My guest post.....

Just wanted to share the link for my guest post for Dark Design Graphics website. I wrote an article about digital and traditional illustrations, it was a subject that I researched for my dissertation and I learned some interesting things. I was looking at the differences and benefits of using these different media types and what people think of them...well anyway here you go: My guest post

My Final Major Project....

Well I am going to be blogging the progress of my ‘FMP’. So I’m starting by researching Marine conservation…because it’s about marine conservation….I’m hoping to end up with posters, maybe a calendar and a children’s book. Well, so far I have been in touch with The Marine Conservation Society to get a sort of ‘mock’ brief for my posters. And I’ve been looking into what they do etc.

I didn’t really know much about the subject to begin with but I found some pretty shocking/interesting stuff….like 80% of all marine pollution comes from land-based activities; pollutants enter marine food chains, and build in concentrations until they reach toxic levels. There was a case in Minimata Bay in Japan when many people died because the pollutants built up in food chains. A factory was discharging waste containing methyl mercury in low concentrations into the sea and as this gradually became more concentrated in the tissues of marine life until it reached toxic levels. 649 people died from eating fish etc that was contaminated and 3500 people suffered from mercury poisoning. So, yeah it can affect humans in a pretty serious way!

Some of the more endangered species are sea turtles: Tens of thousands of sea turtles were trapped and killed by commercial fishing fleets over the past 20 years. Turtles are also still hunted for their meat and shells etc.
So for now I've just been looking at turtles, I'm hoping to go to the Blu Reef aquarium soon hopefully theres some turtles there for me to draw.

 

The MCS sent me some posters so I can get an idea of the sort of thing that’s expected and the info I should include in my designs. And this week I’m going to meet a professor at the university who knows about marine conservation etc, so hopefully I’ll learn something!

Well, back from the Blue Reef aquarium, they had terrapins… I hate them but they are almost turtles, so good reference I suppose.

Totaly unrelated but what a happy smiley little salamander!

scarey stuff

Well, I met with a lecturer in marine biology which was….interesting. He had some different ideas for me to think about like: there are more important things we should be conserving instead of turtles etc. 

The Bloody Chamber

These Illustrations were for a competition, the brief was to illustrate 3 stories from the Bloody Chamber and other stories by Angela Carter. The first is for The Bloody Chamber...

 The Bloody Chamber

 

So that it appeared to hang disembodied, in the still, heavy air, and it had been crowned with a wreath of white roses, and a veil of lace, the final image of his bride.

 

The Company of Wolves

But those eyes are all you will be able to glimpse of the forest assassins as they cluster invisibly round your smell of meat as you go through the wood unwisely late.

Puss in Boots

“For some of her prey she’s very cleverly not killed but crippled; a big black beastie weaves its way towards us over the turkey carpet, Puss, Pounce!”

And a design for the book cover:

I had fun with this project; all of these images are created with a mixture of inks, pens and water... The last image for the cover was put into Photoshop to add the background and white in the eyes.