The book of drawings

For this assignment, we had the opportunity to choose a past project or multiple past projects and use them to create a book of drawings. I had to look back through my previous assignments and see which of them in my eyes stood out the most in terms of skill, but also what I thought had the most potential, what I enjoyed the most and what I thought I could maybe use again in the future when practicing as a professional illustrator.

For me, I believed that reportage was the foremost assignment that had the most potential and possibilities, and therefore it became the content of my book of drawings. 

I began by generating my ideas for the assignment, creating thought showers to help my thoughts flow. Here are some of my thought showers, which show some of my original ideas for the assignment:

ideas thought shower

book ideas thought shower

artist thought shower

After much thought and consideration, I ended up settling on the idea of 'Home'. This was because a lot of my studies that I created for reportage in the past were based on things from home, be it objects, people or just general surroundings. I very much enjoyed doing this, and see my home as a place of safety, and somewhere that is comfortable and enjoyable to be at, so I thought that I could create quite a positive book about this, but avoiding adding a narrative because this was not suitable for our book of drawings project. When generating ideas at the beginning, I was also very interested in basing my book upon a journey of some sort, and then began to think about combining these two ideas into my journey home. And so, in a lot of my early sketchbook work I have began by taking quick studies in my town and on my bus home, to add to the idea of traveling back home. Here are some examples of this:

shops and flats in town

man on bus

street lamp and xmas lights

 I did not do many of these studies because I quickly realised that this might be slightly confusing when put together, and so decided to begin creating drawings in my street to begin my journey, from the top end to start with and then sketching more gradually as I walked towards my house, which was an interesting practice. I did a few of these fast using basic dry media such as pencil/graphite. I then worked from the previous studies to add more detail, and experiment with a larger variety of drawing techniques and materials. I have shown the results below:

The original sketches:

light sketch 

slightly darker, street view

harsher lines/more detail

Street sign

practicing street sign

rows of houses

Working from the studies:

Rows of houses on brown paper
using graphite, charcoal and chalk 

Monoprinting the houses on plain
paper using limited detail

Monoprint with watercolour

Monoprint on segment of brown
paper, with watercolour

Monoprint on brown paper with
watercolour on top

Monoprint of street sign, I repeated
this quite a lot when experimenting 

Sign posts in black oil with
watercolour - worked better

As I slowly approached my house, I began quickly drawing certain features such as my neighbors bin, which was left by their front door, and my house from the front view. I used the same process as I did previously, drawing basic sketches and then working into these, or using various techniques to create further studies. Here was the result of this:

Simple quick sketches

Quick sketches

Monoprinting on brown
paper, with watercolour.

Watercolour and graphite
drawing with coloured pencil

Monoprinting with watercolour,
most successful

House sketches, adding water colour
and fineliner on top

Monoprints of house

adding more detail and
experimenting with watercolour

first attempt, quick ugly
print

My goal for this was to create studies of my street and neighborhood, showing how it looks from the outside to be quite a grim, unfriendly place. It looks kind of crowded and unpleasant, but that doesn't mean that it's an unhappy place to live in. The idea was to create sketches that depicted the area negatively like the above, and then begin drawing from the inside of my house to show the contrast between the cold, unpleasant outdoors to the warm, happy indoor environment. I again used the same process to get my ideas flowing, creating quick, basic sketches of things/people in my house using pencil and fineliner, before creating more detailed studies. Here are some of the examples of this:

dinner plate & fork in pencil

BRILL! computer and stacks of
CD's, fineliner

small dvd shelf & wooden
bear

another of computer

lots of plants! in pencil

telly etc, pencil

plug extensions pencil

plate again in fineliner

'bob' fineliner

mam and background in
pencil

sister in pencil

quick drawings of my mam
in pencil

After creating all of these above studies and having a small collection of things to work from and a better idea of how I wanted my book of drawings to be, I began thinking further of things around my house that I could draw, and quirky things about my home and how I could express my families presence without necessarily drawing them. I began listing things such as how many plants we have in the house, which is an unusual amount, as well as CD's, and the fact that we go through a lot of tea which I could illustrate by drawing the teapot. I thought about ways I could express each family member, by perhaps depicting something that they were interested in such as a hobby, or their jobs or something I see around the house that instantly sends my thoughts to them.

