Exercise 22: Identifying Tools and Materials

This exercise asked me to find a range of illustrators who use a particular medium, and catalogue them according to similarities in the way they use tools. I had to analyse the different ways materials can be used, and explore how individual artists have developed their creative practice using them. I then had to recreate previous work of my own in two styles that I felt were visually appealing based on the research I had gathered.

To begin, I thought about the different areas of media I am interested in. It was hard to narrow these down, as I am quite interested in mixed media and exploring mediums as much as possible. I decided to research four mediums that I currently enjoy using and would like to use more going forwards: watercolour, collage, digital design, and ink. Watercolour and digital design are my two focal points currently in my artwork, with ink being a medium I occasionally play around with. Collage, however, I have very little experience with and oftentimes have difficulty using. I definitely find digital collage easier, and I have a deep appreciation for collage art.

The first place I looked was IllustrationX, a website I have had a lot of luck with previously when researching artists. Here I found several watercolour and collage artists thanks to their search system. I also have an art Instagram account which I use to get inspiration, appreciate other artists work, and to share my own. I decided to look there, too, as there are artists I admire who I know use specific mediums I am interested in. I also looked on Behance, as I follow many illustrators there too.

I found many watercolour, collage, and digital illustrators, but really struggled to find artists who used ink as a primary and singular medium. I was shocked to find this as I feel like I see so many ink illustrations in passing when scrolling social media, though maybe these are sketchbook doodles rather than finished pieces. Most of the artists who used ink did so in mixed media, though there are two artists I wanted to mention as their usage of the medium is incredibly inspiring.

Heikala is a coloured ink artist who produces mostly portrait scenes. Her usage of ink is similar to a contemporary usage of watercolour, and in a video about her favourite art supplies she explains that ‘[She] had been using watercolours before that for many years, and coloured inks felt like a pretty similar medium’. I love the way she captures scenes and presents shadows and lights. Her work is flat, and matte, which are desirable qualities to me. Matt Schumacher works with gouache alongside ink in his illustrations. His work is similarly flat, though looks less like watercolour. It appears he uses ink to add incredible detail and darkened areas to stand out against the gouache areas of his work. The effect is striking and emotive.

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A notable distinction between these two artists is the mood conveyed in their work. Heikala emotes soft, gentle, and calm feelings with scenes of young girls in magical and beautiful settings, often using light tones and subtle shading. Schumacher however illustrates moody, dark, stormy works, evoking feelings of loneliness, anger, and a general cold vibe. His usage of ink furthers this contrast, as it is mostly black and heavy. One picture that shares similarities to Heikala’s work is ‘Beach Shack’, however the woman portrayed is older and there is a distinct feeling of power and smugness within it. The positioning of the character combined with the colours being brighter and softer towards the top of the image shows she is ‘rising above’ something.

When looking for watercolour artists I ensured I selected a variation in style and context. It’s easy to gravitate towards illustrations and techniques I feel are visually appealing and inspiring and to overlook the wealth of options out there. I chose work from 4 artists: Agnes Ernoult, Mae Besom, and T.S Spookytooth – all of whom are children’s illustrators – and Ollie Maxwell, who specialises in packaging. Watercolour illustrations seem to be favoured for children’s books, perhaps due to the soft and gentle nature of the medium. Choosing three artists who create work for this context allowed me to see the variation in how this can be used.

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Agnes Ernoult’s illustrations are fun, whimsical, and exciting. The colours are bright and bold, and any shadows are subtle and gentle. Any depicted light sources engulf the image and are often a focal point for the image. The subtle background details, presumably added using a fine paint brush and weak paint, enhance the images greatly without distracting from the story. The detail is minimal and playful, and successfully continues the narrative without overwhelming or crowding the image. Her characters are stylised in a dramatic and almost caricaturistic way yet are still in keeping with the uplifting mood she conveys.

