Samantha Landells

 F or this task the question I have chosen to loosely base my research on the question “Explore the sustainable design movement and discuss its impact on contemporary illustration” as I feel this is an important area to have a clear understanding of considering the environmental impacts on the Earth due to waste and pollution. It is essential to try and work as sustainably as possible which includes developing new sustainable methods of printing, packaging and designing. All areas of illustration can be improved through the use of sustainable methods although it will be a long road to success. However, every small change can have a major impact on the Earth and the more artists who put this concept as a core value, the more we can impact change and inspire others to do the same. There were two products I managed to locate on the website ‘De Zeen’ which I found were working especially hard to combat this, one being a razor made from paper and the second being a compostable marke...

In order to help me maximise my potential and avoid running into any delays with my work I decided to create a time plan which would allocate time for me to work on all 3 of my current modules as well as my main commercial project.  This was extremely useful as it enabled me to manage my time accordingly to each of the 3 due dates for each project, so I could effectively work through each in order to achieve completion on time. I found it much more helpful refining my time plan to consist of all 3 projects rather than just my commercial one as it helped me feel much more confident with my workflow. I am aiming to achieve each task by the set dates to ensure I minimise the chances of not completing any of my work, this took a lot of attempts to assign as I kept running into areas of overlap which had to be adjusted. Due to this, I created multiple versions of my time plan before coming to my completed version, which I feel has given me a much greater understanding of the time fr...

On the second day of this module we were tasked with the creation our final collages following  our session with mark making which would be combined with our collage digitally to explore texture and placement. I used all of the materials available to me to try and create interesting marks which could be used within my collage for instance, watercolours, inks, pens etc. which were then combined to create more fluid motions. I really enjoyed the mark making session and am looking forward to re-using these elements in the future as I feel they could work well in a variety of projects considering the various styles and tones I have managed to create. Considering my theme was based around the themes of both exploration and survival I wanted to discuss the controversial topic within my college about how in we overwork ourselves in a commercial society in order to drag ourselves towards our ideal world and self of creativity and exploration but in reality we end up losing what makes us un...

For this section of my commercial practice module i was provided the opportunity to look into  4 competitions in order to complete a creative brief of my choice. I was unable to look into the ‘Cheltenham Awards’ as the event for 2021 still hasn't been launched. Due to this I have a selection of Creative Conscious, Macmillan and Penguin Books. When looking into these competitions I began with the Children’s age group of the ‘Penguin’ competition, considering I had completed this competition last year I was initially interested in recreating another children’s book cover so I could compare the two stories aesthetics in order to identify my growth across the year. The story for 2021 in my chosen category was ‘Talking Turkeys’ by Benjamin Zephaniah, upon looking at the pre-existing book cover design I identified that this may be a comedy themed book due to the artistic choices made in the design. The second available competition was ‘Creative Conscious’ who had provided multiple poss...

For this task I have decided to look at current trends today within the sector of Children's picture books and how they have changed and developed over time. I have chosen to complete my research on this subject as it is an area I am highly interested in working in, in the future and would love to discover more how societal views have altered and 'improved' messages portrayed to young developing minds. Dating all the way back to the 17 th century were the beginnings of creating picture books specifically for children, using a technique called ‘Chapbooks’ which were small pocket sized illustrated books which were folded rather than stapled making them much more affordable due to their creation process and size. These Chapbooks would often consist of small woodcut pictures which would illustrate themes such as folk tales, religious passages and popular ballads of the time. The designs are often simplistic relying on various line styles and placements to create detail due t...

This NoBrow edition was created in support of the LGBTQ+ community around the art form of drag and discusses the evolution and history of the art form, from its original roots in ancient Greece all the way to modern times. I love the concept of this book, creating an edition solely based around the inclusion and representation of a community which is still very much under presented in today’s society. I love the homage to icons throughout history including those which we know today such as Ru Paul, whose ability to engage an audience has led the art form to a global audience, providing an amazing platform for those who work with the medium. I really love the illustrations created by all of the artists but I especially like the works of both Helen Li and Sofie Birkin. Helen Li’s designs are prominent on the covers as well as throughout the rest of the book and inner leaf pages of the book. They utilise bold colours and edges which still manage to convey a friendly and feminine appea...

The chosen specialism I am aiming towards developing my art skills for is the creation of children’s picture books. I love the concept of influencing young minds and would love to share my knowledge and experiences in a happy and harmonious way which turns difficulty into beauty and empowerment to all who read them. I am especially interested in focusing on the creation of younger children’s books as I really resonate with how essential those early years of development are and how important it can be to set down good boundaries and moral guidelines that will help children as they age. The main element I wish to focus on during my proper introduction to children’s illustration which I will focus on in Level 6, is improving the visibility and representation of wider disabilities which will not only create characters children with these disabilities can use as relatable role models, but also educate other children about the importance of compassion, understanding and acceptance. Due t...

On the first day of this project we were tasked with creating mood boards based on elements personal to us. For this I chose a variety of themes I really enjoyed which I felt initially would provide me with good context to work on my collages from. The themes I chose to collect images for included cottage core, symbols, exploration, survival and textures. I chose to leave my available themes slightly larger for the collection of these images in order to gather reference material and inspiration for my own designs. I felt if I condensed my searches too much to begin with I would have struggled with this project to think of interesting concepts and compositions, due to this I feel confident with the images I have collated so far and would love to create some initial experiments. However, in the end I’m not as impressed with the final results I managed to achieve creating these experiments before my research, as I feel I was working from too blank a slate in terms of understanding thi...

