Painting and drawing inspirational objects is the key to a good still life piece. Here student Pam Cherry  has certainly been thinking very creatively as her two mackerel on brown paper are the perfect still life subjects! She has been thinking outside of the box here and its worked out beautifully. Loving the limited pallet of greys, blues and browns. Pam also set about designing a still life study of a wooden trugg and plant pots from her garden. The photo below shows some of Pam’s sketches in both graphite and paint, along with the finished painting below them.

 

Our Pet Portrait Diploma Course doesn’t just teach you how to paint pets…you can pain any animal you wish whilst working through the course. Anneke Elizabeth van Dijk-Broerse did just that with this wonderful pastel painting of a grey squirrel. Her attention to detail and the time taken to describe the tail of the squirrel is beautiful. Our hearts also melt at the tiny kitten portrait too. We hope you enjoy viewing Anneke’s artwork and if you are interested in painting animals, head on over to our website and read more about Pet Portrait Diploma Course. It also gives you a brief refresher on drawing at the start, so anyone who lacks confidence in drawing however only wants to draw pets – this is the perfect course for you.

 

The following has been written by tutor Vanessa Weaver…

I have a student on the Graphic Design Art Course who has submitted a lovely piece of work that really demonstrates the maxim ‘less is more’. It is always so tempting to try to fill most of the available space within a design. However, white space (the unused part of a design with no text, images or graphics) can be extremely useful in allowing the content to ‘breathe’.

This principle has been demonstrated by Lan Qian. The work below shows a poster proposal for a Bauhaus exhibition, along with a wonderful visual explanation of how each element has been carefully positioned within it. The amount of white space allows the viewer to absorb the content with ease. Also, there is terrific consideration of the layout.

In the second image, this is shown in the form of a grid, which has been used to align the text and photograph. Using an invisible series of lines to position each aspect is most effective in graphics and creates cohesion within a design. In brochures and leaflets, the use of a grid ensures consistency throughout. Lan Qian’s work is a wonderful example of carefully crafted type and image. She has also shown how the poster would appear in context.

Lan Qian
Graphic Design in Art Diploma

My name is Roxana Calman and I completed the illustration course with Spencer Hill. I found Storyberries while searching the internet, looking for children illustrations and bedtime stories. After I looked over their website I saw that you can actually work with them, either as an author or an illustrator, so I sent them an email. The lady that replied to me, Jade Maitre, was very sweet and lovely, she answered all of my questions regarding what is like to work with them, and what is the illustrator’s job. Their business is non profit, so the stories and illustrations are made by artists that volunteered to help them. She asked me to send a few images with my art style, then I was all sorted.

She gave me after a few weeks my first story ”Baby Brother Surprise” written by Attia Stamp. I was so excited to start and really happy with this story. I have applied in this project everything I’ve learned from the Illustration Course and it really paid off. It took me two months to finish the story (did it in parallel with University work), there was no deadline, I wasn’t limited to a specific amount of time. After I finished, I sent all the images to Jade, then she carefully edited them and put them together for the website.

I had lots of fun but also this project made me take children illustration even more seriously, I think I did a good job but I feel like there is still a lot to learn, but now I know what I want to do as an Illustrator.

Website – www.roxanacalman.com

Editors Note: Here are a couple of quotes from Roxy and our tutor Spencer Hill from emails that we received…..

Roxy…

….I have to give a big THANK YOU to you and London Art College because the Illustration Course helped me so much! Thank you once again for the great feedback you gave me! It helped me a lot and because of that now I am where I am. Hopefully, one day I will have published real books^^….

Spencers reply…

….I am so proud to see such consistent character designs, and great compositions and rich illustrations. Wonderful. My favourite is the stinky baby illustration, although I do love the little old man character too….

 

 

This weeks Spooky Saturday Illustration is by student Linda Tordoff.

 

The following has been written by tutor Vanessa Weaver…

I have just assessed the first set of work from Charlie Leith on the Graphic Design Art Course and wanted to share it with you. Charlie has submitted some wonderful pieces of work that demonstrate her drawing and creative ability. The first is a street scene, showing terrific understanding of perspective. This is something that many artists struggle with and is an integral part of learning in the initial stages of the Graphics course. Charlie has handled this complex scene well and created a convincing view.

Following on from this, Charlie has presented terrific illustrative ideas for a tourist brochure. She was restricted to using only black as a printing colour and nevertheless has managed to create interest by using a range of mark making techniques (such as stippling, cross hatching, contoured shading and broken lines) to achieve contrast within each scene.