Similar techniques and styles can be seen in Mae Besom’s work, with soft colours, gentle shading, and a whimsical vibe to them all. The detailing, however, is more subtle and blended. There is less empty space and more of a general sense of where detailing could be. Her characters are slightly less dramatically distorted, yet still somewhat stylised. The textures used also differ, as in Ernoult’s work dry brush is often visible, but in Besom’s images the texture of the paper itself combined with the natural flow of watercolour creates its own textures.

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The illustrations of T.S. Spookytooth create a stark contrast to those of Besom and Ernoult. Spookytooth’s storylines and characters seem to favour a darker and more frightening theme, which is no shock seeing as the illustrator’s pseudonym is ‘Spookytooth’. These illustrations seem to favour darkness, directly contrasting Ernoult’s love of large bright spaces. Rather than gentle shading being used, gentle lighting is utilised instead, much to the same effect. You could probably invert the colours of one of Ernoult’s pieces and end up with something akin to Spookytooth’s designs.

Spookytooth’s characters are stylised similarly to Besom’s, not straying too far from reality. The way detail is added is almost like a mid point between Besom and Ernoult, bold and obvious, but sparing. The textures used are again similar to Besom’s, taking advantage of the paper and medium itself. It’s incredibly interesting to see how the same techinques reversed can create such vividly different looks, but still be relevant for the same context.

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Ollie Maxwell’s work is completely different from the children’s illustrations. As the audience of his work is adults, and the purpose is to advertise, there is much less emphasis on the whimsical. His work is much more sophisticated and grown-up. It is still playful, albeit not in the same way as the previous artists. The children’s illustrations are playful in their character design, layout, and usage of colour. Maxwell’s work is typically of stand-alone objects without backgrounds or narratives.

The playfulness in his work comes from the usage of the paint itself, the minimal linework, the overflow of colours, the vague shaping of objects, the purposeful inaccuracies, and the hinting of shapes and shadows. Added textures are minimal and there is a greater emphasis on seeing the object in question for what it is. The designs are very simple, and the usage of white space is very effective and unique when compared to the book illustrations.

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Collage, as a medium, is distinct compared to watercolour in how expressive it can be. There is only so much you can do with watercolour, as the opaque tones and gentle colours are fairly restricting. Collage can look like almost anything, as you have a large range of options for creating texture, pattern, shape, and contrast. It’s bolder and more striking, featuring sharper edges and more abstract designs. A key difference is the use of metaphors and symbolism to infer meaning, rather than illustrating exactly what you want the viewer to see.

I picked four collage artists to focus on, Kavel Rafferty – who often creates work for editorials, Hannah Hock – an illustrator recommended to me by my tutor, and users Griefmother and Dorlabeth on Instagram. Griefmother writes poetry and uses collage to illustrate passages from her work, and Dorlabeth creates abstract pieces fitting various themes. It seems collage is less often used for a specific industry and more used for self expression, experimentation, and pushing boundaries within art.

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I was drawn to Kavel Rafferty’s work as I appreciated the ability to provide narrative whilst maintaining an abstract and free style. She seems to isolate objects within an image and create patterns, or use pre-existing imagery to fill these spaces. The mismatched positioning and carefree line-art and doodling is fun and allows your eye to easily wander around the images. The elements within her illustrations are quite flat and simple, contrasting with the usage of shading in watercolour illustrations.

Hannah Hoch’s artwork is similarly random, featuring overlapping shapes and imagery. Hoch’s work pushes the boundaries of what ‘art’ really is. Unlike Rafferty’s illustrations, Hoch’s don’t have an immediate or obvious narrative. They are abstract and experimental and leave you to form your own meaning. Rafferty’s focus is on objects and scenery, but Hoch’s work focuses more on human form and shapes. Cutouts of eyes, hands, legs, and various other body parts feature frequently in her designs. There is also repetition in individual images, with a specific theme repeatedly referenced. Her work is chaotic and busy, often utilising as much of the available space as possible.

