It's another Today at Apple Session!
I attended another Art Lab session at Covent Garden, this time held by Alva Skog. She's a Freelance Illustrator and her inspiration is feminist issues, she believes in representing women in non stereotypical and non sexual ways, she draws woman in male positions and looks at exaggerated perspectives to create a sense of power. One thing I found really inspiring was that she began portraying women like this to set an example for her younger sister, and from this she entered a D&AD competition and won a Yellow Pencil!
At the end of the talk, we were given the task of drawing someone whilst trying to create a sense of perspective. We took pictures of each other and got to work, below is the process and my final image, I drew myself (no worries, I don't actually have pink skin). My aim was to draw myself as I looked down - the photo was taken from below so it would feel like I'm looking over the audience. I think the colours are fun, but in terms of perspective, I think it just looks like I have very wide hips and big feet as appose to the drawing being in perspective. I kind of look like an annoyed Teletubby actually...
When I got home I tried again, this time not based on a drawing of me, but more so improving my illustration. I think the illustration works better and the hair makes it a lot more interesting to look at, however once again it just looks like a small head with big feet...
I tried again, because we don't give up here on this blog! Since perspective wasn't working out, I tried keep the small head and big shoes - minus all the hair, whilst also thinking about the facial expression, and exaggerating features. I love how cute the face is, especially the big curly ears and the shadow on the neck, but the hands on the other hand gave me a headache. I tried to exaggerate them but they just looked awkward so I stuck them in the pockets, along with widening the feet apart more.
I began colouring in and adding shadows, along with explored doing dotted shading using the Spray Paint brush tool which gave it more texture. Overall I think it's something different to my usual illustration style, and was a fun experiment! In terms of the whole perspective thing - well maybe one day I'll hit the nail, maybe I need to try a different pose, the current one kind of looks like she could have had her hands on her hips, but her hands are in her pockets so that's not it. Anywho, for now, I think I'll stick to the portraits.
~ Some saucy close ups. ~