The London Art College Competition 2014 is now complete.
The winner is Irina Viatkina and the runner up is Jonathon Cooper and you can see their artwork and read more about them below.
We would officially like to congratulate not only the the winners and finalists but all of the students who entered into this years competition. Not only did we have a record entry of 126 but the standard of work entered was phenomenal. It was a really tough decision for all of our tutors to choose just two of their favourites to put through to the finalists phase. You can see all of the entries, finalists and winners artwork at the link below.
Entries >>
Finalists >>
Winners >>
We are now looking forward to our next competition which will be announced in the coming months!
Winner 2014 – Irina Viatkina – Orchid Passion
After receiving a great news from Mr. Fisher I’m writing here a bit of my competition piece and myself. First of all I would like to thank LAC for such a great opportunity. I think that it’s very important for us (students) to participate in such competitions. For me it was also a big honor to compete among so many great artworks.
My name is Irina Viatkina and I live on Crete, Greece. I grew up in a small town next to St.Petersburg, Russia. As I was a child I study art at local Art School for children which I successful finished at my 15. I didn’t continue my further art education because Economical Schools were more in fashion at that time, but I kept art for my soul as a hobby. Nowdays at the age of 35 I can clearly see that Art is my life and I can’t live without it. That is why I’m a student again at the London Art College in Illustrating Children’s Books Diploma.
The idea to draw orchids came to me this year. I was inspired by some amazing watercolors of artists from China. In my work I decided to combine somehow East and West. It was kind of small experiment. I used only watercolors on 300 gm rough Hahnemuhle Britannia watercolor paper. First came the background with wet-in-wet technique, then flowers followed but with more accurate brushwork. Because I love flowers and especially orchids, my goal in this project was to bring alive this exotic flower spirit which is in the same time tender but bright and wild. It took me about 40 hours to complete and as the final touch came the title – Orchid Passion.
As for my future artwork plans – children’s books world is really fascinating me. The idea to communicate with new generation and to pass knowledge through books is amazing. That is why to become an illustrator and create some great children’s books will be my best future plans!
Very best wishes
Irina Viatkina
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Runner Up Jonathon Cooper – The Reading Cow
Really pleased to be voted runner up, and its a great honour to be asked to write a few words about the piece.
When I painted The Reading Cow it was for Assignment 4 of the Children’s Book Illustration Course that I completed at the end of 2013. I am currently working on producing a Children’s Book of my own on the follow up course, and also establishing myself as a freelance illustrator.…as well as working fully time and raising a family.
The Reading Cow started as a bit of practice really and maybe because of this I was able to relax and experiment whilst painting it. I started with a rough pencil sketch (which i left in place) and then applied several washes of watercolour over the top, allowing each one to dry between each application.
Jonathon Cooper
