Scenes from the Life Room

The first year Illustration students have just commenced an intensive twelve week stint in the life room.

Why?

Well, it's because we're quite 'old fashioned' here at Grillust™ Towers in believing that our Illustrators should learn to draw with confidence and understanding before they tackle the more 'weighty' illustration projects that will come later in the course.

The ability to draw well, underpins all great illustration. If you want to be a great concert violinist you have to first learn to play your instrument with great competence. It's the same with illustration, you have to develop technical skills (in this case the ability to draw) before you can undertake any illustration problem with confidence.

It's the start of a long journey...

Life Drawing, it's a dirty business

Katie is appearing as Magical Mr. Mistoffelees in the Carlisle Amateur Dramatic Association rendition of 'Cats'.

3 minute drawings

Dirty Boy!!

More 3 minute drawings...

As above...

Mmm... lovely lady-like hands.

Rhian after a hard afternoon at the 'charcoal face'.

It's a little known fact that all of Ben's facial hair is actually 'drawn on' by hand each day in charcoal (he uses a mirror).

Printing? Without a computer? What the?

The Grillusy Yr1s are currently working with analogue process'. Stretching paper, collage, using photocopiers etc. Here, for their benefit but also for yours, dear passer by, are a few youtube instructional videos on simple print techniques. They're surprisingly entertaining / unintentionally humerous as well as offering some inspiration.











this isn't a great print (sorry to the girl who done it), but the steps are made clear ▼ ▼ ▼


"McMann print", I've never heard the term before. We call it petrol print although you use cellulose thinners (Halfords or hardware stores). BE CAREFULL, it's hugely toxic and needs good ventilation and even a mask. Nail polish remover also works but not as well. ▼ ▼ ▼

First Years First Experience of Hardcore Typography

Our first year students have just spent a challenging and fruitful two weeks working alongside our 'national treasure', H.R.H The Typographer Royal, Dame Rhiannon Robinson OBT*.

As you probably know, Dame Rhiannon is a demanding taskmistress with a ruthless, critical eye that can spot the slightest typographic imperfection at more than twenty paces.

Luckily for our novice students she took them through the fundamentals of good typography through a series of lectures and on-screen tutorial sessions.

This is but the start of a very long journey, but even after such a short time the students can all spot loose tracking, unfortunate apostrophes, orphans, widows and line lengths that are too long or too short.

Rather surprisingly it was two illustration students Ms Katie Lock (21) and Ms Catt Fearnley (also 21) who came out on top when the work was assessed. Let's see if the Graphic Designers can bounce back in a few weeks time when they work with Dame Rhiannon once again.

The project was deceptively simple. Take some information about a typeface like this:
...and turn it into a visual striking and readable A3 poster like this:


Ms Lauren Mines (21)

Here's a survey of some of the best:

Ms Catt Fearnley (21)


 
 Ms Catt Fearnley again (still 21)


 
 Ms Katie Lock (one score and one year)



 Ms Katie Lock again (still one score and one year)

Miss Rhian Wood (21)

Miss Hannah Holmes (21)

Miss Iinu Karna (kaksikymmentäyksi)

Ms Mollie Barker (21)

Master Ben Newboult (21)

Miss Rachel Tunstall (21)

*OBT = Order of British Typography

Daniel Egneuse - rhymes with genius (nearly)

Beautiful illustrations created with intelligence and thought. What's not to like?




for more of Mr Egneus' sumptuous work, nip over to his site

How to get an illustration agent (maybe)

Are you an illustrator in the making?
Have you asked these or similar questions?

What can an agent offer you as an illustrator?

How can artists attract the attention of an agent?

What should illustrators find out about an agent before working with them?

What qualities do agencies look for in an artist?

Do Fig Rolls deserve a greater recognition and fan base?

if so, then head over to Digital Arts who have an article that claims to answer these and at least one other question




Two random illustrations with nothing to do with this post other than that they are illustrations

Dave Dye Blog

One of our exes Lee Freeman (33) who works at the wonderful Sell! Sell! recently sent us an E-mail.

Here's what he said:

"Dave Dye started a blog a couple of months ago.

It's a resource I wish existed when I was studying. 

It's packed with insights, process and tee-hee-hees."

We totally agree so please go there now!

When you've done with that, also have a look at Sell! Sell!'s own excellent blog here.

One Song, One Student's Response

Just before Christmas we gave the first year students a project that attempts to demonstrate just how crucial personal involvement, emotional response and passion are in producing truly memorable, powerful Graphic Design and Illustration. 

The project is deceptively simple. The students are given a song (at random) and are asked to design and make a bespoke CD cover for it. The difficulty is that they are asked to create a design that is as emotionally engaging as the original song.
 
The level of emotional involvement needed to produce good design and illustration is not too dissimilar to that encountered in the worlds of film and theatre. To totally convince an audience, an actor has to research the part, 'feel it', inhabit the role and then totally commit to the performance.
 
It takes design students years to develop the skills and emotional maturity necessary to work in this way. This project is just the start of a long, long journey. However, we were more than delighted to see the way our students committed to the task in hand.


