Ann Marie Perez

  Following the successes of my listening project outcome, I have decided to take drawing with a scalpel further into my authorship project. In studying and finding out information about mushrooms, I have found myself fascinated with the shape of the mycelium that forms underground beneath the fruiting bodies. I thought this might be a good way to start to think about cutting out paper and experiment with scalpel drawing again.

 Below are some sketches I made of the geese at my local park. Today I wanted to capture them existing within their surrounding environment.

I am starting off this week by exploring tone and composition within some of the drawings I have already made. This week I plan on making more grey scale drawings to really get an idea of the form of the subjects I am drawing and to see if it leads anywhere. Overall I am really enjoying the process of picking apart my work and searching for problems to solve.  

I thought I would share some drawings I made whilst watching Autumn watch on catch up over the weekend. It is another way I like to sketch nature which doesn't involve location drawing. I also made a few notes on the animals that I was drawing which I found in a pocket guide of British wildlife.  

Recently I have been researching the artist Charly Harper as his work is heavily influenced by the natural world. In many ways however, Harpers work is very different to mine. for instance, his work is very stylised and at times features lots of geometric shapes. He also works digitally whereas my work is more traditional.  I really like the way in which Harper approaches design in his work. His busy illustrations really have a sense of movement and the gestural marks he uses help him achieve this. His drawings have lots of layers to them and he is able to draw attention  to the animals by using bright colours which contrast the muted tones used within the backgrounds. Bright colour isn't something I use in my work often as I prefer using natural earthy tones. However, I could see myself adding splashes on bright colour to certain aspects of the drawing in the way that Harper does.  

  As part of my research for the authorship project, I have been looking a lot at the work of Charles Tunnicliffe. I am already quite familiar with his paintings, however, I have been researching into his practice even more during my exploration of geese as part of my own project. Tunnicliffe is undoubtedly one of the most significant artists for bird illustrations. Although my work is more stylised in nature and his is much more scientific and accurate, I feel that his approach to illustrating birds is admirable and noteworthy.  I have been looking over images from his sketchbooks today and thought they were worthwhile sharing on this blog. I particularly like the way in which he uses gestural marks to make informed detailed notes on the types of birds he is looking at. It is evident that this approach to on site drawings is what allows him to make such scientifically accurate drawings later on. It is impressive to say the least as smartphon...

  I decided to develop some more of the location drawings into a collage piece as playing around with composition is having a positive effect on my design skills as it allows me to think critically about the kind of work I am creating. I decided to run with Ian's comments on my location drawing and develop the geese illustrations I made as these were the most significant part of the recent sketchbook work. Overall I am happy with the design, I spent a long time meticulously placing ever aspect of the piece and moving parts around before finally sticking them down. I think next time I am going to think more about the colours I use and research a bit more into colour theory. I also want to be a bit more ambitious with the textures I create and to develop this, I will likely go out to draw from nature again and make details drawings and notes on the surfaces I see within nature.

  I wanted to photograph my piece from yesterday in better lighting. Overall I feel quite happy with the piece I created yesterday building on my location drawings. I really like the colour pallet I used throughout the piece as it is very autumnal and fitting with the theme. I also really like the janky angles of the pine sprigs and I feel that it works nicely with the roundness of the mushroom caps. I think if I was to do something differently next time I would add smaller warts  on the caps and more of them. I would also define the shape of the leaves a bit more.

  After getting home from location drawing today, I decided to develop one of the drawings I made of some fly agaric mushrooms I found. I am enjoying exploring collage at the moment so I spent a few hours putting together this collage piece to work on my design and composition skills as this is an area I am hoping to develop over the course of this unit. Overall I am really enjoying the process of going out to draw on location and coming home to develop my findings. The process of just making as much as possible is having a positive impact on my practice. Here are some photos from my collage session this afternoon, apologies for the poor quality lighting - it was already going dark when  I  took them:

  As geese are on of my favourite birds, I wanted to observe them for the development of my Authorship project. Below are some sketches I made today using pencil where I captured the positions and movement of some of the geese at my local park. I will later use these as reference for other works of art during this unit.