I began illustrating the plants in the kitchen, working initially from the above studies I created in pencil. Here are some examples:

Adding watercolour to fine liner

Using only fine liner

I also began practicing my work on different materials to see what kind of effects I got. As well as experimenting on things like brown paper, as shown earlier, I also experimented on fabrics, such as gentle canvas materials. I did this because I wanted there to be an element of delicacy to my books to depict a fragility as well as a feeling of intricacy and grace. I first practiced by drawing some of my studies shown above on the material. Here are some examples of this experimentation:

Neighbours bin, printed and
water colour added onto fabric

My house monoprinted
onto fabric

Plants in fineliner and watercolour
on to fabric

Sign post, printed and watercolour added
to fabric. 

 I think that this experimentation was a good way for me to visualise what kind of materials I would like to build my book and pages on.

When it came to building my book and working out what kind of images I would like my book to be filled with, I had to look back over my drawings to find what I thought would be the strongest. After I had chosen, I then practiced these some more, until I felt satisfied with the quality that the book would display.

Building my book

Unfortunately, I did not take any development photos when I was piecing my book together. However, I have the photo below from the internet of the materials I used to build my cover: 

Square sheet of rubber

I used the two square cuttings of rubber to create my book covers, and wrapped these in a red and white polka dot material to create a more flattering look, both glueing it and stapling it to keep it secure. I then glued a strip of the same soft canvas material I used earlier, shown for my studies above, to create an area to write my title 'Home' in a monoprint. This was the basis of my book, shown below: 

Finished book 

I was lucky enough to have my book covers roughly the same size as my small square sketchbook that I was using for my studies. This meant that I could take the studies I was working on for my book and just trim them slightly before adding them in. Here were the final images I created, before adding them to my book:

Monoprint development 

Tea kettle ideas, colour
development 

Monoprint for final

Sketches

An example of final

An example of final

Initial sketches

Street view monoprint

Plant development,
 colour

I pieced them together within my book by taping them together along the side using masking tape, as shown below:

Side of book taped together

I then glued the back page of this too the back cover, to give the illusion it was all set up when you opened the cover. Although it looked quite flimsy and fragile, I think this added to the feel of the book. Here is the final creation:

Final piece

Often in my studies I used the technique of monoprinting because I feel as though this is a good approach to reportage, as it is fast and effective whilst creating an interesting effect and an element of charm to the studies. In areas, I added text to my studies. I usually do this in my work, but in this case added it depending on what my personal thoughts behind the images were, and they were included depending on whether or not I deemed it suitable. I wanted there to be a feeling of naivety in the book and innocence, which was why I created so loosely and did not aim to reach any kind of perfection.

Artist research

I took inspiration from various artists when creating my book of drawings. 

Two in particular, were Sabrina Ward Harrison and Tracey Emin. I think these artists inspired me most because of how innocent their work appears. Both artists however, use their art work in a therapeutic way by expressing their deepest thoughts and feelings into their studies. Sabrina Ward Harrison does this in a way of creating art journals, and writing down her thoughts and feelings in a creative way that also gets it out of her system. I got inspiration from how she produces these incredibly creative books, using a hugely vast amount of creative techniques to develop her work. It is very unpredictable and I took inspiration from these features. Here are some examples:

found here

found here

found here

I love how her work can have such an optimistic feel but that it also feels incredibly personal, I took inspiration from this in my work.

When looking at Tracey Emins art, I mostly took influence from her monoprints.

I love how she uses the technique of monoprinting as a fast way of producing art and ridding herself of the negative feelings that consume her. I strongly admire the simplicity of the drawings, and how beautiful and full of feeling they are.

found here

found here

found here

I love how these images can be seen as quite untidy, and I admired the fact that they had been done in a very short amount of time, including text relating to the image also, and sometimes only text, as well as sometimes only an image. Researching the two artists also inspired me to experiment onto different surfaces, as both of these artists are quite experimental when creating.

I also took some inspiration from work that I have created in the past for my FMP at college, where I created art based on personal events in my life around the theme of 'journals'.  I also took some inspiration from the assignment of ours People and Characters, where I experimented greatly with the monoprinting technique. I very much enjoyed creating the book of drawings, however if I could have managed my time better throughout this assignment I think it would have improved my work a great deal, I may have been able to create more pieces for example. I would consider continuing this project again in the future.