here’s a wee sneak peak of what’s on display..

Jun 6, 2019

18th March 2019

Illustrated Anthologies

“Don’t use the phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry.” – Jack Kerouac

Our first year Illustrators spend the first half of their semester working on a number of poems they were first asked to write and then illustrate. Sources of inspiration were Surrealist word games, biographies linked to Edinburgh’s Royal Mile and Political Protest. The main focus was image and text relationship and composition on the page. As part of this our students also learned to put together the pages of a book digitally and get it printed to a professional standard. Come to BOOKMARKS on Wednesday and you’ll be able to see some of these gems at our first year stall!

Mar 18, 2019

8th June 2017

Degree Show 2017

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.

ECA Degree show information and opening hours.

Here are some images of the opening night, which was great fun – thanks to everyone who came and showed their support!

Jun 8, 2017

25th April 2017

Bookmarks 2017

We have had another great Bookmarks event this year, thank you to everyone who helped make it a real success.

A series of talks by educators John Brown, Astrid Jaekel, Alan Mason, Mike Inglis and Edwin Pickstone gave a good introduction to the subject and was followed by our annual Artists’ Books and Small Press fair in the atmospheric Sculpture Court.

We hope you had a great time and have mingled with fellow artists or discovered new fresh talent and will return for more fun and books next year!

In the meantime you will be able to find more updates on all things artists’ books on our brand new Bookmarks website http://bit.ly/2p112zp

Apr 25, 2017

28th November 2016

Shaping the View

This November ECA Illustration was delighted to hold the 7^th International Illustration Research symposium and to welcome lots of researchers and practitioners to Edinburgh.

This year’s event took ‘landscape’ as a starting point, inviting illustrators, mapmakers, printmakers, travelers, tourists, antiquarians, ethnographers and experimental archeologists to share their journeys through Illustration.

Speakers at ‘Shaping the View’ explored complex and various interpretations of Landscape in research, academic study, and professional practice.

From an international submission of abstracts, Jonathan Gibbs and Desdemona McCannon chose 37 academic papers for presentation over two days at ECA.

Five key speakers enhanced this discussion and debate and the symposium concluded with musical pieces, projections and installations of landscape themes in the Wee Red Bar.

As a post-script, Saturday’s site-specific workshops added a new dimension, using the city of Edinburgh to explore further aspects of time, space, and location.

The complementary exhibition in the Sculpture Court has enabled all students and staff to show their work alongside invited artists, leading exponents of Illustration. The exhibition demonstrates a high level of academic study, research, and professional practice.

An international selection of work has been curated for a wider understanding and appreciation of Illustration. Shaping the View has been made possible by research funding from the University of Edinburgh and by Saskia Cameron’s excellent design work of all the exhibition pieces.

Landscape-based work by 2nd and 3rd year students as part of the ‘Shaping the View’ exhibition

Roderick Mills, Paddy Molloy, Harvey Dingwall, Geoff Grandfield

Desdemona McCannon and Adrian Holmes

Jonathan Gibbs and Anne Howeson

Bianca Tschaikner on “Mapping imaginary Worlds’

Andrew Baker about ‘Landscape in Comics’

Stephanie Black on the exploration of nostalgia and the contemporary Moon under Water through illustration

Angie Lewin on printmaking, collecting, and finding wildness in unexpected places

A wonderful two days ended with drinks and joy in ECA’s Wee Red Bar

Nov 28, 2016

8th September 2016

Oh Buoy!

If you are heading down to Leith you should check out this exhibition showcasing 13 ECA Illustration alumni and friends who have come together to investigate the surface of water – asking questions about what floats above and what may hide below.

All work is made using Out of the Blueprint‘s risograph printer and a limited colour palette to give the collection a unified aesthetic.

The show was organised and curated by our Artist in Residence and very talented illustrator Andrea Popyordanova and is on display at Out of the Blue Drillhall until 15th September. Prints are available for £20 while they last.

Sep 8, 2016

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