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The repetition and theming within images demonstrated in Hoch’s work can also be seen in Dorlabeth’s collages. Her work has more of a clear narrative than Hoch’s, but still maintains the randomness and busyness. Griefmother’s work, however, is much more stripped back. The focus is on the words within the illustration, as the images are meant to accompany poetry. Unexpectedly, these collages call back to my earlier discussions of watercolour paintings as the focus is less on the art itself and more on the story being told. Watercolour children’s illustrations will accompany text the majority of the time, and the art is an aide to express emotions and depth within the narrative. Collage could definitely be used in children’s books to the same effect, which is not a connection I had made previously.

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Digital illustration is a huge industry that is gaining popularity more and more each year. It is hard to find an active artist who doesn’t utilise digital software to some degree in their work. Digital artwork can look like anything, with the ability to create traditional looking imagery becoming easier and more accessible as technology advances. Techniques that I have described when analysing watercolour and collage can be used in digital illustration as well, along with various techniques unique to the medium. Illustrations that appear to be mixed medium are commonly seen in digital design, as the ability to do this is so much easier.

Narrowing down a handful of digital illustrators for this research task was a challenge, as there are so many variations in style and usage of the medium. I decided to focus on 6 different artists who have unique styles, but who overlap quite a lot in how they use the digital medium and in what they illustrate. Natalie Orshilevich (user nat_orsh on instagram), Kay Hunt (user ohkayyay on instagram), and Instagram user Byamiee, all have a focus on character design in their work. Marion Blanc similarly often focuses on characters, but also illustrates objects and scenes, similar to Yvette Earl and Freya Niamh of Freya Niamh Design who typically illustrate architecture, cityscapes, and other scenery.

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Natalie Orshilevich’s work is very textured, making use of heavy pencil texturing throughout her work. Despite being digital, this technique makes her illustrations look as if they could have been drawn traditionally. Her character designs utilise features we often associate with cuteness, such as overly large eyes and small mouths. The colour palette she uses, combined with the clothing often featured, give her illustrations a very vintage feel. Her work is also quite childlike, both in subject matter and in design. The clouds in the background of the first piece, for example, are incredibly simple, but they are effective at contributing to the overall vibe of the piece.

Kay Hunt uses similar textures to Orshilevich, however her work appears more obviously digitally created, although she uses some scratchy textures which keep her pieces from looking too digitised. She also designs her characters to look very typically cute, with large heads and small facial features. Her style differs from Orshilevich in that her colours are much deeper and richer, with a strong contrasts between subjects and backgrounds. Even her pastel tones are much more intense. Hunt’s pieces also feature natural imagery and convey a feeling of whimsy and childlike playfulness – this can be seen in the stars falling into the girl’s hand in the first image, as they are simplistic and could conceivably have been drawn by a child, much like Orshilevich’s clouds.

By contrast, artist Byamiee uses very little texturing in her work at all, and those that are present are very subtle and intentional. While Natalie Orshilevich’s characters are the most proportional of the three, Byamiee’s characters are the most exaggerated with crazily outsized bodies – while her similarly simplistic smiles are reminiscent of the other two artists, she takes the typical ‘cute’ look to an extreme beyond anything by Orshilevich or Hunt. Her work is the most overtly digital, embracing the styles of the medium and frequently using bold colours like blues, reds, and pinks in order to create eye-catching contrasts, unlike Orshilevich’s washed-out tones and louder than Hunt’s. There is an aspect of the surreal in her work – her characters could be alien or human, as they push human features to almost absurd proportions while maintaining a recognisably human shape. While all three artists depict human forms in incredibly stylised ways, Byamiee takes this experimentation the furthest.

