Case Study - Emily Hughes

Drawing from Observation

This process allowed me to gather ideas for settings and try new techniques. I tried different approaches for each setting, such as water colour, ink and dip pen, oil pastel, water colour pencil, printing and other mixed media techniques. These can be developed further for use in my book illustration.

I also tried to keep the colour schemes throughout the pages, keep them subdued and linked to nature.

Scamps

Scamping allowed me to look at other artist's work and gain further inspiration of possible techniques and ideas.

Acrylic Character Study

The aim of this piece was to paint in such a way as to keep the texture of the brush marks, this created a painting with more character.

I took one portrait photo of one of my characters from the book and created four different stages that I gradually built up with acrylic, starting with the more blurry ones which allowed me to get down the tone and shadow, and ending with the detail.

The result was a painting which is more abstract than a normal portrait and has the suggestion of a character rather than just looking like an attempt at copying a photo.

      I also attempted the same process in colour. This was more difficult as I wasn't just focusing on the tonal range, I also had to make the right colour.