Part 4 : ASSIGNMENT 4 - Magazine Illustration

Magazine Illustration - disaster

I began by photographing a still life scene that I set up and I wanted to avoid traditional scenarios that include ornaments, fruit and vases. I photographed a few items from my mantelpiece including a model ship. I had an idea that the ship would be ideal for the DISASTER theme, depending on the angle I tilted it at.

The ship on the mantelpiece, the right way up

The ship on its side, to indicate disaster

The ship on its side at an angle

At an angle with other elements

Upside down

I toyed with different ideas with the ship. I photographed it from many different angles pondering on how this idea would work with the words DISASTER, then also DISCOVERY AND LOST.

The word DISASTER appealed to me and I decided that it might work the best, especially if I distorted the ship. 

Soon my thumbnails took shape and it seemed the idea wasn't great because of two issues - the ship seemed to consume the whole picture due to its intricacy, and the still life aspect became insignificant. In some thumbnails the ship became unidentifiable. I realised that the ship probably has too much structure for the DISASTER theme. I abandoned the idea.

I needed many different lines at odd angles to convey chaos and confusion and so, started toying with little plastic children's toy cars and emptied a toybox to create a bogus road accident in the last thumbnail on the top right,

This is the thumbnail that got me started and these are the photographs that I used to inspire me to find the right angles in the pictures of kids toys that I took:

I chose to draw this photo first but did not think the perspective worked.

I chose this drawing as a second option with the book in the background.

I spent time organising the still life for the most disastrous effect and even introduced a doll to the picture for a more calamitous feel.

I chose to sketch a few scenes:

I chose to expand on this objective drawing above initially and then changed my mind as I thought the floor was overly distorted. Looking back I would have stayed with this drawing.





This is my tonal drawing above of the scene I chose. I used pen, charcoal and pencil.

I added colour to this drawing after tracing it.

This is a line drawing of the car done in black permanent marker, a fine nibbed black pen and pencil. At this point I had been satisfied that the lines were chaotic enough to suggest a disaster and I wanted to develop the theme of the drawing further by adding the legs of the doll to demonstrate disaster. I was happier that the lines told more of a story than the tone. I find line more descriptive than pure tone at the moment.

This is my final developed drawing in colour. I used mixed media: crayon, charcoal, permanent marker and pencils. I'm not convinced that this is the best I could produce. The distortion in my earlier choice of image was far more relevant to this exercise and given more time I would add it to this exercise as an alternative option. This has been a teaching in itself where I have actively experienced that mistakes are necessary.

Summative critique

My tutor's reports mention that I went with the first idea - disaster. I feel I honed in on this too much and could have referenced other artists for this magazine editorial illustration. I believe this piece lacks direction because it got 'lost' at an early point. The media used is also not experimental enough and I would have tried this in collage also and perhaps in black and white.

While I believe I distorted the image and captured an interesting angle, I would improve by looking again at other illustrator's for a more interesting direction. There are so many other ways that this could have gone.

See Mary Fedden for an example and in my learning log:


William Blake's : Book of Urizen for dramatic influence in a picture. As suggested by my tutor, but most suitable for this exercise. I should have found and looked at his work sooner. This is fantastic reference for the dramatic weight that I believe is lacking in my picture 'disaster.'


Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Urizen [Accessed 13 June 2016]