Bigheads-Josh Cochran

Josh Cochran an illustrator living and working in Brooklyn, New York. He is paying rent to share a studio with other practitioners, which he prefers to working from home as 'it turns you crazy'. 

Through seven years of being an undergraduate, he said that much of his work has developed from using silk screen processes, which has gone to develop his style of using limited colour pallets, making dense drawings focusing on realism, characters and fantasy.

He has worked on a wide range of projects, creating children's books, murals, advertisements,and says that the best way of maintaining his practice is to keep a sketchbook and keep engaging in projects.

Advice he would give to himself as a first year includes:

• develop a community in college
• keep sketchbooks, collaborate with friends
• turn boring briefs into things YOU want to do
• get a dog...
• to de-stress, distract yourself by doing something different e.g. cooking, having a set up at home, and do some exercise!

And finally, what differentiates illustration from GREAT illustration is that has an intangible quality, has strong connections and putting your soul into it- being part of you. 

What is Illustration- Part 1

We started today's session by bringing in five photos that represented our own personal interests in illustration. Working in small groups we made a collaborative list on reasons why we chose our images; following from that, we put all of our illustrations in the middle of the table and had to choose one illustration that represented each statement in its truest form.

Distinguishing between drawing, image making and illustration.

'Drawing makes you see things clearer, and clearer, and clear still until your eyes ache'- David hockney

Drawing is responding to the world in a visual way as a process of explanation, documentation and visualisation. Image making takes on the same principles as drawing, which could combine the use of other creative skills.

Illustration on the other hand is a little more complex. The distinguishing factor between drawing and illustration is its context. A drawing becomes an illustration when it is applied to something and has a purpose and meaning. It is a cognitive process being used to communicate above and beyond a drawing or image.

TASK

What does illustration mean to me? Here are five statements that I believe define illustration, and five images that support these statements:

• Functional-communicating ideas visually

      Noma Bar, sexual harassment awareness

• Responding to something, e.g. a brief/statement or article

     Andy Carrilho, response to the westernisation of the ebola crisis

• Element of interpretation

     Joe McLaren, interpreting schizophrenia

• Solving a problem

   Gemma Correll, A guide for restaurant patrons

• Has a target audience

Becky Down, children who like bears

10 Questions

1. When graduated, will I have gained the appropriate knowledge to go and set up my own business being a self employed illustrator, or will I have to figure this out myself?
This is really important for me to set good foundations for my career and make the best preparations possible so I am able to start making work.   

2. How do I start to gain contacts?
I will need to start making contacts in able to promote my work and hear about new opportunities. I could do this by talking to people on my course, establishing myself online and not being afraid to show people my work.

3. How will I develop a style of my own that is unique from every other self-employed illustrator?
The chances are I won't develop something completely unique because there are so many illustrators out there. It is a possibility that I could take inspiration from other illustrators and combine various techniques together to generate a way of working that is recognised by others as being specific to me. 

4. How can I expand my knowledge, both in general and within the creative industry?
I can do this by attending lectures and seminars, attending events and doing personal research. Also by making myself aware of what is going on around me in the world will help influence my practice.

5. How will I develop confidence within my own practice?
This is something that will take some time, but not comparing my work to others will help. I could also make references to other illustrators who have influenced my work, and push myself further with my ability- for example taking opportunities in terms of competitions etc.

6. How do I set up an exhibition?
Having exhibitions could be another way into gaining contacts and establishing myself as an illustrator as well as my work. To start with I could get together with friends who are at the same ability as me, and in that way we could support each others practices.

7. How will I learn to balance my time?
This will come naturally through informal learning. I could also make the extra effort to make timetables/goal lists to keep on track of progress and also make time to do everything that I need to do.

8. How will I establish myself in the industry?
There are many ways I could get myself known, including trying to involve myself in exhibitions, entering competitions, sharing work with other illustrators etc.

9. How do you use adobe illustrator?
This process would include formal learning for example attending tutorials/workshops in college to help me gain additional skills, or in a non-formal way by being shown tips and tricks by peers.

10. How do you screen print?
This could also be a formal learning process by using the college facilities in a workshop session.

Reflective Practice

Yesterday in our PPP session, we learned about learning. The difference between teaching, education and learning, as well as the three types of learning.

Teaching is to impart knowledge or instruct how to do something, very much like school style.

Education is the act or process of acquiring general knowledge. It also entails developing the powers of reasoning and judgement and generally preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.

Learning is acquiring new behaviour, knowledge, skills, values, preferences and understanding. It could occur through education, or consciously, or even without conscious awareness.

There are three types of learning. Informal learning could be seen as 'learning by accident' or subconsciously. It is learning from day to day situations for example discovering that you could have left 20 minutes later for uni because the bus is always late, or discovering that you actually like chilli powder when it was mixed in with your dinner.

Formal learning on the other hand is the opposite, it is almost like organised learning due to it taking placed in an arranged manor, with a teacher to student system for example at school/college or university.

Whereas Non formal learning is learning that takes place outside formal hours. This could be learning in your own time for example visiting an art gallery or collaborating with other students to discuss interests and views on different topics.

In our blog groups, we got together and discussed things we wished to improve on whilst studying Illustration, and created a learning diagram on how we could achieve those improvements.

Bigheads- Donya Todd and Jack Teagle

I'd not heard of Donya Todd and Jack Teagle before this 'bigheads' session but it was really interesting to be introduced to them as illustrators, and them as people. 

