Some Old Work

I haven't written anything of real interest for a while, this is due to laziness. My work-rate outside of commissions has been pretty shoddy but will soon need to step up a few gears due to agreeing with Chris Gray, founder of the wonderful TOY to produce a drawing every day throughout February. TOY have launched a brand new website which deserves to be filled up with lots of new work and I am next in line, after Chris Martin, to help do this.

Having read this blog post by David Foldvari a few times recently (it's titled 'Update') I decided to have a look through a load of old drawings that I did on my degree course. I've posted a few illustrations below from my first year. It's funny looking back at your old work, some of which really clearly shows influences from other illustrators or at least to me it does. Michelle Thompson was one of my tutors on my foundation course in Loughborough and I can say that there is definitely a bit of 'borrowing' going on in some of my first year work...

There's other work that I won't put up through fear of embarrassing myself and possibly Michelle as it's a bit too close for comfort.

David Foldvari in his blog is basically saying that illustration students are placing too much importance on what contemporary professional-illustrators are doing in order to influence their own work stylistically. I agree with this, and when looking around the summer graduate shows such as Freerange it can be pretty obvious. And I don't think that too many people who have been graphics or illustration students can deny that they have been so heavily influenced by contemporaries up to the point of near replication at some stage of their education ( I remember on foundation being obsessed by Banksy up to the point of spray painting shit stencils and names on road signs in Loughborough).

Somehow related to this is the attitude towards answering student's essay questions. This is something that I am fairly happy to do as I've been in the position needing a quote or reference to boost a dissertation grade from a 3rd to a 2.2, and let's be honest it's probably easier to get an email back from an illustrator working out of their bedroom in East London as opposed to getting one back from David Hockney or Ed Ruscha. I'm not to sure what other illustrators feel about this, or whether or not they do reply to student questions. I do have a bug-bear with this however, that is that after sending back a fairly well considered and lengthy reply to said student you receive absolutely no thank-you or even acknowledgement of your help. This does note bode well for students in the future needing help. Being nice to people will undoubtedly help progress your career further than simply copying someone else's drawing style. Any way, that's for another day. Here is some more work that I found; drawn in 2002/2003 or something like that.

I actually prefer a lot of these pencil drawn one's to a lot of the work I am doing right now. They seem a lot more honest and the line work far looser. Definitely something that I will hope to look at in my forth coming work. I think that this just highlights the importance to me of keeping sketchbooks and taking time away from commercial work to go out and just draw for the day. Getting bogged down with client work that is dry and clinical can become a bit tedious, so doing this drawing-a-day thing will certainly help me to do so.

Some of this work does look curiously in a similar David Foldvari-esq style. I can confirm that I don't remember having any prior knowledge of his work until I brought one of those standard-issue student illustration books like 'Hand to Eye' or 'The Big Book of Really Cool Illustrators' some time in my third year at university, that's my excuse anyway. I remember being very interested in the work of German illustrator Oliver Kugler after seeing his double page spreads in the Guardian.

Drawn text is another thing I used to do quite a lot. I've not done this in a few years and think there are people who do it a lot better than myself. I think I was referenced on a blog a while ago with my illustration being commented on as having no typographical awareness and being child-like (not in a good way). I can't find the post any more but it's probably true.

If I find any more gems of older work i'll be sure to put them up. Having read this post back I can say that my grammar and use of the English language is pretty appalling, no wonder I got a C in GCSE and then gave up.  I'm off to do some proper drawing.