Floating City Drawing

The influence, as far as aesthetics go, was very much taken from Illustrators like Chris Riddell and Sergey Tyukanov. Yet it has the same basic principle as most other works for this project. I originally started it as a plan for a large etching, but with timing concerns and the print workshop coming up this Friday, I will look into printing the piece (and ask about screen printing onto the large piece acrylic as a nice round off point to the project). I wanted to create something which would help me get through my research period, yet it evolved into something more. There is so much of myself in this picture and my love for both architecture and fantasy both come through. Whether that is simply because of the time I put into the piece, I am not yet sure.

RESEARCH Jon Puglisi (Tarzan) and Chris Riddell

Chris Riddell is the illustrator who worked on The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart. After reading the book I truly believe the unique style of spindley, rough illustrations really made the view I had of the world spectacular. Unlike with most relationships like this between artist and author, I find one really over shadows the other. While the images are amazing and valuable to the writing, this is not so true with the positions reversed. I got the feeling the writing only provides more details for images in the book, almost like when you see the movie before you read the book. Not, in this case, was that a particularly bad thing, the images formed such a unique style and form that they shaped the way the story played out in my head. So in some ways, certainly not all, even with a novel, having both images and text can be too much.

The images themselves (left, below) are so delicate and so unique they have this preciousness to them, I have rarely seen anything so animated yet detailed.

John Puglisi is the man who created Tarzan's parent's treehouse (left), and while I have not touched on animations or films so much, seeing them as too simple in a way, finding this image has opened my eyes to the possiblity of further research. The precariousness of the structure screams fantasy and much like Riddell, it appears to be something to be looked after. The treehouse itself was meant to be the best of a bad situation for the family, but represented their future together. This comes through in the sheer complexity of the design and the (limited) luxury of the homemade house in the jungle.

RESEARCH Shaun Tan

Shaun Tan is an illustrator who worked with horror and fictional books from a young age. While he now works with political and social books, his subject matter of fantastical imagery has persevered. His work is both narrative and imagery; he writes and illustrates his books himself. Like Tolkien, there is a symbiotic relationship between the two aspects, not really one without the other.

The drawings themselves are very surreal more than fantasy, while he does include architecture in his books, it is the surreal almost dadaist images in the book Rules of Summer- 2013. The books is based on two boys, and doesn't really have a linear narrative, but consists of a set of bizarre rules for them to follow and how they overcome these situations, like 'never leave a read sock on the clothesline' (Never leave a red sock on the clothesline- 2012, above). The images feature huge creatures and strange situations, which all appear seemlessly to be the imagination of the young boys. In this respect Tan has succeeded in creating a magical world for the two boys and anyone reading the book. Although without the text included, I can see the collection of images seeming extremely random, yet aesthetically similar.

400 WORDS Tolkein

While most know JRR Tolkien as the author of The Lord of the Rings series, he also illustrated a collection of his ideas for how the scenes and settings should look. I found a book of his original drawings, Pictures by JRR Tolkien (first published in 1979), including the original monochromatic sketches and their coloured versions, watercolours and logo designs.
The Trolls (Below, left and right) is probably my favourite of the pieces, because of it's unique mark making and the dark, high contrast palette used. I think it is akin to my work in that I use alot of different lines in a stylistic way, but with dots. I would like to try this technique with my etching on the black acrylic, to somehow mimic the darkness captured. It almost reminds me of a negative photograph.

It was something someone said in my group crit that really got me looking at these: 'its almost Tolkien level architecture'. I began to think about what exactly that meant- I think it was while the pieces in Tolkien's books work because they are part of a story, my pieces are the story. I believe the impact of being able to create your own story for these worlds is just as powerful as having a novel with images attatched. What Tolkien has managed though, is to create drawings which completely match the feel of the books and encompass everything they contain; the mismatch of architecture, the mismatch of cultures and people; and the vast, complex histories that spread throughout the land within Middle Earth (in this way it can be compared to Skyrim).

I think it also means my most immersive drawings, much like Tolkien's, do not simply contain a building. The most successful of his pieces show the landscape, but not in an obvious way; in one where the ladscape appears to be an extension of the buildings. I think it adds to the realism of certain fantasies, that people in these books and games decide to build things in the most impractical of places, simply because they can; it's not real. I say that, even knowing this is entirely the point, floating cities and undergound countries are entirely possible in the worlds that artists like Tolkien have created.


(The Front Gate, below, left, Lake Town, below, right)

RESEARCH Davina Kirkpatrick

While there is not much to relate to with her work, Kirkpatrick's techniques and processes are really interesting. She was one of the artists I found in the book Glass and Print, and she mostly works within an architectural setting or 'commissioned glass projects for architectural contexts'.
I really love the idea of printing onto glass, and will perhaps take my project that way with my large drawing and the acrylic I have. For now, I'll leave this as a passing glance at her works, as I am not going too in depth into printing before Christmas due to the introduction being so late in the term, and there are only a few bits of info on her on the UWE website.

(Signing the River, below)

Post Silk Screen Printing Thoughts.

I immediately fell in love with the process of printing, but am unable to continue until the introductory workshop on the 25 of November.  so I looked at some other ways of printing and working with glass. I would like to create another large drawing though, to both show my development since this print was concieved and to parhaps etch onto this large piece of acrylic.

While I am still planning the large etching, I am thinking of printing onto the piece. I have found a book called glass and print, which follows on well from the printing I have done. I will search the book and perhaps find further inspiration by looking into artists in this area. while the process of printing onto glass might be quite complex (further research required) I could perhaps print onto the plastic instead of an etching.

One artist who did catch my eye was Davina Kirkpatrick, someone who works on glass mainly in a architectural setting.

I also found a book called Wood Engraving, which mainly focuses on the literature aspect of printing, looking at victorian book illustrations and the process from the 1930's, and a lot of the processes in this book reflect the styles and techniques of other artists I have been looking at.

Silk Screen Printing

I have decided to use this image to create prints from and familiarise myself with the process.