Mr Tortoise/Bear

Hello everyone

Previously I posted about a brief I had a couple of weeks ago. The project was to choose a docile pet animal and a predator to make a hybrid animal/monster. I chose a tortoise and a bear for this project as I thought the mix of a hard, patterned shell with soft fur would be interesting. I started planning my character sheet by changing the face and legs in stages. I then drew a character sheet of the tortoise morphing into the bear. 

This lead me on to part 2 of the project...
Now we had our own individual monster, we were asked to draw him doing different tasks;

1. On a skateboard
2. Putting on a heavy coat
3. Skipping with a skipping rope
4. Shooting a bow and arrow

This was a fun part of the project that allowed us to explore our character more in a playful way. I really enjoyed this brief and it was a nice way to end the term.

Megan Stokes

Art of the week!

Hello

Here is another art of the week. My teacher at university saw my recent artwork and recommended this artist to me. I am so glad he did! I really like her simplistic line work and blocks of colour. I also love the little stories and one liners she has in her artwork. My favorite piece is the one called 'Hello chicken'. This is partly my favorite because I love chickens.. and partly because I love one liners in art. I think its a really modern quirk.

See more at www.simonelia.com

Megan Stokes

In the deep end

Hello everyone

I wanted to share with you a new brief I was given recently. My teacher is a practicing illustrator and he gave us a task based on a real life project he had done previously in the year. At the start of the day he explained the brief giving us a typical email that an editor might send to you. Our task was to draw an illustration for an article about the work load of young teachers. We had to draw a rough sketch by 2pm that same day then, once approved, we could start finalizing our idea and planning.

Here is my initial sketches

Here is my final sketch

This was such a fun and challenging project. It was helpful to see what it is like to be an illustrator in the real world but it was also stressful feeling like you are working for somebody else and trying to please the client.
However, I do feel like I have learned valuable lessons from it.

Megan Stokes

Art of the week!

Hello again

I just wanted to share with you another artist who I had to research for my new project. My new project is about choosing two animals and morphing them together in stages to create individual characters. Escher is a perfect example of this. Although he is well known, I just wanted to share some of my favorite artworks.

See more at www.mcescher.com

Megan Stokes

What on earth is metamorphosis?

Hello again

I have been given another brief at university to morph one animal into another creating a hybrid in between. We had to pick a docile pet animal and a contrasting wild, predator to draw for this project. This project is getting us to look at characterization so that when we repeat a drawing of an animal, they look the same and recognizable. My original idea was to morph a cat into a bear. My teacher gave me feedback that they are too similar in appearance so I kept the idea of the bear and chose a pet tortoise instead. I'm really glad I did because they are so different and it will give a more interesting outcome.

Here are my initial sketches...

I will post more when I have finished this project!

Megan Stokes

Art of the week!

Hello

Here is another "Art of the week" post. This week I wanted to mention artwork that I have in my living room. I bought this poster in France and the brand is 'OMY'. It is an outline drawing of cities like 'Paris', 'London' and 'New York'. I bought this poster with the intention to colour it in but I'm worried I will ruin it. Some day I might...

See more at www.omy.fr

Megan Stokes

Pushing myself

Hellooo...

My current project at university is to make a map out of illustrations of buildings. We have spent about 5 weeks choosing our landmarks and drawing 10 buildings. We have spent these week perfecting our illustrations and trying medias that haven't previously used. I have always wanted to learn how to do illustrations digitally. Therefore, I decided to draw my buildings with a fine liner and colour them in digitally on Photoshop. 

This project I have really tried to push myself so that I can try alternative medias and hopefully become better at drawing as a result. I wanted to show you one of my drawings that was the most successful. 
On the left was my original illustration coloured digitally. On the right, I took the suggestion of my teacher to colour the lines rather the inside. I like the look of both illustrations and I'm really surprised how well they have turned out seeing as I have never used Photoshop before!

I will post more when I make some more progress on the project. I can't wait to see how it turns out!

Megan Stokes

Art of the week!

Hello all

This is another post to share with you an artist or piece of art I find and appreciate. This week I wanted to share with you the artist James Hancock. I discovered him when I was doing a project in university about drawing buildings as landmarks. James draws a lot of different things but I was most attracted to his illustrations of different architecture. I like how colorful they are and the simplicity of the line quality. I also love the series of work he does called "All the...". They are drawings of repeated objects that have little narratives of places he has visited. I think they are simply great. 

See more at http://jamesgulliverhancock.com/

Check out my previous "Art of the week" post and follow me to see more!

Megan Stokes