Observation to Illustration

In my last newsletter I wrote about a struggle I’m having turning some drawings into “proper” illustrations. I'm really grateful to everyone who replied with thoughts and advice. It was great to have a conversation with people here about it, what a lovely community this is! My pal Ella Beech who is a fount of knowledge advised me to stop thinking about what a potential client might want (who KNOWS???) and try and make work to please myself. Yeah, I thought, that’s easy to say, but maybe I don’t even know what DOES please me, and anyway, I want other people to like it.

The deadline for entries to the Bologna Illustrators' exhibition is today and I knew I wanted to enter again (I was lucky enough to be long listed last year which gave me a glimmer of hope) so I thought this was a good thing to focus on. To enter you have to do five illustrations on a theme. I looked back through my sketchbooks and considered making work based on people on the beach because I LOVE drawing people on the beach

But the other thing I’ve been drawing a lot lately is people in museums. I find it really poignant looking at the long-dead stuffed animals, thinking about what we have done to the living world. I found that when drawing the animals I could begin to create a narrative by illustrating a relationship between an observer (I like it best when it’s a child) and the animal.

I thought really hard about what I was trying to say here, I hope my sadness comes through but that they still have some humour. I tried turning these sketches into illustrations using only manual materials

But I found the more I refined them, the more I liked them.

These are my final submissions, riso printed brilliantly by Maria at Cecilie Press

I actually really loved working on these. I think Ella was right, when you make work to please yourself it glows. Good luck if you have entered too!

I’m going to be selling one of these prints (not pictured here) as a fundraiser for the Middle East, either for MSF, the Red Cross or Unicef. I just need to prepare the print and work out the best charity to give to.

Things I’ve been loving this month and finding helpful to cope with the News include Married at First Sight UK (utter, utter shit and completely addictive), How To with John Wilson (How to Put Up Scaffolding is my favourite so far), My Baba’s Garden by Jordan Scott and Sydney Smith, I cried so much reading it that my son had to take over.