Month: October 2015

This years AGM…….

London Art CollegeLondon Art College News

Here are just a handful of photos of the tutors at this years annual general meeting in Bristol. Rona Cox, our photography tutor set up a group photo for those who attended which you can see below.

It was a very useful and interesting day with plenty of topics on the agenda. Each year the tutors have plenty of topics to discuss about how the college is running, any changes that are being planned, how the courses are running and any feedback or concerns the tutors may have.

One of the most important topics that interests our students the most is – who won this years competition! We take a good amount of time looking at each entry and we all have a chance to comment on the artwork which is shown on the big screen in the conference room. You can view the entries, finalists and the winners on our Competitions Page. The tutors are all looking forward to meeting up again in 2016 and of course running the next London Art College competition too.

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Bhagawati Chettri

London Art CollegeOnline Art Courses Student Artwork

Digital Illustration student Bhagawati Chettri has earned herself a Distinction following her studies with the college. She demonstrated a solid grasp of all the technical concepts covered in the course and produced a digital portfolio of paintings, cartoons and vector based illustrations. Bhagawati tackled each assignment with enthusiasm, creativity and thoroughness to earn herself the highest accreditation. This image was produced for the fifth assignment and is a Mithila mirror from the mythology and Hindu texts of Southern Nepal and Northern India.

Spencer Hill
Digital Illustration Tutor

Bhagawati-Chettri

Eleanor Patrick

London Art CollegeOnline Art Courses Student Artwork

By Eleanor Patrick – Illustration Diploma

I was happy doing assignments 1 to 4 in the Illustration Diploma – it was even fun and exciting to try out new things. And then came sequential illustration tasks in assignment 5. I struggled to get going on this for a number of reasons (besides being good at procrastination).

Firstly I don’t read graphic novels, and not many cartoons either, or cartoon strips. It wasn’t going to be intuitive, even after studying the chapter! Secondly, the instructions offered a loose brief, in terms of context, in order to help us – although the words and thoughts were given. The additional suggestions to help us think about possibilities actually ‘stole’ my initial idea, and that seemed to stump me. Sometimes I only have one idea, which in illustration, as in life, is a dangerous thing!

So I emailed tutor Spencer Hill and asked for help – and sent him my draft outline sketch of the first one. He gave really helpful encouragement and feedback, and so I was able to continue. Knowing it wasn’t totally off-track in an area I was unfamiliar with really helped get things going.

I chose to link real drawing with digital colouring for the first one, so I wanted to do something different for the other one (a free choice). This therefore ended up with collage, drawing and digital colouring combined.

I was pretty pleased with myself for even managing this assignment. Very satisfied to have moved out of my comfort zone. And more than pleased (again) with the college for having such helpful tutors! I hope you like them.

By Eleanor Patrick – Illustration Diploma

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Josephine MacLeod

London Art CollegeStudent News

Josephine MacLeod was a student with the London Art College; she studied painting and drawing on the general diploma course, where she was tutored by Alan Dedman.  At the time she resided in Lagos, Nigeria. Her husband Norman MacLeod, used to download her mp3 feedback and sent it to Josephine and became acquainted with the LAC and its ways through doing so. To begin with, Josephine’s work seemed tremulous. Over time she gained confidence and has developed well since beginning her studies. She has been very active in her home country, working with African artists and painting with a group of people who meet on a weekly basis.

When she and Norman visited the UK, Josephine had some one to one tuition from Alan Dedman in Somerset. In her landscape study she coped well with the physical conditions, including a herd of bullocks. She worked with acrylics, which although quick drying, allowed her to make rapid progress in painting. The lush, green environment and cool breezes were a change from the heat of Lagos.

Back at Studio Dedman, she spent a morning making spinny paintings and thermal drawings, plus other exercises. Josephine also made a life painting in oils.

Getting a student to do such a large amount of learning in a condensed time frame was ambitious, but successful. Josephine always wanted to do art and came to it late, after having children and working in business. Correspondence courses with the LAC help adult learners in English speaking countries across the World to realise their ambitions in art and design. Norman MacLeod commented that Alan Dedman supports students with constructive criticism – but doesn’t make them feel bad about themselves. This gentle encouragement allows learners to flourish and grow.   

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Nina Daniels

London Art CollegeOnline Art Courses Student Artwork

My name is Nina and I’m a freelance illustrator, artist and designer. I’m studying the illustration for children’s books diploma with Maggy. This is the fifth assignment, illustrating for a poem ‘When all is dark’.

I’ve worked with ink and pen, where I shifted from white on black at the top half, descending to black on white for the bottom half of the artwork.

Nina Daniels
Illustrating Children’s Book Diploma

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Monique Piscaer Bailey

London Art CollegeOnline Art Courses Student Artwork
We have been asked by a number of students if Monique Bailey, the runner up in this years London Art College competition, could explain a little about how she created her painting ‘Girl and Swan’ pictured below. Monqiue has very kindly written about her work and provided us with links to her Facebook page and website where she has time lapse video of her digital artwork. We are thrilled to be able to post this, we would like to officially thank Monique for providing this for us and we hope that you all enjoy reading it!
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My grandfather was a tapestrier for Queen Wilhemina of the Netherlands and my father was an old school sign writer and oil painter. I have been painting and drawing since I was a little girl, its in my genes. Art has always been an integral part of my life and who I am.
After school I qualified as a graphic designer, I freelanced and worked as a mural artist.
In 2000 I founded the ‘Art Zoo’ studio where I teach art and textile painting classes to adults.
In 2014 I completed the Illustrating Children’s Book Diploma with Maggy and landed a lovely project to illustrate a series of online short stories. I was itching to combine my graphic background with the illustration and to speed things up, I was thinking about how I could scan in parts of my original drawings and use them again to save time. (Surely there must be an easier way than redrawing the same background over and over manually…)
So, I signed up to the Digital Illustration course with the brilliant Spencer Hill. I bought myself a graphic tablet as a Christmas present  and I started immediately with my first assignment. BoooM! That was it! I instantly fell in love… It took a while to master the digital pen, brushes and tablet, but it happened really fast. Within a week I had it down and I practiced everyday.
I get an idea in my head and I try to get the images down quite quickly, starting with the background and adding onto new layers. I find working faster allows me to be free and loose. I just block ideas, shapes and colour and gradually add detail as the work progresses. Digital painting has been such a gift to me, it feels like my missing link. It has magically combined my love of graphics and illustration.
I have three time-lapse videos I’ve created of my painting process on my ‘Art Zoo’ facebook page. Please check them out here under the videos tab: www.facebook.com/OficialArtZoo
My digital work is also for sale as limited edition canvas prints on www.artzoo.co.za
Thank you for taking the time to hear about me and what I love.
Monique Piscaer Bailey
Digital Illustration
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