Cynthia Kingsley-Smith
Illustration
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Magazine Review, Journal Review - Reflective Practice
This week:
I have extensively used books, both historical and contemporary, in my personal artistic practice. As stated previously, my method involves becoming as familiar as possible with the topic at hand in the required time frame. A standout for me in this regard has been Illustration: A Theoretical and Contextual Perspective by Alan Male, which has helped me find more efficient ways to “break down” the thing I am trying to illustrate.
For my review purposes, I have decided to look at materials which have helped me in an aesthetic sense, providing me with inspiration and materials that feed into my chosen medium I am exploring in my final year, printmaking.
Pressing Matters Mag (https://www.pressingmattersmag.com/)
Pressing Matters is my absoute favourite conteporary art publication. I find they are consistently full of:
- conteporary designers who work across many different aesthetics all with the medium of printmaking, who I would otherwise probably not find
- collections of finished artwork as well as process pictures and textures that are inspirational to my practice as well as encouraging me to branch out and try other printmaking methods.
- practical advice on career paths and ways to manage your own expectations.
- stunning graphic designs and page layouts which are also important to my practice
- incredible use of colour and texture to evoke feeling.
It was thanks to an a piece on Bay Area-based creative e bond, who I found has a similar outlook on the creative process and research/theory-led method for tackling briefs that I do that I decided to utilise Gelli Print in my second second semester this year - and I found this is something I’m really excited to explore in my career moving forward.
Above: Selection from Pressing Matters Mag spotlight piece, E Bond.
Finally, I’d like to give an honorable mention to PRINT magazine (https://www.printmag.com/), which functions more like a news aggregate to help keep me engaged with contemporary practices and practioners, very similar to itsnicethat (https://www.itsnicethat.com/).
In addition, I spent time reading the VaroomLab Journal (https://varoom-mag.com/) which is an “international research project fostering research activity in all areas of illustration”. I thoroughly enjoyed the “Make Room for Mistakes” presentation note given by lecturer and illustrator Paul Burgess in VaroomLab journal issue 3.
This paper makes a case for considering mistakes and errors as an invaluable part of the creative process, and gives many examples from various different currently practicing artists in many different specialism, including music, photography and illustration. The paper initially explains the differences between a mistake and an error - and claims that while a mistake may be a one of embellisment creating an ultimately stronger end reult, and error is actually a problem with process or practice that can then be leveraged and sharpened into a new tool. If I was to relate this to my own work, I could argue that the way I ended up with some of my second commercial project results was due to error I then leveraged, as my favourite gelli plate design that made it onto an A3 print was created by “ink ghosts” that were captured when I layed a piece of paper over the plate with the soul intention of cleaning it for the next design (pictured below).
This also taught me that part of being a successful illustrator is to be able to negotiate with the client on methods and wasy to achieve a stronger aesthetic result without “freaking the client out”. This example of Chris Biggs design for an EP cover perfect illustrates how artistic inspiration can strike from any number of experiences or errors and produce really intreresting and strong results that are able to “stand out” in the wider market, even though this design was different from the original given brief. I think part of the reason that this is a challenge for illustrators is that when clients, particularly those with little artistic experience, think about art as a wider subject - alot of the methods behind the actual process are “mystical” and the idea that creating effective illustrations can be a very organic, trail-and-error process may be entirely new information to them. I will be sure to work on social skills and methods to broach these ideas with clients by approcing my practice with a coillaborative, educational mindset - I will also be sure not push my luck with those who already have a very concrete idea of what they want in mind.
Supplimentary Reading:
https://www.pressingmattersmag.com/
https://www.printmag.com/
https://www.itsnicethat.com/
https://varoom-mag.com/?page_id=315