Final Major Project

Books

Dahl, R., 2007, Fantastic Mr Fox, 4th ed, London, Puffin.

Websites

Gray, L., 2009, Urban Fox Count: The Daily Telegraph launches study to count urban foxes, [Online] 

Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/4862873/Urban-Fox-Count-The-Daily-Telegraph-launches-study-to-count-urban-foxes.html [Accessed 14 May, 2010]

Gray, L., 2009, Foxes being treated as ‘free pets’ in cities, [Online]

Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/4937712/Foxes-being-treated-as-free-pets-in-cities.html [Accessed 14 May, 2010]

My brief for this project was to produce a series of illustrations, based on the subject of foxes.  I chose to do this for two reasons.  Firstly, I was keen to present foxes in their natural environments and in a positive way, i.e. not as pests and nuisances as they are often seen to be these days.  Secondly, I wanted to do this in a way that would help me develop my own illustration style.  Since starting university in September, I had done very little illustration and because of this I felt that my illustration style and skill had suffered.  Therefore, by incorporating illustration into this project, I wanted to improve my skills and develop a style unique to myself.  I think, by setting this aim for myself, I was able to really focus on what I wanted to get from this project and produce something that would stay with me after this project was over.

In terms of time management, it took me over three weeks to decide what I was going to base my project on, before I chose the subject of foxes.  At first I felt that I had wasted my time and was disappointed that I hadn’t had an idea straight away, but after a few tutorials I realised that this is an issue that even accomplished illustrators come across and it is all part of the design process.  However, once I knew what I was going to do for the project I was able to manage my time very effectively and begin to research into my subject – foxes.  Looking back now, I think my research was quite rushed which I think effected the content of my final outcome.  This is possibly because of the three weeks of indecision I had and I think that I felt rushed to start the actual making process.  Therefore, if I was to do this project again differently, I would definitely spend more time researching into the topic and collecting information from a wider range of sources as the majority of mine came from the internet.

Once I had my idea and completed the research process, I began to look at reference images and from these I created a sketchbook full of illustrations of foxes and landscapes.  I feel that this constant repetition of illustrations allowed me to see how my style developed over the weeks and the techniques, which make the delicate, ‘hand made’ style personal to me, such as the quite structured line work, lack of outline and the use of pale, tonal colours.  I found myself doing all of these things without even thinking about it which I feel shows that this is natural to me and different to a lot of contemporary illustrators.  I feel that my main piece really suits the screen-printed finish and although each print has some minor flaws such as faded line work and some darker coloured patches, this process has proved to be very successful.  I now feel much more confident in screen printing and would definitely consider using this process again in future projects.  If I had more time on this project, I would have liked to have made a lot more illustrations, including more foxes and perhaps telling a story, giving the fox more of a voice and a narrative throughout, however, I do think that my three existing illustrations have a story as they stand now, I would just like it to be more obvious and pronounced.

Overall, I am extremely happy with the way my illustration style has developed from my initial illustrations of foxes on my blog to my final screen-printed illustrations.  Looking at them now I am proud to have created something as accomplished as this and see them as a strong body of work, however, I feel one of the main weaknesses I have in the whole illustrating process is having confidence in my work – I find myself being much too analytical and critical of my work and have been told in tutorials to just draw and not think about it so much which the main thing I will take from this project.  

Now that I’ve done the majority of my research, I will move onto developing my illustrations from my initial ideas in a sketchbook.  I may post some reference images after this, but the majority of work will now be done in sketchbooks.

Having complete all of my main research, I am now going to write my statement of intent, which will cover what I plan to do next in this project.

My research for this project consisted of watching a lot of video clips of foxes to see how they act first hand, reading a lot of articles on foxes and finding out different opinions about them and collecting a good number of reference images to begin drawing from.  I think one of the key books that I read whilst researching was Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl - although this is a fictional story, it still subconsciously presents the real life traits and characteristics of a fox which is something that I’d be interested in exploring in my illustrations.  I also found articles, videos and photographs from the BBC, Channel 4 and Telegraph helped me get a grasp of how foxes act and how widespread they are around Britain.  From my initial research, I feel that the key facts and issue raised are that there is no difference between rural and urban foxes as an animal.  However, once in the city, foxes can become de-sensitised to people and are often kept as pets.  I found this quite sad as foxes are wild animals and I don’t want them to be exploited by humans.  In order overcome this, I want to present foxes in their natural environments in my illustrations and have no human aspects in them whatsoever.

My main aim for this project is to present foxes as clever and cunning characters.  Through my research into other fox illustrators, I have picked up on certain ways to manipulate the fox so these characteristics come across, such as lengthening the nose, giving it longer legs and pointing the ears sideways.  By experimenting with these features in my illustrations, I will be able to see what works best with my style and if I have any new ways of changing the character of the fox through appearance.  In terms of how I’d like my audience to receive my work, I’d like them to grasp the main concept that foxes are very clever animals and that rural and urban foxes are the same animals and can live in both habitats, however, I think my style of illustration could suggest a lot of things - give the fox a gender, a voice, a life story which might come across subtly in the illustrations, but I would like it to be up to the audience to really use their imagination and use my illustrations to imagine their own story perhaps.

