vickykempillustration: October 2012

Monday, 29 October 2012

The State of Illustration

I was asked by my tutor to listen to a podcast from http://www.graphicdesignontheradio.com/ called the state of illustration, presented by Adrian Shaughnessy and to give my own opionion on the state of illustration. Shaughnessy discusses the state of illustration with rodrick mills- an illustrator ,Jeff Granfield- an illustrator and an educator and darryl clifton- an educator. He starts by telling us about the different ways in which illustration works; it conveys commercial messages,it tells stories, it relays information,it makes editorial and political statements, it works into childrens books and it worksin graphic novels,it can add style and meaning to everything from t shirts to the posters you pin on your wall. Shaughnessy asks his guests to each to give him a snapshot of what they think illustration is today. Rodrick starts by saying he currently thinks "it is a hybrid of many forms and it transmutes into many areas, but he thinks that it has very core meanings or substance. He says it is a visual language, a personal visual world and tells a story." Jeff describes illustration as "a fantastic, plastic medium that can really go in any direction , however this makes it confusing for people to know what to do with it, in the past it was largely about a craft skill which was a representation of someone elses ideas, as a result the illustrator didnt get a chance to think conceptually but represented a particular style for hire. This has created a legacy where it is more about the actual craft of making rather than the discipline of thinking visually."
Darryl says "he thinks jeff has summed up what he think illustration is about currently , he thinks it has been unfashionable for a while to think about any of the visual arts in terms of having a conceptual or discipline base to them.He thinks illustration is one of those ways of thinking that bears scrutiny now. For him illustration is about a discipline and a way of thinking than being just about the way the imagery is used. He thinks we need to look at the notion of owning the means of production in some way. We need to revert to the late 19th century way of thinking."
Shaughnessy talks about the root of the word illustration being the same as the word illuminate - illustrators illuminate text and make it come alive visually. Darryl thinks "people naturally capitalise on the style of an illustration. He thinks "illustrators by default thats solves problems for people ."

Friday, 19 October 2012

Final Outcome

Puppets

Here are the puppets that I made for this project.

This is the minotaur puppet, he was made using paper mache and acrylic paint.

This is the fairy puppet, she was made using paper mache and parts of clothes for the wings and the dress.

Here is the griffin puppet, he was made using parts of clothes and paper mache for the base.

Here is the king puppet, he was made using paper mache as the base and different parts of clothes for the hair and his robes.

Here is the centaur puppet he was made from paper mache for the base and a scarf for the hair and fur.

Monday, 8 October 2012

Animation

Animation is the rapid display of images to create the illusion of movement. It can be made with either hand rendered art , computer generated imagery, or three dimensional objects such as puppets or clay figures.
An early example of animation is this five image sequence above from a vase from Iran.

Above is a 4000 year old Egyptian burial chamber mural which although it cant be viewed in motion, it was the artists way of depicting it.

Images From: Wikipedia
Above is a scene from Fantagasmagorie by french artist Emile Cohl made in 1908. It was the first animated film to be creating using hand drawn animation.

There are different types of animation such as traditional animation, stop motion animation and computer animation.

In a traditionally animated film the individual frames are photographs of drawings, which are first drawn onto paper.Each drawing differs slightly from the one before it to create the illusion of movement.

In a stop motion animation, the animator physically manipulates real world objects and photographs them one frame of film at a time to create the illusion of movement.

In computer animation the animating process is done using a computer, which takes less time that doing it traditionally.