Charlie Leith
Graphic Design in Art Diploma

 

I am Katie Hodson and I have just submitted by final project, completing the online Illustration Art Course at the London Art College.

I have always loved art and design, choosing to complete an Art Foundation after my A-Levels and progressing to gain a BA Hons in advertising and graphic design. Years later, despite working in advertising, I have forged a career in Client Services rather than within the creative team.

About a year and a half ago, through the encouragement of colleagues, friends, and family, I started to regularly draw again. Being so out of practise, I can remember being a bit upset by the first picture I drew but I persisted and eventually everyone started to say that I should do ‘something’ with my drawings.

After doing some research I chose the LAC illustration course – I liked the variation of the projects offered on the course and thought it would introduce me to a nice range of commercially viable outlets; I am pleased to report that the course fulfilled my desires. You begin the course illustrating some lyrics and build up to an introduction to illustrating children’s books. You receive a comprehensive course support booklet which is full of tips for drawing, examples of creative work and advice on the industry. On top of this the course tutor, Spencer Hill, is encouraging and offers fair and supportive guidance. I had lost confidence in my illustrative ability and I am leaving the course feeling enthused and driven to do that ‘something’.

The examples below are from the final three projects; Editorial Illustration, Sequential Illustration and children’s books, where I really settled into the illustrative style that I would like to move forwards with.

Katie Hodson
Website katiehcreates.com
Instagram

 

 

 

My nem is Grace Battiss and I am on the Illustrating Children’s Books Diploma With Maggy Roberts. . The project gave me a chance to enjoy thinking about what in my life, that I actually know and experience, is always looking for a home. Having chickens free in the garden, I’ve noticed that towards evening they are often looking for somewhere to sleep that is safe and comfortable. Being in the branches of the trees is all very well but when there are chicks for a mummy hen to look after, perching on branches is a bit more problematic. As a child my family had a little bantam hen that would sleep in a basket on the top of the fridge, she would wake us very early to be let out into the garden. Anyway, the point is that I have kind feelings towards hens and their dilemmas.

Again returning to childhood, I used to love making things out of paper, so I returned to that. Also, there are many paintings done in watercolour that I really don’t like, and I decided to recycle them. Taking these ‘reject’ watercolours of mine, I made cut-outs of the chicks, the mummy hen, the flowers, the apples, bananas and the flowers with leaves. Each element was built as it’s own object.

Once each paper element was cut-out and glued together, they were photographed and pulled into Photoshop where the background was cleaned out. The most time consuming was doing each flower and leaf. The apples, bananas and hen were one contained unit so much easier. Once the elements of: each single flower & leaf; hen, bananas, apples and chicks were placed, I used photoshop to give the elements weight and give the image depth.

The final and magic trick which I shouldn’t really share but will, is I used a photo of a painting I did years ago, in oil. From this painting I photographed and cut out the vase and then also photographed and cut out the window in the background. This gave the table top and background a slightly rough surface which helped knit the photoshop shading (which can look banal) and the watercolour cut-outs.

Grace Battiss
Illustrating Children’s Books Diploma

I would like to tell you the story behind my collage and a short story about me.

Let’s start with the story of wet-in-wet collage. When I was little, I used to climb the highest hill of the village I was born and often asked myself: ‘How did the stars appear in the sky?’. At that moment, I wasn’t satisfied with the adult’s answers. So, my child’s imagination was free to find any possible answer. My inspiration for this collage came from a childhood memory. After I had the main idea, I just played a bit more with the composition. Before starting to draw a new illustration, I love to put different ideas on a piece of paper until I find the winner one. It’s like brainstorming.

In the second place, the story about me. A year ago, I left my job as a copywriter, moved out of my country and started all over again. This new beginning meant to me doing something I had left aside years ago: Drawing. Since I’ve brought my watercolors back into my life, I knew with certainty that there is nothing I want to do more. I would like to become a children’s book illustrator. I have my dreams in my pocket, the imagination in my hands and I hope I will achieve the techniques required with the Illustrating Children’s Books Diploma. I rely on the power of storytelling and hope to, one day, publish my own picture book. In the end, I consider myself as a big kid who loves to draw for little kids.

That’s all for now. Have a colorful day!

Radiana Iliesiu
Illustrating Children’s Books Diploma

This weeks Spooky Saturday Illustration is by student Cerys Rees.