In terms of development of skills, I aim to develop my own style of image making in this project.  Illustration to me is communicating a message through image making, however, I haven’t really been illustrating regularly this year which has caused my skills to suffer.  In the past when I have illustrated regularly and looking at my earlier sketches of foxes, I can see that I have quite a ‘handmade’ and delicate style of illustration, which is something I want to develop further by experimenting with media, line, colour etc.  The only real way to develop my style is to simply draw and keep it up.  Therefore I will present all of this development in a sketchbook and make sure that I draw for at least 2-3 hours a day, so that I can see how my style develops over the next few weeks.

My main objective for this project is to screen print my illustrations.  I have done this process a few times before and must say it’s my favourite image making process and one which I feel quite accomplished with.  I also feel that screen printing could suit these ‘handmade’ illustrations very well and provide me with an almost flawless finish to my illustrations.  What’s more, screen printing is proving to be a very popular and lucrative process at the minute so if I was to think about selling my illustrations, I’d probably have a lot more success if they were screen printed.

I’ve noticed a pattern forming as I have been looking at fox illustrations.  Firstly, the majority of the time, foxes are being presented as clever, cunning and sly animals.  It’s not surprising that they are presented in this way as this is how foxes act in real life and how they are thought of.  The second similarity between the illustrations is that in order to present foxes in this manner, certain aspects of the fox can be changed.  Usually this consists of making parts of the fox elongated and thinner - when features such as the legs, ears, nose and tail are made longer the sneaky and cunning character seems to come across even more.  This could be a vital point for my illustrations so this is something I will deeply consider in my illustration and development.

Something else that I’ve noticed is that all of the fox illustrations that I’ve come across have presented the fox in quite a straight forward way in terms of colour.  I have only seen standard orange/red/brown fox illustrations so I think it would be interesting to play with colour in my development process.

This fox illustration suits it’s title ‘the crooked fox’ a lot due to the long spindly legs and slanted ears.  There is something crooked about foxes in real life too, they aren’t the most attractive animals and are often very skinny and have matted, patchy fur, however, there is still something cute and appealing about them - I think Golden has got this across perfectly in this illustration.

Whilst carrying out some research into contemporary illustration, I found a magazine called ‘uppercase’ which in this seasons issue, features a collection of illustrations of foxes.  The front cover of the magazine (above) was created by illustrator, Matte Stephens.  Matte has a collection of illustrations called ‘crafty fox’ so I suppose this is how he see’s foxes as being and is representing them this was in his image making.

Matte successfully achieves a ‘crafty’ personality by putting man’s suit on the fox as people tend to be suspicious of business men and so this gives the fox a cunning image.  Also I think the long nose of the fox adds something else to his character, perhaps makes him look a bit more sly and sneaky. 

Jen Collins is another Scottish artist who often uses animals in her illustrations, but I am particularly interested in her as she has produced some illustrations of foxes.  

What I like about this piece by Jen is that she has incorporated a background which tells us something extra about this fox and allows us to imagine what is going on.  Although the facial features aren’t really defined in this illustration, just the posture of the fox says a lot about him - proud, noble, perhaps hunting, cunning etc.  

Lizzy Stewart is an illustrator based in Edinburgh and has a large collection of illustrations which have animals as the main subject.  

Lizzy has a very apparent style of illustration - her rough, directional lines create great texture and are continuous through most of her illustrations.  However I also think she has a subtle way of capturing and manipulating the character of an animal.  For example, above and below she has drawn a collection of very dangerous animals, however, to me, she has drawn them in a way that suggests she doesn’t think they are dangerous - the small, sad eyes of the bear, the slight smile on the face of the wolf and the ‘rawr’ of the bear which looks more like a yawn.  I think it is very important for an illustrator to put their own stamp onto their work and draw things in a less obvious and straight forward way, perhaps manipulating a small aspect which could change the whole meaning of an illustration.

Mike Hughes

Mike Hughes is a British illustrator who has recently produced a series of wildlife illustrations.  Although he has only been illustrating for the past 10 years, his work has a very traditional look about it from the attention to detail to the earthy colours and material (acryic and oil paints) used in his work.  

I think that Mike’s Work has a very traditional and realistic look which is something I admire but I think his main achievement is capturing the animals in their natural environment which is something I want to do in my work.  I feel that the addition of scenery or a habitat gives the viewer more understanding and knowledge of the animal and it’s character and life.  For example, from just looking at the image of the robin above I sense that the bird is female, rather quiet but quite territorial too and can be bossy if needs be.  I do not know anything about robins so my interpretation could be totally wrong but that is what I see in the picture and to me that is what illustration is about.

By creating a set of initial fox illustrations, I was able to discover how to draw the basic form of the fox.  However, now my aim is to give the fox character and a personality, but before I attempt this, I will look at traditional and contemporary illustration to see how illustrators have achieved what I am trying to achieve in my illustrations.