Student Robyn Hoskins has created two amazing illustrations for her set 5 work for the Illustration Diploma Course. Tutor Steven Hersey was particularly impressed with them and asked if we could show them here on our blog. We were delighted and agreed with him. Congratulations Robyn on two amazing pieces of artwork….
My first sequential drawing is set in the dessert, as when I was reading it the speaker sounded lost and searching for something. It reminded me of story’s told from the 60s of soul searchers going to the dessert taking hallucinogenic in order to ‘find themselves’ and understand the world, but also having second thoughts.
I wanted the figure to dig up the mushrooms as if she is digging up the past and allowing it to take over until she comes to this ‘cosmic rebirth’ and reach a state of reassurance and purity. The mushrooms as they take over are all creating a sharp rattling sound, this is a reference to Studio Ghibli’s tree spirits. I found creating the aspect of mushrooms sharply making a neck clenching sound difficult as they were all still too static. I feel that in the future I will need to create more movement as well as enlarge some of the sounds in order to add more emphasis on that.
I didn’t want to use the traditional method of panels as I felt it took away the organic flow I was aiming for in my illustrations. I took allot of my inspiration from The Sandman Overture by Neil Gaiman, as the illustration are free flowing and allows your eyes to dance around the page.
In my second final sequential drawing I decided to focus on the Riddling Tale by The Brother Grimm. It took me a while to decide on this tale. In this illustration I decided to use mannequins as I wanted my figures to be unambiguous as possible as the husband is not meant to know which flower is his wife. This was to allow the reader to focus mainly on the story and also to add a more contemporary feel to the tale.
The story focuses on three women being turned into flowers, and one in particular during the day. After doing some research on wildflowers I found that the daisy’s name mainly derives from ‘days eye’ as it ha a yellow centre representing the sun. I felt this flower to be the most appropriate to use given the story’s context. I also thought that it would be fun to add dew to all the flowers barring one, this was to allow the reader to feel more inclusive in the story and take on the role of the husband.
I started drawing in blue pen and felt that having some aspects of the drawing unfinished would complement the incomplete bodies of the mannequins, as well as to allow the drawing to be broken up and not bombarded with flowers.
In the first two panels I wanted to use circles as it would represent the sun as all three figure are together. The first panel has multiple circles as I wanted to try and give the illusion of the sun approaching. The third panel I wanted to try and create a domestic background, that was not too busy as I wanted the mannequin to feel isolated from her fellow flowers.
Student Robyn Hoskins
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