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
