The Meadows Festival

On the 7th and 8th of June, 17 illustrators from Edinburgh College Of Art (including me) set up a tent as part of the Meadows Festival, where they sold and exhibited their work, and made objects especially for this community event such as bags,pillows, books and even gave the public a chance to be creative themselves by letting them make their own badges, which proved to be very popular. Over the two days we managed to raise over £750, a generous percentage of which was then given back to the meadows Festival Association Charity. Hopefully we will again be able to be as successful next year if given the opportunity.

Illustration Friday

Illustration Friday: Day 3
Final piece. Wrinkles are something that I immediately associated with appearance. So I took this idea and used it in terms of objects rather than for people, and thought of why we would reject them on how they look or work. There is a diversion in the image between the new technology and desirable items (at the top), appearing quite minimal, which seems to reflect modern day life. Whereas in contrast to this the clutter at the lower half of the image, filled with objects that we have no longer any use for as they are old and more efficient and new products are available and preferable.
Illustration Friday: Day 2:
About half way there, Woop!!! But still some adjustments to be made to what i have already done. Lower half possibly needs to be darker, so there is more of a contrast between the lower and upper half of the composition.


This weeks Illustration Friday Word: Wrinkles.
Day 1:
This is what i have done so far, and as you can see that is not that much. But I do have 2 more days of hard labour, and will keep you up with my progress through to the end of the week and explain my final composition. I aim to keep adding to this image across the page each week relating to the illustration Friday weeks word like a time line, which will run through the center (horizontally) acting as a way of recording my progress.

Faslane poem

An example of some work in progress for a collaborative book project between illustrators and poets. This is one of my final drafts for the poem Disarmament, which is one of a series of poems relating to Faslane 365. Faslane is where the Trident nuclear base is situated in Scotland, and the Faslane 365 program is a year long blockade involving groups and organizations from Scotland, England and Wales aiming to shut down the base for at least 48 hour period each during the year to eventually apply enough pressure to lead to the disarmament of Britain's Nuclear weapons. Disarmament was a poem written by one of the blockade protesters . Once looking at the poem I interpretated it as having quite a serious, demanding nature, but also quite a sarcastic and humorous one. These are some of the things that i really wanted to put across in my illustration.

Initially I had to think of an interesting but effective way of getting across the strength and energy of the word boom in the image, and as therea re only two words in the poem these had to be illustrated well, without detracting to much from the words themselves. To deal with this I believed that it was a good idea to give the words enough space, consequently I decided that a double page spread was necessary, as well as giving me space to create a 'story' within the image that i feel helped me create this sarcastic element( with the squirrel pushing down the detonator).

My full page illustration has helped me create an impact with the positioning of the mushrooms, which look like an explosion caused by the detonator. I decided to use mushrooms as a play on mushroom clouds which are created by bombs, and as a way of incorporating nature on to my image. This also creates a sense of, it is not what you expect (nature instead od man-made disaster). Although this seems to be quite a humorous ending to my illustration and to the poem, this should also reflect the unpredictable but definite danger that would occur if such nuclear weapons were to be used.

Another reason I wanted nature to be an important feature in my illustration is that,I wanted it to be dominant over the bomb which can be seen laid on the ground useless and in a sense 'disarmed'. this is also felt by the bomb being placed in an ordinary, peaceful and harmless environment. A child also features in my image to illustrate the fact that it would be nature and future generations that are at great risk, which i feel satisfies the serious element of the poem.

Things that appeal to me in terms of the aesthetics and nature of illustration are when theres a lot of things going on in an image, an image that has impact but also makes you focus on the smaller details. I often draw influence from artists such as Josef Lada, Salvador Dali, Lautrec, Aubrey Bearldsley, Stanley Spencer and Lowrey.

If you would like to see some more of my work, please visit my website:

http://http//www.qdigital.net/0708/illustration/litten/index.htm