For my final brief I have chosen the story ‘The
Erl-King’ from the book ‘The Bloody Chamber’. I wasn’t only looking for a story
I like, but also a story I felt I could illustrate well and when reading this
one I was already getting some initial ideas of what I could make. My intention
was to focus on the theme of confinement and being trapped, represented by
caged birds, but also the seemingly peaceful and idyllic atmosphere with a
subtle feeling of wrongness that is present throughout the story.
There were no implications of when the story
happened and I felt like it wasn’t necessary to specify as the story could take
place anytime. Besides reading the book I’ve also watched the movie Pan’s
Labyrinth for inspiration and looked up various bird cages. I’ve decided to make
the cages a central element of my artwork and even in the picture with no cages,
the branches, trees and plants are placed in a way that suggests enclosed
space. I’ve mostly used scanned and vectorised drawings, but I also made use of
the brushes I’ve made.
 |
| Jorge Jacinto art |
One of the artists whose work I’ve looked at is
concept artist Jorge Jacinto (JJcanvas) who does, amongs other things, great
environment paintings. Even though his art style is completely different from
my illustrations, I feel like watching his speedpaint videos helped me to
improve my art in some ways. I’ve observed what he does to achieve certain
effects and then applied it in a way that works for me.
The first piece is a scene from the story where
the Erl-King is playing his flute, drawing attention of woodland animals and
the narrator alike, almost hypnotizing them. I wanted to capture the atmosphere
of the woods, the beauty one might see when they are unaware of the possible
danger. When starting this piece, my intention was to do full shading and use
some of the plant textures I’ve photographed, but then I felt like the style
would be too different from the other two pieces, which have a much more
graphic look and only use flat colour. I have never done, or even attempted
this style and so I looked for some artists who work with clear, defined shapes
and mostly flat colour.
I
found the art of Jason Pickthall thanks to his talk at the Uni and his stylised
art caught my attention. He uses sharp, bold shapes that give the pieces
dynamic quality. Another artist I came across is Juliette Oberndorfer, whose
work also interested me with her use of colours. Both of them use more textures
or textured brushes in their work which I would like to include in my work in
the future. The redesign was very challenging, but I really like the result.
This is the picture I’ve decided to turn into a gif because there are so many
elements that can be animated, like birds, plants and the Erl-King. When
creating the gif, the main problem I’ve faced was how complicated what I had in
mind was. Because there were so many moving elements and therefore
layers, it was complicated to keep track of everything.
 |
| Juliette Obendorfer art |
The last piece is a book cover. I prefer book
covers that are simple and therefore I wanted to do a simple design. It’s just
a bird in a cage and a border suggesting the setting of the book. For the title
itself, instead of creating a font, I’ve formed the words out of branches,
which I think fits the book nicely. The colour palette is limited to 3 shades
of green and an accenting gold that appears in the other illustration as well.
Overall I am happy with the artwork I’ve made. Mostly
because I’ve managed to push myself to work in style that I’ve had no
experience with and despite that the illustrations turned out looking rather
nice. I wish I had decided to change the style of the first illustration earlier,
though because then I would’ve had more time for it and maybe I would have had
chance to experiment with textures a bit.
Bibliography:
Angelfire.com. (2017). Angela Carter - The Bloody Chamber
And Other Stories. [online] Available at: http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/rote/CARTER.html
[Accessed 6 Apr. 2017].
Jason Pickthall
:: Concept Artist. (2017). Jason Pickthall :: Concept Artist. [online]
Available at: http://jasonpickthall.wixsite.com/jasonpickthall/stylized-art
[Accessed 26 Apr. 2017].
Jjcanvas.tumblr.com.
(2017). JJcanvas. [online]
Available at: http://jjcanvas.tumblr.com/ [Accessed 15 Apr. 2017].
Julietteoberndorfer.tumblr.com. (2017). JULIETTE OBERNDORFER. [online]
Available at: http://julietteoberndorfer.tumblr.com/ [Accessed 5 May 2017].
Pan's Labyrinth. (2006). [film] Spain, Mexico: Esperanto
Films.