  I wanted to share a couple of photos of my work space on a typical busy day of creating artwork for my authorship project. I think it's important to demonstrate how I operate as an illustrator in my own space during a time where Benzie studios are not available as they would usually be. Having an organised setting (although it looks rather busy in these photos) allows me to keep on track of my daily tasks I set out to complete and keep me feeling motivated and productive.

  This stage of my project is going to include lots of research from drawing on location. I need to first document the nature around me to plan out what I will develop the images into. For the following drawings, I used a combination of pencil, markers and water colour crayons as they allow me to quickly make notes of colours and shapes.

  As part of my research over the weekend, I have been looking at the work of printmaker and Painter Angie Lewin. Her work is heavily influenced by nature so I feel like she is an appropriate practitioner to inform my project. In an interview with Lewin, she talk about going out into nature and collecting things to draw in her studio, such as shells and driftwood. I decided that I was going to have a go at doing this and went to the park to collect lots of leaves to study  I have also been looking at a variety of Lewin's works to analyse her use of colour in her prints. I really like the muted natural tones which often include small pops of colour. She explains in an interview that she likes adding small bursts of red in her pieces as this is reminiscent of the rowanberry trees found in the Scottish landscapes - which is where she lives.

  This afternoon I went to the park to do some location drawing. After speaking with Ian, we have decided that the best start for my project is to go out and record snippets of nature that interest me.  To feed into my side project, which is to design a post card based on the 12 day of Christmas, I decided to draw the geese whilst they were swimming around on the pong. I also wanted to take some quick colour studies and shapes of the landscape around me. In addition to this, I also took lots of photographs to draw from whilst I am at home.  Here are some ex amples of my sketchbook recordings . 

  On the 15th of October, I attended the AOI Bristol talk with illustrator Owen Davey. I am a big fan of Davey's work as his work focuses on nature and creating educational picture books.  The talk was very insightful and I feel it has informed my practice as I made sure to ask lots of questions.  One of the areas discussed in the talk was research for projects and as I am currently undertaking research for my authorship project, I felt that this was an important thing to include in my blog. Davey defines research as the critical part of making artwork. If he is making a book about sharks, he will go and research everything he can about each species. This includes things such as habitat and diet. To do this, he trawls through lots of scientific papers  and reference books. I also regularly read reference books and pocket guides to help me learn more about the thing I am illustrating. They also often contain  lots of detailed im...

  The sketchbook is is the humble beginning to any great project. Within my own practice, a sketchbook allows me to document the natural world. I really enjoy taking this journalistic approach when creating work in my sketchbook and it soon becomes this little space of curiosities. I also very often record information about the thing I am drawing. This can either be through observations or research from books.  Here are some of my sketchbooks that I regularly use to document  nature: I would love to sit down and talk you through each one but with the current situation we are in, that simply is not possible. So instead I have photographed a few of the pages to demonstrate the kind of things I use a sketchbook for: I find looking through other artist's sketchbooks to be really inspiring. Recently I have been looking through the sketchbooks of William Turner at the bleak gloomy landscapes he paints. Here are a few examples found in the Tate online ar...

This blog will act as a stand in for in person interaction with the tutors. I want to create a space where I can showcase all of my work for the Authorship unit to provide updates on how my project is going. As part of my learning agreement, I have decided that my focus of this unit will be illustrating and documenting the nature around me. The natural world is one of the biggest influences on my practice and after looking at sustainability in children's literature, issues regarding the protection of nature have become even more important  to me. I want to achieve by the end of this unit a fully fleshed out, refined body of work that is reflective of my practice and aligns with my future vision of myself - which is to become a children's book illustrator.  An area which I feel I have struggled in the past with previous projects is being reflective and thinking critically of the work I am producing. I am hoping that this blog will not only serve as a point of communication...