The aim of this module was to create a fully realised character and backstory to influence the development of my illustration.  I chose to investigate two different ways to respond to this, one was to create a children’s style illustration to support the development of these skills, or to create a horror themed illustration based on my current skillset. I chose to merge these two concepts by combining the theme and style of a children’s illustration whilst incorporating elements of mild horror suitable for the target audience. I had aimed towards the realisation of 2 main characters for this design, my mythological creature which is what I had based my story around and a young girl that lived in the home who fit within my chosen environment for the creature. I tried to create my illustration based on similar design principles around pre-existing children’s books and illustrations in order to support this process. I was heavily interested in exploring the theme of children’s ill...

During my second contextual studies lecture, we discussed the roles and importance of inclusion and diversity within illustrations and how it is important to consider within our own work. We discussed the use of stereotypes and how they are so strongly integrated into particular areas of culture, they can be hard to avoid as they become so commonly known, for example we were shown the use of the Disney witch from ‘Snow White’ and everyone was able to identify the character and their behaviours simply by the way they had been portrayed in this particular imagery. An area which really interested me during this presentation was the exploration and development of children’s books across time and how they are now beginning to incorporate much broader range of equality and diversity within their character designs. Due to this I have chosen to look further into the question "Explore the importance of diversity in children's book illustration" as I feel it is an important devel...

I am really happy with the direction I took for this project however I was still really interested in creating a ’scary’ version of my concept as I really wanted to see the types of visuals which would change, and it was dramatic! Although I used the same room and theme almost everything looks different except the furniture I chose to incorporate. My lighting is a lot cooler in this version and quite obviously the Nisse is now a lot creepier with over-extending limbs and sharp teeth hiding just out of view. Considering the change in context I decided to use an image of myself as reference for the girl character, rather than my oversimplified child’s version as I felt this would be much more appropriate. I was loosely inspired by the work of Jamie Hewlett’s, 2D who has bags under their eyes however I wanted to make this even creepier by having the girl with no pupils and shading on both the inside and outside of her eyes to create the perception of depth within the sockets. I felt by...

For my final attempt I began by fixing the areas I had noticed previously such as lowering the opacity of the couch texture, which I feel helped make it look much more realistic in comparison. I also decided to add some texturing around the outside of the vent and hidden character as I felt this would further improve the aesthetics of my design by making both the foreground and background much more cohesive in style. I chose to re-add the paper texture over the top of my design in the end as I felt my previous design looked bare without it, however now I feel it may be slightly distracting due to the linear flow of the texture which doesn’t seem to match my 3D design. I chose to add this originally as I wanted to insinuate the book having been printed already onto heavily textured paper as I felt this would be an interesting visual concept, however I feel it may not have worked as intended. By adding this texture it also darkened the orange overlay again, making the time of day app...

Following my meeting on contextual studies I was tasked with choosing one subject of interest to explore and investigate further. I have chosen to discuss the question "Explore how printed and digital media coexist" I feel this is an extremely interesting and important topic to discuss considering the current climate with Covid-19 and how this has affected an illustrator’s capacity for work. For this question I have decided to look further into how digital media can be used to support printed products. In one instance by advertising work online it widens your platform and can introduce you to a much broader audience as it can be viewed worldwide. However, due to this accessibility does it mean people are now less impressed with the artwork they see online? During my exploration into ‘The Age Of The Image’ one of the points discussed was how, due to the new levels of constant accessibility for the everyday person it has become more and more difficult for your work to be de...

As I began regaining movement back into my hand following my recent fracture, I had considered returning to the completion of my 30 Day Challenge in order to complete it. However, following recent investigations and creations I feel it would be better to continue moving forward with my progression rather than restart an old process. I feel my skills have developed a lot since the start of the 30 Day Challenge and onwards and I would like to begin focusing more on the development and skill set of my abilities within both children’s publishing and advertising. I feel this would be most helpful to me at the moment as these are areas of illustration I am currently working on but I feel the style of the 30 Day Challenge I was completing doesn’t really support this. Due to this I have decided to end the 30 Day Challenge and begin anew, perhaps this will be through the development of personal illustrations, module work or the beginning of a new challenge. I look forward to pushing ahead and...

Coming up to Mother's Day in the pandemic I couldn't leave my home and our thoughts weren't on material displays of affection, instead I wanted to make something personal for my mam and from the heart so she knew just how much I was thinking of her during these strange times. An element I really loved with this was that I had created it digitally which meant I was able to email the card over to my mam so she could receive it on Mother’s Day as I was unable to see her in person. This made me think about how technology has advanced and how much we have relied on various methods of technology to keep us all connected throughout these difficult times. I really wanted to try and create something special so I chose to illustrate two images of my dog’s Billy (Left) and Ben (Right) appearing to ‘hug’ the card. This was sentimental as Ben unfortunately passed in 2017 and Billy is now blind and 16 years old. I wanted to make sure there were plenty of memories with him so I chose ...

Firstly,  I am so much more impressed with the visuals of this design; it feels so much more appropriate for the chosen target audience yet remains visually pleasing to all ages. I am so glad I returned to the initial phases and removed the harsh black outlining on my design, I feel even just making this alteration alone greatly enhanced my illustration by making it much less harsh and more realistic to the eye. However, once I had removed the outlines from around my wall and floor I noticed the separation of the areas became unclear and flat. Due to this I decided to add a skirting board around the bottom of the wall as this is not only a common design feature so will remain recognisable, but also forced the two areas to stand out due to the heavily contrasting border. One of the other major elements which needed to be altered was the couch in the centre of the living room. I previously hated the appearance of this asset so I decided to remove all of the detailing so that I could ...