They are a couple in their twenties living and working at their home in Somerset, they avoided London to buy more time to produce more work.

Donya said that her mission is to make comics, t-shirts, paintings and anything weird! She is trying not to do too much editorial to focus on developing her own practise. 

Her main love is for comics, Dame Darcy being the principal influence, alongside 'the magical, marvellous and macabre' 

Donya's other half, Jack teagle said that he was inspired to illustrate from storytelling through the ages and his interest in narrative. Like Donya, he is also passionate about producing comics and developing characters, even three dimensional figurative characters!

Collaboratively, they said that their work exists with themselves and friends, and that it is really satisfying to make comics and go to conventions.

The good thing about maintaining output and being self employed is that you don't have a set routine, creating a laid back working environment, however this can affect self motivation and cause a lot of 'faffing around' because it is not as structured.

Finally, some advice they both gave to us:

• Don't be stubborn
• Photoshop is not the enemy
• The end of uni isn't the start of your career, do things now
• You can be ready when you want to be
• Don't be exploited for free work
• Get together with friends!

Drawing Club

After college today I attended the first 'drawing club', which is a bit of a novelty session to improve our drawing and creative/imaginative skills. The topic was 'our big map', and we were told to draw a rectangle which represented our house, and from there to construct the neighbourhood we live in.

Then, as predicted things became weird. We were told to add roads, obscure imaginary places, a GREGGS, places from the future etc until the whole thing looked like a huge map of absolute nonsense. Brilliant nonsense though!

The session lasted an hour and a half, which really exercised our imaginations, exhausting ideas for places and things to draw on the map.

Who Am I

Five reasons why I have chosen to study Illustration

         From a young age, I always paid more attention to the illustrations 

         in children's' books. I thought to myself, 'that's what I want 

         to do when I grow up'.

         I want to communicate my ideas visually. Pictures give more powerful

         messages than words.

         I'd love to be able to make a career from something that I am passionate

         about.

         Drawing, and making pictures is my favourite thing to do. I want to expand

         my knowledge and practise in the field of illustration and in the creative

         industry.

         Being an illustrator is the only career I can imagine myself enjoying

         and hopefully being successful in.

         

       Five reasons why I chose to study at Leeds College of Art

       LCA is a small, specialist institution which has produced many successful

         practitioners in the past. My preference was to study somewhere where I 

         wouldn't feel like a small fish in a huge pond, and be surrounded by 

         other creative individuals, something I could not experience at a regular

         university art department.

         The city of Leeds is buzzing. There is always so much going on and so many

         things to be inspired by, in contrast with Grantham, the small market 

         town where I grew up.

         When I came to the open day, I was amazed at how enthusiastic the course 

         leaders were about their specialisms. I didn't get the impression that 

         the process would be 'here's your degree, off you go'. I got the 

         impression LCA has a culture of hard work and determination, enabling

         students to get the most out of their degree programmes and leave with

         the experience and knowledge to take them onto taking on professional

         work.

         The facilities are great, enabling maximum potential of exploration and

         experimentation.

         My college tutor advised that when looking around universities and 

         colleges, make sure you get the 'warm fuzzy feeling', in other words if

         you can see yourself settling into the institution really well and 

         flourishing there. When I looked around LCA, I felt like this.

       Five strengths and skills

       I am keen to experiment with different materials and processes.

         I like to try and find humour in almost any thing or situation.

         I'm friendly and work well in a team.

         I have very high standards, I always try to work to achieve the best

         I possibly can.

         I'm really reflective, I look back on work I've produced and evaluate

         positive and negative factors, searching for ways that I can develop

         for the next time around.

        Five things I want to improve on

       Become more knowledgeable about art in general, learn about different

         art movements and become more aware of the surrounding creative 

         atmosphere.

         

         Allocating time to indulge in creative media. For example reading more

         illustrative blogs, books and comics.

         Become less of a perfectionist, learn to accept and embrace mistakes.

         Less familiar skills, such as printing and using digital media.

         Accepting that everyone in the class works differently. Everyone has

         different interests, experiences and skills and that this shouldn't 

         make me feel inferior. 

         

       

       Five images that show my interest in Illustration

 

'Brick Lane' Lucinda Rogers

I admire the way that Lucinda Rogers uses a variety of different
line quality within her observations of buildings,using a heavier
line weight  for more promenant features, for example street corners
and pavements.

'Have you seen my Hat?' Jon Klassen

Jon Klassen has a unique sense of humour as he comes
across as being extremely blunt in his style of
writing. This correlates with his design of characters
having the same, flat facial expression in each
illustration. Also focusing on the fact that Klassen
has chosen not to use mouths in his characters, allowing
the character to express themselves only through their
eyes, noses and bodily stances.

               

         

'Imagined' (series) Jennifer Maravillas

'Imagined' is a series of illustrated animal characters taking on stereotypical human tasks, such as riding bikes, skiing etc adding
an element of light humour.

'Cardigans' Frida Stenmark

Stenmark is very observant in her work, often drawing series'
of objects or portraits with a simplistic use of line. I like
the way she presents her work in sketchbook form, showing her
observation and thought processes in more detail.

'As Large as Life' Quentin Blake

'As large as life' presents work created for hospitals, designed
to have a therapeutic effect on their patients. I admire the
simple 'every day life' situations that Blake illustrates, especially
the more sentimental areas, such as the mother and baby paintings.
I can imagine that these are extremely refreshing to view from a
patients perspective, especially with the subject matter being focused
around human behaviour. This allows them to relate and have a connection
with the pictures.