One of the songs was this:
 


The Testimony of Patience Kershaw is based on the harrowing account given by Patience (yes, she was a real person) to a commission looking into the worker's conditions in Coal Mines in 1842.
 
Patience's life was one of unimaginable toil and brutality, she was only 17 and was described by one of the commissioners as follows: "This girl is an ignorant, filthy, ragged, and deplorable-looking object, and such an one as the uncivilized natives of the prairies would be shocked to look upon."

A serious subject requiring a serious response...

Year 1 Graphic Design student Jessica Plant (21) was more than up to the challenge. Here's just a small sample of the work Jess produced during the two weeks allocated to this project. We should also point out that the photographs are all self-portraits created with an auto-timer and that no make up was used. That's real coal you're looking at!

Dictator challenge

At Grillust we love a good dictator. Lord only knows what that says about us. We've previously seen work based on the hair cuts of dictators and rather smashing series of dictator spoons. Here we have a very traditional series of dictator prints - can you name them all? No prizes what-so-ever if you can. We can't lay claim to them however, they were created by fellow dictator lover, James Fry of Harrogate College who we just interviewed for a spot on our illustration course.

One Direction. Not as bad as we thought.

Call it a Day Book or Ideas Book, but not a Sketchbook

…Sketch? book page, Gareth Sleightholme

"The creatives' notepad, journal, field book or sketchbook is something so invaluable and an integral part of the fabric of the practicing illustrator/designer/creative that it must be encouraged in students.
Students, however, often tend to be terrified and cowed by the thought of it, believing that every mark made by their pen must have value (as they weigh it) and be part of a well-received and finished piece of work.
This of course is not true. It is just another of the varied and unhelpful myths carried amongst the debilitating baggage of the young creative.
The sketchbook is the gym for observation, a workshop for the creatives mind, space to spread out and bang nails into ideas and prize problems apart to look at their innards, and as an experimental place, some elements of it can therefore record failures.
And they should.
Failure is part of the design and personal development process
With this idea of recording failure added to the fear of making marks that do not meet the high standards of the students ambition, is it any wonder that the word “sketchbook” causes the range of reactions from incredulity (“You want me to do HOW MANY thumbnail drawings?!!”) to cognitive dissonance (“Yes, well I don’t really believe in sketching, I like to do the final detailed images first”) and back again.
We can, though, remove some of that fear and perhaps encourage the utilisation of this centuries old artistic and creative tool by simply removing the terrifying word “Sketch” (this alone seems to be enough to conjure up vague traumatising imagery related to the chalk and metal point works of various Dutch and Renaissance masters that they feel they must measure themselves against).
Instead we might call it a “Day-book”, the only threat to self included in that title being the notion perhaps, that it must be used… every day."

Gareth Sleightholme 

Link to Gareth's Blog

speculative equations

Imagine this, you're given 4 weeks to take a massive amount of photographs - oh the joy! The subject? Anything and everything that catches your eye, just 4 weeks of speculative play. Nothing is too small or insignificant to be a subject, in fact, you don't have to find meaning or concept, just interesting visuals. 4 weeks. That's a huge number of photos and a massive number of subjects.
Now imagine that rather than use the 4 weeks, you instead decide on a specific subject in 5 minutes. No play, no speculation, no research, not even a single photograph taken, just pin in the map decision making. 5 minutes from 4 weeks. That equates to 0.012% of the time given, the same as making a decision in 0.4 of a second when given an hour.
I don't know about you, but I think taking the whole 4 weeks seems like a much better plan.

(Note - some Grillust trainees might have been heading in this direction and this is a thinly guised, sarcastic post aimed at them)

Edwin, Mike. Mike, Edwin.

One of these thoroughly decent chaps is Edwin from yr2 illustration and one of them R.E.M.'s bass geek, Mike Mills. Which is which is anybody's guess.

It's what the internet is for...

Year 0 Students Carpet Studio

Our plucky Year 0 students have just completed a module that had them experiencing and exploiting a wide range of The University's technical areas.
Featured below for your edification is graphic evidence of their creative activities in our Silkscreen Workshop.

'Year 0 Supremo' Zoe Garnett-Scott was so impressed she is thinking of having them turned into Amtico™* for her kitchen floor. Lovely!




* Amtico™ = posh person's Lino.

Dear Santa, I'm an illustrator and I would like...

It's that time of year when thoughts turn to selfish wants and desires, when we think of all the great stuff we can convince other people to buy us. For the illustrators amongst you we'd recommend that besides the xbox ones, ugg boots and sugar mice on your lists to Santa, you make room for these two books. We've got a copy of each in the office if you want to peruse before (get someone else to) buy but both are full of essential information on the profession of illustration. Certainly essential for third years and a very good idea for anyone following an illustration pathway.

Becoming a Successful Illustrator by Derek Brazell & Jo Davies. Amazon Link
&
How to Create a Portfolio & Get Hired: A Guide for Graphic Designers & Illustrators by Fig Taylor. Amazon link