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Marion Blanc’s style is similar to Byamiee in that is it very obviously digital, making use of subtle textures and bold lineart combined with simple shapes and similar colour palettes of blue, red, and pink to compose her artwork. Where Blanc’s work differs is that her colours are softer and less vibrant, making her images feel more calm and less intense to view. Her subject matter is equally as whimsical, but features much less surreal proportions – the surreal features in her work include placement of subjects, such as the whale in the gumball machine, the moon in the woman’s hair, and the constellations in the swimming pool. A key difference between Blanc and the previous artists I’ve explored is that she doesn’t tend to feature just one main character, instead preferring to portray objects and scenes.

To contrast the styles of the previous digital artists, Yvette Earl’s work is dramatic, bold, and cartoonish. All her pieces feature evening or late-night settings with very dramatic lighting and heavily contrasting colours. There is still an element of unreality to her work due to the intense saturation of these colours and the complete lack of texture. The realistic way she portrays the sky in her pieces also contrasts against the buildings and makes their unnatural attributes stand out. Her linework is relatively messy, evoking that childlike feel present in all of the digital art I’ve looked at so far. Her work is reminiscent of adult cartoons and how their backgrounds often look. I was particularly drawn to her work as it features iconic buildings from Newcastle, where I live, and seeing these familiar locations depicted in such an unfamiliar way felt really unique. It was super interesting to see someone use digital mediums to create art like this.

Freya Niamh’s style uses textured spaces in a way that reminds me of collage. Her work is very ‘sketchy’, which creates a feeling of depth, and she has a very distinct colour palette which she uses to great effect. I really love the sketchiness of her pieces – she very intentionally uses texturing in certain locations to draw the eye and make it stand out against other sections of the piece. Her use of a textured lining brush really helps with this, and it looks like doodles from a sketchbook that have been refined and perfected. She focuses on architecture and scenery for her subject matter, and then adds her own personal spin on it by using her distinctive colour palette – it’s very stylised and unrealistic and almost surreal, which reminds me of Yvette Earl’s work. Both artists use existing locations as a canvas for their own unique style.

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The next step for this exercise was to pick two pieces of art by separate artists and recreate a previous illustration of my own in both styles. I chose work from Kavel Rafferty and Marion Blanc as a basis to work from, as I wanted to explore these mediums more and I was very inspired by their work. After some consideration I decided to recreate the illustration I produced for Exercise 11, as I felt I didn’t get to explore this piece fully and also that the simplistic black and white nature of the original piece meant I wouldn’t have any preconceived ideas of how it ‘should’ look and would feel comfortable with drastic changes.

Kavel Rafferty’s illustration was made as a book cover for Debrett’s Guide to Entertaining Etiquette. It is a collage-style digital creation featuring a range of textures, disjointed outlines, suggestive shapes, and simplistic colours. I used Procreate to illustrate both of my pieces, as I felt I would be able to best match the original styles this way. I also do not have a great deal of physical collage materials. I had so much fun with this piece! It is one of my favourites to date. I loved being able to explore in this way – fitting textures and patterns and cut outs into a piece. The colours look fantastic and the whole piece really works well together. I feel this could be used for a children’s book or some sort of advertising campaign. Below you can see my full design process. I really want to create more like this in future!

I struggled a bit more with the second illustration, as it took more thought and consideration than the first. Collage as a style is very experimental and playful, and you can essentially throw things at a wall and see what sticks. Marion Blanc’s style, however, is a lot more clean and intentional. It took a while for me to feel comfortable with it and figure out how to recreate specific features of her work. Once I had it figured out, though, I loved the design process and I think the finished piece is beautiful. I chose to use the same colour palette as my inspiration but inverted the primary and secondary shades, using blue tones as my background and red tones to add effects. This decision, plus my decision to use a texture filter on the entire piece, made a huge difference to my work.

I am extremely happy with the results of this exercise. I feel like I learned so much about the various mediums I am interested in exploring, and the illustrations I produced look incredible and true to their inspiration. I’m also glad they look like my own style too – I feel like I got the midpoint down perfectly. It’s also really fun to see all three pieces side by side: the original, the collage, and the clean digital design. Creating a series like this was inspiring and I would love to work in this way more often.

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